Our situation is that we still have one van running with one person. The other crew member on this van has had to lockdown because his wife works in a care home and has medical issues.
We have told all our customers that we are on a monthly schedule rather than the usual fortnightly schedule, and so far we have not had one person complain or make any comment. I suppose they think that it is better to have their garden dine once a month than not at all.
I go out for a three mile walk every day around 9am, and the only sound I hear is that of the birds singing, and in the far distance you can hear the occasional ambulance siren. There is a complete lack of the sound of lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, blowers, and tree surgeons, so I suppose most gardeners are hunkered down.
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Both vans still on the road, all normal weekly/fortnightly schedules adhered to as tightly as possible.
Business as usual other than no contact with clients and no tea/biscuits.
In the main, other than a few odd complications around materials things are as relaitively normal - although as merchants have created ways to supply us that's starting to be a non issue.
Odd client cutting their own lawn as furloughed but nothing that adversely affects us as double the amount of others have upped their gardening spend in anticipation of being home/ working from home for forseeable future. Lots of planting to do and 'reworking' of garden areas.
Hi Adam. Are your vans working with a crew of two?
With me it’s business as usual. All mowing is being done with normal cut frequencies, some weekly, one every ten days, most fortnightly and churchyards every three weeks as always. Cut frequencies are the exactly the same as last year. I work alone but with a couple of sub-contractors who help me, but they also work alone. We are never on the same site together during normal times in any case, so no change.
I don’t think that most gardeners are ‘hunkered down’. I think they are all out working.
The District Council are still out mowing, actually with more than one person per van/pickup. All other gardeners I know are all working as normal also. Builders are out working, as are roofers. There are gangs from various utilities out digging the roads up. I went through some temporary lights and there were three or four vans and several men working there.
Our Council only started cutting lawns this week, but I was surprised to see a crew of three turn up in three vans rather than the usual 3 in one van.
I had... and paniced on a post or two here... a whole lot of people cancel on me. But since then many have come back, and I have taken on a few extra clients, so we are running as per normal
Glad to hear that Adam
Work as normal for me. I got laid off by one customer for financial reasons. It is half a day per fortnight but i have instantly filled the time with extra work at other existing customers.
It just so happens that the one who laid me off was my least favourite job and was the furthest from home. When they ask me to go back i will be politely saying no. I was already thinking of dropping it before CV came along. Result.
I do see other gardeners and tradesmen about but not as many as before CV. This is in rural N Yorks.
Regards to all.
While people are furloughed and the sun is out, it has a feeling that they are all on holiday. But I fear that when the restrictions are lifted a lot of people are going to be laid off. I hear that we could be in for a massive recession if the reports are true that many airlines will go out of business and many towns will look like ghost towns.
Two large ride on clients have dropped to monthly (A bowls club and a church, so understandable). Lost one due to them doing themselves. Enquiries were down but are now back to normal and this had only presented a few free days anyway.
We are finding that new enquiries are way down compared to last year.
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