Communal gardens
Where our homes have a shared or communal garden or lawn area, we may provide a grounds maintenance service. You pay for this service through a weekly/monthly service charge. We carry out regular visits throughout the year.
Below, we outline our services and their frequencies per area:
- Maintenance of communal grassed areas which involves controlling excessive growth by cutting grass
- We use a combination of ride on and pedestrian rotary mowers which cut and drop the grass back into the lawned areas, this is known as mulching
- Collection off the grass is on an exceptional case by case basis, and isn’t routinely performed as the cost would increase significantly
- It includes strimming around obstacles, fence lines, path edges or areas where the mowers cannot reach
- Maintaining the shape and balance of communal hedges and shrubs which consists of controlling plant growth by a combination of pruning and trimming
- We use a combination of petrol hedge cutters during these activities
- We can’t undertake this between March and September due to the Wildlife and Country Act 1981, around nesting birds. We'll restart hedge/shrub trimming from September onwards
It also includes:
- Removing litter and controlling weeds
- Using a knapsack sprayer to spot, treat or remove by hand tall or inaccessible weeds
- Litter picking will be carried out on every visit
- This will consist of removing litter from communal areas, including leaf removal
- Weed/moss treatment will be carried out when required (please see below schedule)
- The treatment will be scheduled when the spraying conditions are optimal, ideally with dry weather with little wind
- Weed/moss treatment will help to reduce the risk of slipping and will will also improve the visual appearance of your estate
- Hand weeding will be carried out in communal shrub beds if the conditions don't allow for a sprayer to be used
- Hand weeding will also include removal of any self-set saplings and older taller weeds
- This service is provided to our sheltered housing and over 55s schemes
- Will include the proactive gritting and the removal of snow from paths
| Task | Total |
| Grass cutting | 14 |
| Hedge/Shrub pruning | 2 |
| Meadow grass cut | 1 |
| Litter picking | 14 |
| Hand weeding beds | 6 |
| Spot treatment for shrub beds | 6 |
| Weed and moss treatment (spot spraying edgings) | 6 |
| Weed and moss treatment (blanket spraying paved areas) | 6 |
| Approximate schedule of visits | ||||||||||||||
| Task | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec | Total | |
| Approximate site visits | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 19 | Visits per year |
| Grass cutting | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 14 | ||||
| Meadow grass cut | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Hedge/Shrub cutting | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||||||||
| Litter picking hard areas | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 14 | |
| Litter picking shrub beds | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 14 | |
| Hand weeding shrub beds | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |||||||
| Spot treatment Shrub beds | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |||||||
| Blanket spray paved areas | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |||||||
| Spot spray edgings | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | |||||||
| Total task per month | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 69 | Total tasks per year |
