Gardens that keep on growing
Pontefract's soil has a reputation. Explaining why liquorice took root here, Wakefield's museums service says the plant's long roots "thrive in our deep loamy local soil", and by the 1700s liquorice garths were springing up all around the town. Good soil is a gift in a garden, but it works for weeds as well as for the plants you chose. Lawns recover quickly and thicken up, borders fill out, and deep-rooted weeds like docks and dandelions settle in happily. Leave a Pontefract lawn for a few weeks in May and you will see what we mean.
That is the case for regular maintenance: little and often, so the garden never drifts back to the point where it needs a full clearance.
What each visit covers
Every visit is built around your garden, but the usual jobs are mowing and edging the lawn, trimming hedges and shrubs, weeding beds, borders and paths, and a general tidy so the garden looks cared for when we leave. Some people want everything done every time; others want the grass kept short through summer and the hedges done a few times a year. Where a lawn has worn thin we can returf it, and a strip where grass never does well can be gravelled instead.
The jobs shift with the seasons. In spring the first cuts go on with the mower set high, edges are recut and beds are weeded before the weeds can seed. Through summer it is mostly mowing every week or two, hedge trimming once the nesting season has passed, and keeping on top of growth in dry spells. Autumn brings leaves off the lawn and paths, a last cut and cutting back the borders. Over winter, visits can be spaced further apart for a hedge tidy and to keep paths clear. We will talk through what suits your garden when we come to look.
Hedges, walls and long gardens
Some of the most distinctive gardens in Pontefract are on its older streets. The council's appraisal of The Mount, a single straight street laid out in the mid nineteenth century on the edge of the town centre, describes substantial houses in large, mature gardens with well established trees, and picks out dwarf front walls with hedging above as a key characteristic. It adds that many rear gardens there still hold fragments of an orchard. South of the centre, around Mayors Walk and Mill Hill Road, the Friarwood and Button Park appraisal describes generously sized gardens, mature trees, and brick garden walls topped with hedging.
Gardens like these reward steady care. A low hedge on a dwarf wall looks right when it is kept tight and level, and untidy surprisingly fast when it isn't. A long lawn under old fruit trees needs the windfalls raking up before it can be mown. Wakefield Council's guidance notes that a tree preservation order does not apply to shrubs or to trees regularly maintained as a hedgerow, but trees in a conservation area need the council's consent before pruning, so routine visits stick to hedges, shrubs, lawns and beds.
Estates and newer homes
Most Pontefract gardens are nowhere near a conservation area, of course. We cover Carleton, Chequerfield and Tanshelf, and the newer homes on the Prince of Wales estate, built on the site of the town's last colliery after it closed in 2002. Newer gardens tend to be smaller: a front lawn, a fenced back garden and a strip of planting. That is exactly the kind of garden that looks tired after one missed month, and a regular slot keeps it neat without it taking over your weekends.
Looking after someone else's garden
Maintenance is often arranged for someone who can no longer manage the garden themselves, by a son or daughter or a neighbour. Rosie Smith's review puts it in a line: "highly recommended did a brilliant job of my mums garden". If the garden has already gone past a quick tidy, we would start with garden clearance in Pontefract and then keep it there with regular visits. We also look after outdoor spaces for commercial customers, from communal grounds to the beds and borders outside business premises.
Arranging regular visits
Call 07347 572509, Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. Tell us what the garden is like and how often you think it needs doing, and we will come and look before giving you a quote. Affordable Gardens & Landscapes is family run, fully insured and based in Knottingley, so Pontefract is right on our doorstep. There is more on how visits work on our regular garden maintenance page, and the rest of our local services are on the Pontefract area page.
