Garden service
Garden maintenance service in Bishop Auckland: design, pruning and lawn care
Garden maintenance service in Bishop Auckland for heavy clay and old colliery ground, with planting design, topiary, shrub pruning and lawn care.
Clay lawns in Bishop Auckland
Clay lawns need air. In Bishop Auckland the ground is heavy to start with, and around the older colliery ground it has often been compacted or mixed with rubble near the surface. Cutting at the right height through the season, aerating in autumn and scarifying out the thatch does more for a lawn here than any feed. Feeding is left until the end of the season rather than a dry spell, so the grass goes into winter with something in reserve.
Along the Wear at Witton le Wear, Escomb and Hunwick the gardens sit lower and wetter. A lawn there benefits from a drainage channel or a raised level before anything else is spent on it, because seed and turf both fail on ground that stands wet through winter.
The first cut of the year goes on at the highest setting the mower has, and it stays high until the ground has warmed through. Cutting a wet clay lawn short in March leaves ruts in the surface and opens it up to moss, and the grass takes until June to recover. Where the surface is mixed with rubble from old workings, the answer is usually a layer of topsoil over the whole lawn rather than patching the worst of it.
Clipping box and yew in Bishop Auckland
Topiary gives a garden permanent shape, which is why it suits these plots. We clip box, yew, privet, holly and hornbeam, usually twice through the growing season, so the form stays crisp rather than being cut hard once a year. A shape holds best when it is clipped to the same line each time, and when the line is checked from a few steps back rather than from directly above. Clipping starts once the new growth has firmed up, late spring for box and late summer for yew, and the second cut follows while the shape is still holding.
Box needs watching where blight is around. The plants are checked on each visit, and tools are cleaned between gardens, which reduces the chance of carrying infection in.
Renovating overgrown shrubs
Older gardens around the town hold shrubs that have not been touched in years, laurel, privet, forsythia and lilac crowding each other out. Renovating them takes two or three seasons rather than one hard cut, so the plant never loses all of its growth at once and the garden does not sit bare for a year. Once a shrub is back in shape, the timing matters. Anything flowering on old wood is pruned straight after flowering, and anything grown for stems or late flowers is cut in late winter or early spring. Where an overgrown boundary shrub is taking a neighbour's light, the timing is planned around the nesting season, because the cover is in use from March through to August.
Neglected fruit trees in Bishop Auckland
Neglected fruit trees are common in the older gardens here, often an apple or a plum that has not been pruned in a decade. The work runs over two or three winters, with dead and crossing wood out first, the height brought down gradually, and the congested centre opened so light reaches the fruit. Cutting too hard in one go pushes the tree into a mass of new growth and very little fruit, which is what the fruit tree pruning page deals with in detail. Apples and pears cope with heavy ground better than plums and cherries do, and a mulch over the root run each spring does more for the crop than any hard cut.
Where a tree is beyond recovery, removal is tree surgery and it goes to Ross Webster Tree Services: tree removal, crown reductions, stump grinding, tree surveys, and emergency or storm work across County Durham and North Yorkshire. Tree surgery in Bishop Auckland goes to them, and the garden work stays here.
Tree surgery, handled locally
Tree surgery is handled by Ross Webster Tree Services
This page covers the garden side of tree work: planting, pruning and aftercare. Tree removal, crown reductions, stump grinding, emergency and storm work, tree surveys, ash dieback and commercial contracts are carried out by Ross Webster Tree Services.
- Tree removal
- Crown reductions
- Stump grinding
- Emergency and storm work
- Tree surveys
- Ash dieback
- Commercial contracts
They work across the same ground as this practice, and their contact details are on their site.
Ross Webster Tree ServicesQuestions about garden maintenance service
- My garden is on old colliery ground. Where do we start?
- With the soil, before spending anything on plants. That ground is often compacted, shallow or mixed with rubble, so water sits and roots struggle. We break up the pan, bring in organic matter, raise the beds that flood worst, and plant for the ground that is actually there rather than the one on the plant label.
- The apple tree in my garden has not been pruned for years. Can it be saved?
- Usually, yes, but not in one winter. Dead and crossing wood comes out first, the height comes down gradually over two or three seasons, and the congested centre is opened so light reaches the fruit. A hard cut in one go answers with a thicket of new growth and very little fruit.
- How do you keep a lawn on clay looking reasonable?
- Air is the main thing. We cut at the right height through the season, aerate in autumn, scarify out the thatch and feed at the end of the season rather than in a dry spell. Along the Wear at Witton le Wear, Escomb and Hunwick the ground is wetter still, and a lawn there benefits from a drainage channel or a raised level first.
- Do you clip box and yew in gardens around the town?
- Yes, twice through the growing season so the shape stays crisp rather than being cut hard once a year. Box needs watching where blight is around, so the plants are checked on each visit and tools are cleaned between gardens to avoid carrying infection in.
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