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I had one where due to the lockdown 2 years ago they asked me to visit a bit less, understandable as they were at home more and intended to tackle a greater proportion of the gardening themselves. Eventually they lost interest due to other leisure activities returning. The weeds in particular proliferated out of control and are still a problem to this day as they concentrated on the fun projects rather than the maintenance. One small weed missed becomes a hundred weeds becomes ten thousand weeds etc
One of my clients wanted mowing visits once per month this season - I refused, as it's a challenging lawn at the best of times ( sloping areas ), A months growth on the grass would mean a much more difficult cut, and only taking a third of the leaf off when mowing would leave it too long. Discussed this with the client, and parted our ways. Sometimes you have to think of yourself / your workload.
Walk away! they will still want the same quality of work but paying less and you and your machinery takes the hit.
also the lawn might have had a feed by one of the franshise boys in which case it will need cutting twice a week if they dont aggre walk away there is plenty of work arround
Depends on customer expectations .
Are they happy with their Garden / lawn looking like a work in progress and have realistic expectations or do they expect every inch of their Garden / lawn to be manicured with minimum frequency to keep the cost down .
Gardening work is so abundant we can aim for zero hassle and afford zero tolerance .
A months growth is a lot. I don't think I would do it. Very sore on your mower. I reckon it would take you more than twice as long to mow therefore not economical you or your customer, and it would look rough.
I would never agree to monthly visits, however depending on the garden/lawn in question you may be able to compromise at a visit every three weeks providing that it suits both you and the customers requirements.
Someone was very quick to tell me today they have a gardener who charges ten pounds per hour, commenting that the gardener is a pensioner.
He looked a bit surprised when I said you want to hang onto to the gardener, because you won’t replace him at that price.
I do a few monthly cuts awful job to do espically if collecting the grass . Years ago we did hundreds of monthly cuts for the council, they stopped tendering the work out 2009-10 so I took quite a lot on privately on the same bases didn't have much of a choice the contract work was the vast majority of income .
To this day I still have some left and they are still a pain in the ass , difficult to fit in around fortnightly cuts - requires heavy duty mowers - use more petrol - they take longer and the customer doesn't want to pay any extra .
I refuse to take them on now or offer to leave the grass on the floor, a problem if I do the neighbours monthly though , its can be a never ending cycle of rubbish jobs .
I wouldnt do grass cutting on a monthly basis for all the reasons stated by others, but I do have a couple of elderly clients with small gardens that I do the beds monthly. They can do 50% of the work, and enjoy it - then they back up a list of things they can't do for me - it works well as it is a short visit anyway. If I didnt like them, or their gardens I would probably walk away
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