ROBSON GARDEN MAINTENANCE
Frequently Asked Questions
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Our Service
What services do you offer?
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From March to November, we offer regular maintenance visits offering,
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Grass cutting
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Weeding
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Hedge cutting
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Shrub trimming
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Autumn leaf collection
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Planting up beds
From December to February, we do one off projects for our regular customers and garden tidy ups plus one off jobs for new customers. These services include,
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Garden tidy ups
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Tree pruning
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Hedge cutting
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Raised beds
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Decking
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Laying turf
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Drainage
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Fence construction
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Fence painting
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Fence repairs
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What areas do you cover?
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We have set our business up, so we have the minimal amount of travel time during the day. This allows us to keep our costs down and therefore our hourly rate.
The areas that we cover are,
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Midlothian
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Gorebridge
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Newtongrange
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Bonnyrigg
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Eskbank
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Loanhead
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West Lothian + West Edinburgh
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East Calder
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Mid Calder
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Livingston
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Kirknewton
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Ratho
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Balerno
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Currie
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Juniper Green
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How long do visits last?
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We have a minimum visit duration of 1 man hour. A lot of our gardens in Gorebridge and East Calder are smaller gardens that we link together on routes. In our biggest gardens which are 3 acres+ we spend 8 to 16 man hours per visit each week.
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How often to you provide visits?
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We provide regular maintenance visits every 2 weeks. For larger gardens we can do weekly visits. We have some customers that have an annual visit to do winter tidy ups in December. Other customers have annual or bi-annual visits for hedge or tree trimming
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Can I choose the day of the visit?
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Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee the day of visits. The main reason for this is to keep our routes running as efficiently as possible. We need to make sure that all visits run in a logical order throughout a 2-week cycle to minimise travel.
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Will you keep visits to the same day every fortnight?
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If weather impacts our schedule, then we might slip behind schedule by 1 or 2 days. Our team will always try to keep up by doing longer days but sometimes this might not be possible.
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Do you work weekends?
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As a rule, we do not work on weekends. Gardening is a physically demanding job and we believe the team need a good rest once a week. If we are way behind schedule because of rain or snow, we might work a weekend but this no more than a few times a year.
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When do you start and finish work?
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We usually start working at 8am and finish at 4.30pm
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Do you make visits all year round?
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Yes, we make visits all year round.
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How many people work in each team?
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We work in teams of 2 or 3.
To be efficient when working in teams of 3 we carry 2 lawn mowers in the van. This means no one in the team has to wait for the others to finish their tasks and no time spent at the garden is wasted.
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Will I be tied to a contract?
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No, we do not tie our customers into a contract. We run at almost 100% capacity all year round and have a waiting list in the summer, so it does not make sense to us to bind customers into a contract they no longer wish to be part of. If in the very rare circumstance, you are not happy with our service you can cancel at any time with a day’s notice.
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Can you remove waste?
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Yes. We can remove waste in large black bags or bulk bags. We need to charge for this as all businesses need to pay to transport and dispose of waste. We hold a SEPA licence and are fully compliant with regulations. The types of waste we can remove are,
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Green waste (Grass clippings, weeds, branches, and leaves etc)
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Wood (old fence boards, slats, posts etc)
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Inert (bricks, concrete, stones, and clay soil)
We have a large Luton van with a tail lift that can pick up waste after a garden tidy up. This is strictly for our own customers and not a service we offer to the general public. As the waste cannot be mixed, we need to control what waste we take away from a garden.
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Do you do one off visits?
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We can do one off visits but only from November to February.
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Do you make contact before each visit?
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As a rule, we do not make contact before a visit. If you have a gate that is locked, we will send a text message the day before to ask if it can be left open the following day.
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Will I get the same gardeners every visit?
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Yes, for most visits we aim to keep the same gardeners making visits to your garden. We might change team members occasionally due to illness, holidays or if we are running behind schedule due to bad weather.
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Can I ask for specific tasks to be done at a visit?
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Yes. We encourage our customers to email requests at least 2 days before a regular visit. This is to allow the team to pack tools they might not regularly carry in their vans e.g. tall ladders.
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Can you improve my lawn?
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In 2022 we started offering various lawn treatments. In spring we make sure weeds are treated in lawns and follow up with scarifying to remove moss and thatch if necessary. Throughout the year we use liquid lawn feeds at some of our maintenance visits.
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Do you use weedkiller?
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Yes, we use weedkiller on hardstanding areas such as driveways, paths, and stone areas. We always check with a customer to make sure they are happy for us to use weedkiller in their garden. We only spray on dry and calm days away from grass and plants. The weedkiller we use is domestic strength and is safe for pets once dried in (usually within 30 minutes).
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Can you do a longer visit as I have a party coming up and I want my garden to look great?
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Yes. As long as we are given advanced warning, we can schedule extended visits for special occasions.
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What height of hedge can you trim?
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We can trim hedges up to 10ft tall.
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Are you insured?
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Yes, we have public liability insurance up to £1 million and employee liability insurance up to £10 million.
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Do you design gardens?
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We are not garden designers, but we can give guidance and make recommendations for your garden. At the start of 2023 we produced a plant guide for all our regular customers. We hope this will be a great help in allowing customers to choose the right plants for their garden. In conjunction we have constructed an app to help our team plant up flower beds so that plant colours, heights, spread, and seasonality are considered. Our aim is to plant up beds that provide colour across the year similar to a fireworks show.
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Do you have ride-on mowers?
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No, due to the size of most of our gardens we do not have ride-on mowers. In our company we have 2 team members that can drive ride-on mowers and do this for a few of our customers that have them for their gardens.
Money
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Do you charge vat?
Yes
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How do you keep track of billable hours?
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Every member of our team fills in a timesheet app that is linked to our accounting system. For each visit they log what they did in the garden, start and finish time, materials used and any waste removed.
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Is there a minimum charge per visit?
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Yes, the minimum charge is 1 man hour.
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How can I pay?
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We ask that invoices are paid within 2 days. We find that 95% of customers pay by direct bank transfer, a few pay by direct debit and the others pay by cheque or cash.
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How often do you send out invoices?
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We send out invoices by email in the last week of each month. Each invoice usually covers two visits.
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What happens if I think my invoice is incorrect?
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We are not perfect and small mistakes do happen very occasionally. We itemise the invoices so that if a mistake happens we can pick this up quickly and sort it out.
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Other things
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Do you recommend any other companies?
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We recommend Stephan Paul for garden maintenance jobs we are unable to do as well as landscaping and tree surgery.