When do you do the gardening?

[Bunny]

Ho hum, drumming my fingers right now. I want the cut the grass in my own front garden which can be seen by arriving guests, but of course the lawnmower makes noise. I always try to do it on a Friday for 'first impressions' impact for arriving guests on a Saturday. Problem - I've got teenagers in at mo. who have barely left the cottage all week and every day have not surfaced until lunch time and curtains are still closed. It's gone half ten, so at what point do you just get on with it anyway? I hate to disturb guests but life does have to go on to a certain extent.

[la vache!]

I get up a lot earlier than the guests so manage to water all the pots and things before anyone surfaces. The grass cutting, strimming, hedgecutting and anything else is done in an afternoon when a)I'm not working and b) when it isn't raining. With those constraints and 3 gites it is nearly impossible to find a slot when everyone is out and I don't have time to do it on changeover day. Everybody who stays loves the garden and knows how much work is involved in maintaining it, so no-one minds.

[Mouse]

Last week we had people in who kept leaving the outside lights on....Mr M nips out at daft o clock to turn them off, when they're in bed.
Mouse
x

I can't do that because the switch for the outside lights is in the kitchen. That would be a step too far, me thinks!

Us too - and unfortunately the outside lights for the big house shine straight into our bedroom

Bunny we got a switch put outside for the garden lights...so we don't have to use the switch inside the house. The only downside is that it means when they try and switch them on again in the house it doesn't work as they need to use the outside switch to activate it again.
But...we had to do it as when they get up they can't see them in daylight. We did have a timer on them but with all the electricity cuts we get through the summer they constantly needed resetting

Anna - we too had the light over the front door shining directly in on our bedroom and one year suffered so many sleepless nights that we put it on a motion mechanism. Problem solved.

Mousie
x

[Bunny]

Yes, garden lights do seem to be a problem, don't they. I've had ours left on 24/7 all week before but I do have a low energy bulb in them. I don't understand why they don't notice they have left them on. The switch in the kitchen is also clearly labelled so it's not as if they are flickering it on during the day wondering what it does. I've got some on sensors but even that can be annoying because the wildlife sets them off which, I've no doubt, can be annoying for guests too!

[half pint]

I struggle as to when to mow the lawn, living in wales we are not the driest part of the UK! I like to mow when guests are out as the lawn is directly in front of the patio doors so I can see into the cottage while doing it, and even if I can get it done on a changeover it still needs doing at least twice a week in the growing season. But also I can't do it if the grass is wet as the mower just gets clogged. I just have to hope that they are out on the days that it is dry enough to mow and don't come home when I am halfway trough the job.
We always have some of the sheep in our part of the garden (affectionately known as the garden sheep) in the hope that they will keep the grass down so don't have to disturb the guests too much by mowing it too much as it takes a good 2 hours to mow our lawn with the sit on mower.
We must be of the few places that when the shearers come and are in a rush they ask can you put the sheep in the garden for us, all 200 of them (including lambs) and increasing every year.

[kevsboredagain]

It's a nightmare for me and I can only do the garden during my once or maybe twice a year pilgrimage to Spain. In May I was trying to cut the hedge when it was 39C but it had to be done.

I use automatic watering systems on several areas but they rarely last the whole season without someone switching them off and the plants dying. I usually have to buy new plants every year.

In France I have one single indoor plant with "water me please" written on the pot. I don' t think anyone ever does but luckily I'm there more often and it can survive nearly 2 months without water.

On the balcony I have put plastic plants in a big wooden plant container. I have an autumn and summer collection. They work well

[aasta]

OH is the gardener and is at it whenever time permits...ours is a bird/wildlife habitat - a bit wild, a bit letting nature do its thing!!!...Hugh plot of Agapanthas, lots of Pampas grasses, Ivy, Bougainvillae. lots of Rosemary and Lavender etc .... low maintenance ....and not manicured but somewhat managed....mostly our guests are out during the day and if they choose to linger by the pool or on their terrace, he works around them or in different parts of the garden...since this is a no frost climate, everything grows prolificaly....

[French Cricket]

Our garden takes several hours work every single day in the growing season to make it look as though we've done nothing at all! Like aasta's, ours is a wildlife habitat and bird refuge - we manage it organically and a bit permaculturally to keep it looking very natural, but if it gets left alone for a week it turns into a knee high pasture and all the natural rockeries just disappear!

We work around guests and try to keep the mowing, brushcutting and strimming to when they're out; if we have a week like we've just had, where temperatures in the 30s have meant that there's almost always been someone in, on occasion we just have to apologise and get on with it. They're all very understanding though - they love the garden and seem to like watching us work

[suse]

We try to mow and garden when guests are out or on changeover day but for all our pots of flowers we have water retention crystals? - not sure what their proper name is but it means the plants survive on a weekly water. or at least have for the last couple of years - crossing fingers for the coming week that's meant to be very hot and I've now jinxed it ......

[Bunny]

Thanks for all the replies. It seems maybe I've been creeping around too surreptitiously. I've been behaving like the servant in old Victorian mansions, trying to creep around via the hidden doorways to remain unseen! My OH has no interest in gardening at all and because he doesn't see a lot of the work I do, when he's out at work, he thinks the garden just looks like that on its own. So, I assumed guests wouldn't understand the ongoing need to maintain it either. I'll continue to do it when guests are out but at least I don't need to worry that guests will be annoyed at the intrusion into 'their' territory.

[Wonkeye]

Even more difficult when you're an off-site owner! We have a patio, with lots of shrubs - e.g. eunonymous, photinia, euphorbia (which does TOO well), and a fair selection of alpines. We top up/fill in on our own visits. We do have a bit of a battle with honeysuckle though, which is frustrating, given our name!

[Orsonthecat]

Thanks for all the replies. It seems maybe I've been creeping around too surreptitiously. I've been behaving like the servant in old Victorian mansions, trying to creep around via the hidden doorways to remain unseen! My OH has no interest in gardening at all and because he doesn't see a lot of the work I do, when he's out at work, he thinks the garden just looks like that on its own. So, I assumed guests wouldn't understand the ongoing need to maintain it either. I'll continue to do it when guests are out but at least I don't need to worry that guests will be annoyed at the intrusion into 'their' territory.

I have an OH like that too Bunny! I also mow the hol let lawn once guests go out and I disappear if they come back but if it gets to 10.30 and I need to do my own on a sunny day I will get on with it rather than risk being rained off later on in the day.

[Casscat]

This is an interesting question for me as I have recently come to the conclusion that I will need to employ a gardener in addition to my property guy who does pool and practical, manly things about the house and grounds. He is an immense asset, but a gardener he most certainly is not. He was concerned about the 'intrusion' aspect, but I used to holiday in Turkey every year for several years and was on friendly terms with the guy who used to come every single day - in the morning to do the pool when I was on the terrace in my PJs with a coffee and in the evenings when I was on the terrace with a glass of wine to water the garden and do some light plant maintenance. I never once thought it intrusive. He used to bring bones for the villa dog too. Both dog and pool/garden man were total sweethearts.

[akwe-xavante]

Completely new to all of this, I am only a week or two away from starting.

I have a fair sized garden at the property I'm letting out and I'm wanting to maintain and look after it too.

I thought I would leave guests a welcome tray and folder but at the same time have some A4 sheets laminated with additional information to use as required such as:

Please be aware that on Wednesday between 10am & 4pm a gardener will visit to maintain the garden this week. If this day is awkward then please phone blah before Monday 2pm to arrange for the gardener to call on either Tuesday or Thursday instead.

I could do similar sheets for other circumstances where things can't be done on a Saturday. Examples may be Boiler servicing, gas safety checks or perhaps the urgent replacement or repair of whatever. The delivery of coal or logs.

Does anybody think that this would be wrong at all?

[Bunny]

I can't see anything wrong with this approach at all for routine issues. They can't say they haven't been warned and they then know exactly when to expect it and it will help them plan their week too.

For more urgent issues I do have it in my T&Cs that I can enter to maintain the property without notice. In practice, I've never done this and hope I will never have to. However, for something more major than gardening, like a boiler service for example, you would obviously need to tell them as soon as you knew about it, so either by email before they arrived or verbally upon arrival (depending on time frame) so would probably not need to use this system in this case.

Welcome and good luck in your new venture!