Garden service
Garden maintenance Richmond, North Yorkshire: planting and seasonal care
Garden maintenance Richmond, North Yorkshire: thin soil, shelter and late frost, with planting, pruning and seasonal care for town and dale gardens.
Garden maintenance Richmond: thin soil and steep terraces
Richmond gardens stand high above the Swale on thin, stony soil that drains almost too well. Water goes straight through it, so beds need organic matter dug in and a mulch each spring to hold moisture through summer. The terraces above the river are steep, and the soil can be a few inches deep over broken rock, which is why a dry, hungry root run shows in the leaves by July. Steps, walls and narrow paths are as much a part of the maintenance round here as the planting is.
Visits cover borders weeded and edged, perennials deadheaded and cut back, hedges trimmed, lawns cut and edged, and paths and steps kept clear of leaves and grit. Fortnightly visits suit the small, detailed gardens in the town. Monthly visits suit bigger plots and gardens that are used for part of the year, and a seasonal visit covers the heavy spring and autumn work in one go. The round is planned around the weather up here rather than the calendar, because a windy fortnight sets the work back and a dry one brings it forward.
Walled gardens in Richmond
The town also has sheltered walled gardens, where warmth collects and tender plants have a better chance than the elevation would suggest. A courtyard is a different design problem from a long plot: there is nowhere to hide a mistake, and the walls do half the work. We keep the layout simple, use the walls for climbers and trained fruit, and give the space one tree or one raised bed rather than a collection of small features.
A fan-trained plum or an espaliered apple against a sunny wall is one of the best uses of a walled garden, and it is trained and pruned through the season as part of the round. Even here, on the best ground in town, the shelter is doing work that the soil cannot. A courtyard also dries out more slowly than the open ground above the river, which is an advantage on thin, free draining soil.
Spring work in a Richmond garden
Spring here is late and quick. Frost can still arrive into May, so we hold off tender planting and leave the top growth on anything that has sheltered a plant's crown through winter. Once the risk has passed, beds are turned over with compost, mulched and fed, the lawn gets its first cut, and shrubs left over winter are cut back to a fresh bud. Late spring is also the sensible time to check what the winter wind has done to a tree, while the damage is still small enough to be a pruning job. A late spring shortens the gap between the ground drying out and the beds needing water, so the soil work is done as soon as the ground can be worked at all.
Autumn is the other end of it. Leaves come off the beds and the paths, the lawn is aerated and fed before growth stops, and anything tender that survives here is moved or wrapped before the first hard frost.
Trees on high, windy ground
Garden trees at this height have to tolerate wind, and that changes how they are pruned. A crown is kept balanced rather than dense, so wind passes through it instead of pushing against it, and damaged branches are cut out while they are still small. Tough stock suits the ground: hornbeam, hawthorn, rowan, field maple and native hedging, planted with the aftercare that gets them through their first summers.
Anything beyond pruning 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 North Yorkshire and County Durham. Anything in Richmond that needs a climber, a platform or a crane is theirs.
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 richmond
- When does the growing season start in Richmond?
- Later than most people expect. Frost can still arrive into May, so tender planting waits and anything that has sheltered a plant over winter is left in place until the risk has passed. Once it has, the season moves quickly, and the spring work has to be done in a short window.
- Will anything grow in thin soil over rock?
- Plenty, once the soil has been improved. Organic matter dug in and a mulch each spring hold moisture through summer, and plants that tolerate a dry root run do better than hungry ones: lavender, thyme, sedum, hardy geraniums, grasses and most herbs. Watering deeply and less often suits this ground better than a daily sprinkle.
- The wind has torn a branch out of my tree. What should happen to it?
- Torn wood should be cut back to a sound branch or to the branch collar, and it is better done while the damage is small. If the tree has lost a large limb, or the wound is beyond a pruning saw, that is tree surgery and it goes to Ross Webster Tree Services.
- Do you look after walled gardens in the town?
- Yes. The sheltered walled gardens are the best ground in Richmond: warmth collects behind the walls, tender plants have a chance, and a fan-trained plum or an espaliered apple will crop against a sunny wall. That training and pruning runs through the season as part of the round.
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