We had a crew in to "clean-up" the fencelines, and weedwack/mow. The best thing you can do to prepare is to wrap the trunk of every valued tree/plant to protect it from weed wackers. Multi-trunked trees/shrubs, make a fenced circle around them and tell them to weed those by hand.

Expect a few broken branches, and they *will* mow over inmarked plants.

That said, the crew did in 4 hours what would have taken me 6 months to do! The place looked GREAT!

Lisa

Where do you find such people though?

Yeah, I hear you on the '6 months' aspect. My yard looks like it will take me that long to clean it up. I'm sorta excited about winter and the dormant season coming in the hopes that some of my weeds pass over to the 'other side'. Maybe I can just mulch the heck out of everything and prevent all the weeds from invading next year.

I hire teenage boys in the neighborhood. I have to supervise them, but it works well.

You may want to contact local garden clubs,agricultural extension services and ask if they could recommend any individuals that would be knowledgeable that may want a part time job.Nurseries could also be contacted.Options are not only teens but elderly folks also.
Interview and find out how dependable they are. Once they are hired make sure you give them specific tasks.
My 2cents worth.
Felix

Felix - that's a really good idea. It's sorta that kind of job where I don't think many want to do -- even for pay.
Heck...I don't want to do it either.

Saintp,
My daughter,Jennifer, hires a lawn man to do the mowing, weed-wacking. Then she hires my 15 year old to do weeding in the flower beds. She sometimes also hires an elderly man from our church,Pop Weekly,for weeding. He was an owner of a nursery and sod business in South Florida. He does not do it for the money but just to keep busy.
There are many people like pop.
Just keep a little corner for yourself to keep your sanity.
he,he,he--I lost mine and I don't care.
Felix

I garden some in Windermere aera were are you !
I love pulling weeds
Tommy

There are allot of good people out there . The trick is to pay them decent. I once had an old lady offer me 8 dollars an hour to dead head her gardenia bushes.........And she wondered why I didn`t "jump" at the offer. LOL

There's the problem. You bill $65 or more per hour for your time yet when you need to pay someone that amount youre cringing as you write the check.

This has given me a good idea for retirement income... when the time comes... since I also love to weed! My husband has learned to hold my hand tightly and say calming words when we walk from a parking lot into a building, so that I won't detour a few steps to pull out some large weed in the landscaping in the lot or around the building that's just screaming to be pulled out.

saintpfl...sorry I have no suggestions for you...(big help, I know) :o
...and not to go OT here, but karen...that sounds like a fabulous idea! We were pondering what we could do after retirement that we'd thoroughly enjoy as well.
(We got dibs on Manatee County!) LOL!

I'm like you in that I'll pick weeds (and of course, trash), whenever I see it...LOL @ us.

Karen, my DH has to do the same. And let me see a young tree that is leaning and needs to be restaked. ouch, it actually hurts. lol

Seriously, that might be a good job to get some extra money. I wished I lived by you,Saintpfla, you could hire me.

D'Ann, you don't think $8 an hour is enough? What is a fair hourly rate? I wouldn't work for just one hour, at least a 4 hour minimum.

The landscaping crew in the places I've lived (in DE and FL) do not want to do hand-labor such as weeding. If it does not involve a gas-driven machine they are not interested. I think it has to do with macho.
In DE the pres. of our association did the hand weeding herself because she couldn't get the contract people to do it.
The other option offered (which I have declined) is weeding by Round-up because I want a chem-free yard. That means I have to do the weeding.

There isn't anyone I trust to do the weeding because I have many native plants that look like weeds. I've already had the paid crew pull some of those by mistake.

One solution is to plant as densely as possible so weeds can't get started, use groundcovers and mulch (of course weeds love mulch but they are usually shallow rooted).

The other trick I use is when I have a plant that would be cut or pulled by the crew by is to put a small American flag next to it. They haven't taken one of those out yet.

Good luck. I think finding good garden help is like a good cleaning person, no one shares their name with you for fear they'll lose them.

Denise
Whose has never had a cleaning person OR garden help but can dream.....

How much are you paying? If the price is right, one of your GW friends might drive over and do it, or even come over to help you out for a few hours in exchange for lunch and plant cuttings. You never know.

Well NativeMel you have the germ of a good idea. What is we all banded togther regionally and spent one weeding day in each others gardens? IF I had 5 or 10 or 20 knowledgeable people for one day they could free me for months! I could then invest that time helping them. It seems liek a zero sum game but I suspect the combination of may hands and good spirits plus getting it all done so mulch cna be applied would mean that the sum of the parts would, in fact, be greater that the sum of the parts.

What do you all think? Does a weeding collective make sense?

Anita

I just asked my 15 year old how much his sister pays him an hour to pull her weeds. He said $100.per day. All day work.
He does this about once a month.
I say not bad baby.
Felix

I have a local master gardener who owns her own gardening business and has installed plants/trees/shrubs for me to the tune of $20 per hour. The basis of her business is to do all of the things that the mow/blow/go guys don't do. You can contract with her to come monthly, quarterly or as needed. Her as-needed price is $20/hour. She does a great job. But I also have two girlfriends (we call ourselves the MUD sisters) and we rotate among our houses, helping each other with projects...not just gardening but mortaring, cleaning the garage, painting, etc. Works out great. Nothing better than having girlfriends with stubs for fingernails...just like me!

Carol

Well now we know the price of getting someone to weed and it's not too bad. If you can get someone to to pull all of them up instead of just doing a section at a time, it is less discouraging and maybe you can catch up

I use Roundup but I don't find it as effective as it used to be or perhaps I am cursed with a green thumb. I'm surprised nobody else mentioned it.

Well NativeMel you have the germ of a good idea. What is we all banded togther regionally and spent one weeding day in each others gardens? IF I had 5 or 10 or 20 knowledgeable people for one day they could free me for months! I could then invest that time helping them. It seems liek a zero sum game but I suspect the combination of may hands and good spirits plus getting it all done so mulch cna be applied would mean that the sum of the parts would, in fact, be greater that the sum of the parts.

What do you all think? Does a weeding collective make sense?

Anita

Sorry, forgot about this thread !

Kathy, the problem with paying someone only 8.00 dollars an hour is insurance . There is no way they can meet expense in their biz that way.

years ago I had someone almost amputate their thumb at my house. It was their own , stupid fault. Yet when I spoke to our allstate agent he said that it didn`t mater. Our property, our liability, that simple. We are talking about micro-surgery with a hand surgeon.

If you are talking about the garden-web friends.... that is different.

But for people you don`t know ? Sorry I just don`t trust people :(

D`Ann

anitaathome -
I'd be up for your suggested collective crew of GW friends helping out sort of thing.

thepondprincess -
Where are you and why am I not on your MUD sisters list? Can't we be friends? I need MUD sisters!!! :)

Melissa

Melissa,

Two MUD sisters live in the Dr. Phillips area and the other one lives in Winter Park (no...not the fancy schmancy section...by the RR tracks). Remember, we do NOT have fingernails, and toenail polish is used only to disguise the dirt under our toenails. But we clean up pretty well!

Are you up to the task of being a MUD sister is the question? We don't just help each other with gardening tasks. We also paint inside/outside our houses, mortar brick/stone walkways & patio floors, lay laminate floors...and on and on. BTW those rocks & bricks are heavy and the bags of mortar weigh 60 lbs.!!! I'm sure you are getting some sort of weirdly-distorted mental picture of us - 2 of us are actually prissy! Our current project is getting Terri's yard/pond ready for the FREE Koi fish netting on Oct. 14th.

Hey - we're not ALL work...we DO celebrate our accomplishments with MUD sister 'socials' (including fine bottles of wine)!

Still interested? We can always use one more set of hands! Um....Tony....wanna be a MUD sister...brother...uncle...cuz???

Carol

My gardener is a middle-aged Mexican man who is here on a legal work visa. He goes back to Mexico for 4 months out of the year. He works for a yard service during the week and works for me either one or two days on the weekend. He is a godsend. I have four properties on the block which he trims, weeds, mows, sprays, plants, does whatever I need him to. He's honest and hard working and I've learned quite a bit of Spanish, plus he explains to me about certain plants and what they are used for in Mexico. It's very interesting to find out what herbs and other plants are used for medicinal purposes. I will miss him when he goes back to Mexico this month, but he'll be back in late February.

I don't know what I'd do without him. If you have any way to query local professional yard services to find out if someone wants to do odd jobs on the weekends, it might be a good avenue for exploration. The bigger services here tend to have the best workers, so they might be worth calling.

Waaa, I'm too far away, but I want to be a mud sister. I wish I had friends like that near by. I sponge painted the whole outside of my house, lanai and all, by myself. Three coats of paint and two on the trim.

Carol,

Where do I go for the "Potential MUD Sister" interview?

I'm in Longwood; I am a beast of a hard worker and surprisingly strong. I love to work on things, yard things, house things, etc.

I don't know a lot about plants, so I would be constantly learning as we worked on yard projects, but I love to learn and I'm up for just about any task. I also have no fingernails.

Some of the tasks I've accomplished on my own are: paint house exterior and interior, rip out carpet, padding and tack strips in preparation for new tile, tile bathroom floor, remove and reset shower tile, caulking, replace faucet, remove old linoleum, re-roof a shed, install wood privacy fencing with concrete on the posts, re-screen a pool enclosure, hang blinds & curtain rods, install and wire ceiling fans, removing medicine cabinet, replace and finish drywall, install bathroom vanity and mirror, snake a tub, remove a toilet, fix broken sprinkler pipes and install new sprinklers, paint cabinets, organize closet and garage, install shelving, move furniture, assemble prefabricated furniture, use power tools including circular saw, tree trimming, lawn care, official insect in the house killer.

I like the concept of MUD sisters, and I understand and can respect that it's about equal give and take. And, I'm always looking to make new friends, expand my horizons and try new hobbies. So I do think I have the necessary MUD sister mentality?

Melissa

That last part was supposed to read "So, do you think I have..." although it could have been a Freudian slip.

Hi saintpfla,
Are you still in need of weeding? I have 2 teenagers and live here in St. Pete in the Lake Pasadena area. Zip 33710.
If you write back maybe we can figure something out.
Sue.