How much guidance should a gardener need?

[Kalina]

I got someone in to fix up the garden - weeding, pruning, etc. He finished the job and left, but I've had a look and there are still plenty of weeds left. When I contacted him he said that he removed everything he recognised as a weed, and that I hadn't pointed out the particular weeds he's missed.

My question is - as a professional gardener hired through a gardening company, shouldn't he be able to recognise weeds? Is it my responsibility to walk around the garden and point out every single weed to him?

[SSecret Squirrel]

No you shouldn't have to tell him what is a weed.

[turquoisecoast]

i would expect a gardener to come and do the job totally unassisted.

[Kalina]

Thanks. I've got his boss texting me asking if I'm satisfied with the work. If I reply honestly I'm worried the guy will lose his job, because the work was half-a*sed at best. But I also don't want to pay in full for an incomplete job. I honestly don't know how I get myself into these situations.

[Mod-Degrassi]

I think you should be honest with your feedback.

Did you pay him an agreed amount to fix up the garden, or was it charged on a time basis?

I can understand him leaving weeds if he was paid for X number of hours and he genuinely ran out of time, but it doesn't sound like that was the case.

Weeds are weeds - you should not have had to point all of them out.

[Kalina]

He came out to give me a quote - I showed him the front and the back, all the various areas, and asked for a quote to get the whole job done. He gave me a by-the-hour figure, and an estimate of how many hours it would take. I confirmed by email that it would all be done in that time, give or take an hour or two. Now he's saying he needs "at least" the same amount of time again, which is ridiculous. It's a big block and a big job, but he's the professional and I gave him every opportunity to have a look and give me a quote. To now say that it's actually double the time required or even more seems dodgy to me, he should have a reasonable sense of how long a gardening job takes.

[babyno1onboard]

What types of weeds did he miss? Technically the difference between a weed and non-weed is if you want the plant there but I’d think it would be pretty obvious in most cases.

[Kalina]

What types of weeds did he miss? Technically the difference between a weed and non-weed is if you want the plant there but I’d think it would be pretty obvious in most cases.

That's true. It's pretty obvious I'd say though - e.g. a potato vine wrapping itself around plants with plainly different coloured foliage, dandelions. I'm not a gardener so can't really identify most, but it really is obvious. The garden is landscaped front and back, so you really can tell what's not meant to be there.

[Kalina]

And as for the "pruning"... I'll seriously have to take and post a photo or two....

[SSecret Squirrel]

FWIW I've had the same mowing mob since 2008. Sometimes I get them to do some weeding / trimming hedges. They are pretty good with weeding and are pruning. It always looks fab afterwards.

But trimming hedges - bloody awful. They were really only neatening them and not cutting them back. End result was the hedges wound up way too big and I had to get them to do a hard cut back and they stuffed that up so now I'm looking at buying a hedge trimmer and just doing it myself.

Your gardener definitely should have removed vines and dandelions. They are things that even a complete novice like me would know was a weed.