Landscape Juice Network

"Since we had a casual worker damage himself with a Hayterette 30 years ago, I've always taken the view that Murphy's Law is waiting to strike!!"

"Plants are living things and as such,like people, they die due to a number of factors. There is always a failure percentage (I forget what that percentage is)  when planting. A case in point is that I planted an Acacia dealbata last year in a client…"

"The chances of anything going wrong is slim but if it does go wrong then you will wished you have taken out the appropriate insurance. Also you must have a risks assessment in place as well as showing him how to operate the machinery properly and sa…"

"It's interesting and a relief to know I'm not the only one so badly affected by ivy. I have worn a mask once to deal with it, and the client was a bit mortified she'd even asked me to do the ivy (and she didn't ask me again, but I'm not that bothere…"

"I have known people involved with horses and ponies be extremely cautious around ragwort  and witnessed cattle happily munching cherry laurel and yew hedges with seemingly no ill effects . "

"A guy I know lifted his trouser leg to show me his own leg underneath that he had snagged on a thorn in his garden, resulting in an infection, which required half the flesh to be cut away to save his life.
If you saw his tidy garden you would not th…"

"Ivy does the same to me. I use a breathing mask when working on ivy
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"That should have read as “In years gone bye people generally wouldn’t have worried about it”."

"Thanks everyone for their input. The advice was very useful.
I have managed to pick up an Eliet Major shredder, for what I though was a very good price second hand & now just getting used to working with it.
As for the ladder, I went with a 3M tripo…"

"If your filling it in with hardcore, take your time & layer it in as flat as you can. Don't just pour in barrow loads of rubbish. As David says, then compact it down. I would infill the gaps between the hardcore with sub soil or something. Just keep…"

"Ivy can be nasty. Years ago whilst doing tree work I used to get covered in the stuff. Since then I have become allergic to Ivy. Not good in our professions! It's the tiny hairs on it, they bring me out in a rash & irritate.
When I know that I will…"

"In years gone bye people generally wouldn’t about it, these days if he is under eighteen and has an accident working unsupervised with power tools, such as the strimmer,  I guess you would end up going to hell and back for arranging it all, particul…"

"The one that gets me is strimming common hogweed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heracleum_sphondylium even if I'm careful I still get splattered and have lovely blisters for a few weeks. Not particularly painful, but unsightly. Best prevention is l…"

"While not poisonous you do have to be careful if you ever cut a lot of euphorbia. I was on a gardening course not so long ago and a guy leading the course said he has cut euphorbia for years with no ill effect until one day it did affect him very ba…"

"Is the monkshood wolfsbane plant easy to identify when young?"