Guides · Hiring

What to actually check before someone with a petrol trimmer turns up.

A search result tells you nothing about whether someone knows what they're doing. In a village the size of Whitfield, the better filter is almost always someone whose hedge you can point at and say "who did that?"

Four questions worth asking

1. Public liability insurance? Ask to see it, not just be told it exists. A hedge cutter without it is a real financial risk if a branch goes through a greenhouse or a car windscreen.
2. Fixed price or day rate? A day rate can balloon once they're on site. A fixed price agreed from photos and a postcode protects you from that.
3. Who takes the arisings? Some contractors leave a garden full of clippings and expect you to deal with disposal. Ask before booking, not after.
4. Have they worked on your street before? If they have, ask for a name you can check with. If they haven't and can't point to recent local work, that's not necessarily a problem, but it's worth knowing.

Why we lead with referrals

We built our whole referral discount around this exact filter. If someone on your street already used us and would put their name to it, that tells you more than any review site.