What a section-maintenance visit covers
A fortnightly visit is the catch-all garden hour. Hemi (or Tamati on weeks when Hemi is on a planting day out in Tauwhare) backs the ute up to the kerb, walks the section with you on the tablet if anything's changed, and gets stuck in. One to two hours on a town section, longer on lifestyle blocks, billed at the agreed flat price per visit.
- Mow — battery mower on town sections, ride-on hired in for lifestyle blocks over a quarter acre
- Edge — driveway, paths, mulch beds and along the kerb
- Weed — main beds hand-weeded, kikuyu and oxalis spot-treated on request
- Light prune — anything getting away on you; bigger pruning gets a separate quote
- Green waste sorted into your kerbside bin or carted off at $25 per trailer load
- Paths swept, kerb tidied, gate latched on the way out
Weekly or fortnightly?
Fortnightly is the most common cadence and what we'd suggest for a standard town section in Hamilton East, Frankton or Cambridge. The grass stays manageable, the beds stay clean, and the prune list doesn't blow out between visits.
Weekly suits three situations: larger sections (over a quarter-acre), lifestyle blocks where the kikuyu and clover are pushing hard through October to February, and clients who entertain on the weekend and want the section looking sharp every Saturday morning.
Monthly is on the menu through winter (June, July, August) — the growth slows, the prune list stays short, and we drop you to a monthly slot if you want. Most clients stay on fortnightly year-round and we just shorten the visit through winter.
Typical jobs we get through in a visit
Below is roughly what a fortnightly town-section visit looks like — ordered by what eats the most time. None of these on their own is a full day's work; bundled together they're a comfortable 75-to-110-minute visit.
- Mow front and back lawns — battery mower, 21-inch deck, mulching
- Edge driveway, footpath, mulch beds and around the rotary clothesline
- Hand-weed two or three main beds — usually the front by the letterbox and the strip down the side path
- Light prune of anything getting away on you — lavender, hebes, the corner griselinia
- Pick up sticks and small windfall — Waikato wind drops a lot of light branch
- Spot-spray persistent kikuyu through driveway cracks (only on request, vinegar-based or low-tox)
- Re-mulch a thin spot in a bed — bark on board, supplier receipt + 10%
- Final sweep of paths and the kerb
Green waste — how we handle it
Most of our Hamilton and Cambridge clients have a green-waste bin from the council or a private collector — we sort the clippings, bag the heavier prunings, and stack everything by the bin ready for the next collection. If the bin's full or you don't have one, we cart it off at $25 a trailer load (covers our trip to the Sustainability Trust green-waste facility in Frankton). Lifestyle-block clients sometimes prefer to compost on-site — we'll bay it up by the back fence on the agreed compost stack if that's the plan.
What it costs
Flat per-visit pricing, posted, no platform fees and no fuel surcharge within the regular run. All prices include 15% GST.
- Town section, fortnightly visit (under 800 m²): from $85
- Town section, weekly visit (under 800 m²): from $75 (lower per-visit because we're not playing catch-up)
- Quarter-acre town section, fortnightly: from $125
- Lifestyle block (half-acre and over), fortnightly: quoted by the site visit
- Green-waste haul-off (when needed): $25 per trailer load
- Mulch top-up (medium bark): supplier receipt + 10%
What we don't do on a section-maintenance visit
This list is short on purpose. Things we don't tackle during a standard fortnightly:
- Hedge trim over 1.8 m — separate quote, separate visit (see hedge & tree work)
- Tree work over five metres — referred to Ben Carrington's arborist crew in Te Rapa
- Spray work that needs a GROWSAFE-certified applicator — not us
- Stump grinding, paddock topping, deep landscape redesign — out of scope
- Indoor plant care, glasshouse work, pond maintenance — not our trade
Related services
Sometimes a fortnightly visit turns into a different bucket once we're on site. We'll flag it on the tablet and re-quote before continuing.
- Hedge & tree work — annual hedge trim, fruit-tree pruning, small tree removal
- Native planting & restoration — kānuka, harakeke, riparian planting
- Storm cleanup — post-cyclone tidy and downed-branch removal