Skip to content
Exeter Strimming Services, part of Hembury Contracting
A groundworker in a green helmet with a mesh visor and ear defenders, hi-vis vest and harness, cutting a steep overgrown Devon hedgebank with a petrol brush cutter, with the cut growth lying in a swathe down the bank and a lane running away on the right

Exeter and 20 miles around

Whatever has taken over, we cut it back and take it away

Gardens gone over, banks and verges, brambles and nettles, paddock edges, hedge bases and fence lines. Proper petrol brush cutters, all the cuttings cleared, and a price you can work out before you ring.

Book a clearanceCall 07366 321657

£60 an hour

Including VAT. Two hour minimum, so £120 is the smallest job. Half a day is £240 and a full day £480.

See the hourly rate
  • Exeter based, covering roughly 20 miles out
  • Insured, and a registered waste carrier
  • All cuttings cleared, or left where you want them
  • 50% deposit to book, the balance when it is done

The cut

The same bank, standing and cut

This is what a clearance actually changes. Not a lawn made pretty, but a bank you could not walk past taken back down to the ground it grows out of, with the wall and the gate visible again and the cut material raked off to one side.

Drag the handle across, or focus it and use the arrow keys.

A Devon hedgebank and verge completely overgrown after a wet summer, with waist high grass gone to seed, bramble, nettles and cow parsley burying a dry stone wall and a wooden field gate so only its top rail shows, beside a narrow tarmac lane
The same Devon hedgebank photographed from the same spot after strimming, cut down to short stubble with red Devon earth showing through, the dry stone wall and the whole five bar wooden gate visible again and the cut growth raked into a swathe along the foot of the bank
StandingCut
Two generated images of one Devon hedgebank, shot from the same spot in the same light, to show the difference a pass makes. They are illustrations of the work rather than photographs of a customer's garden.

The state of it

It only takes one wet summer for a garden to stop being a garden

Grass gets away first, then the nettles come through it, and by August there is bramble arching over the fence and you cannot see where the path used to be. It happens to people who have been ill, people who have been away, landlords between tenants, executors clearing a house, and anyone who simply lost a summer to something more important.

The problem is rarely that nobody wants to deal with it. It is that a domestic strimmer will not touch it, the local gardener wants a weekly contract rather than a one off, and every firm you ring wants to come and look at it first and then post you a price a week later.

This site does it the other way round. There is one published rate, the machines are the ones that will actually get through it, and the cut material is taken away in the same visit. You send a couple of photographs and you get told roughly how many hours it will take.

What gets cut

Three kinds of overgrowth, one set of machines

Most jobs are one of these three, and plenty are two of them on the same visit. The rate is the same whichever it turns out to be.
The back garden of a red brick semi left through a summer, long grass and weeds up around a rotary washing line and an old bench, with bramble coming over the fence

Overgrown garden strimming and clearance

A garden that has stood for a season or several, cut down to ground level in one visit and raked off so you can see what you have got.

Overgrown gardens
A dense thicket of woody bramble and nettle grown up over an old fence post and wire at the edge of a Devon field, with only the top of the post still showing

Brambles, nettles and bracken brush cutting

Woody, thorny growth taken down with a metal blade: bramble thickets, standing nettle beds, bracken slopes and light scrub that has taken over.

Brambles and bracken
A single track Devon lane with the bank and verge on one side freshly cut back to bare red soil and pale stubble, standing grass and cow parsley still up on the other

Banks, verges, paddocks and field edges

The ground a mower cannot get to: steep hedgebanks, roadside verges, paddock and field margins, hedge bases, fence lines and the awkward strip round the edge.

Banks and paddocks

Credentials

What sits behind the work

Registered waste carrier

Hembury Contracting holds waste carrier registration CBDU641882, so the cut material can leave your property legally rather than being someone else's problem. Tipping is charged on at cost.

Public liability insurance

Cover is in place for the work. Brush cutters throw stones, and anyone taking one near your glass, your car or your neighbour's fence should be able to say what happens if one goes the wrong way.

Petrol brush cutters, not a domestic strimmer

Harness mounted machines with a metal blade for woody bramble and bracken and a nylon head for grass and edges. A hired garden strimmer will bog down in the first hour of anything that has stood for a season.

One rate, published

£60 an hour including VAT, two hour minimum. There is no free site visit to sit through, no per job quote to wait for and nothing to negotiate. What it costs depends on how long it takes.

What an hour buys

What actually gets done in the time you are paying for

An hour on a flat lawn that has gone to seed covers a lot of ground. An hour on a steep bank of woody bramble covers much less. This is the rough shape of it, so the estimate you are given makes sense before the machine starts.
  • Rough grass and weeds up to knee height, cut and raked off, around 150 to 250 square metres an hour
  • Chest high grass, docks and nettles, cut in two passes, around 80 to 150 square metres an hour
  • Established bramble with woody stems, cut and dragged clear, around 30 to 60 square metres an hour
  • Bracken on a slope, cut low with a blade, slower again on anything you cannot stand square on
  • Hedge bases and fence lines, strimmed out and the growth pulled off the wire, measured in metres run rather than area
  • Raking, dragging and loading, which on a heavy clearance is often a third of the total time
How a booking works
A Devon fence line strimmed out along its length, the posts and wire clear again with cut stubble underneath and a brush cutter, gloves and a fuel can lying on the cut ground

Before, during, after

What a clearance looks like from one end to the other

The middle two are the ones worth looking at. A cut line across a paddock and a trailer loaded with arisings are what the job actually is.
A small Devon garden lost under waist high grass and weeds after a wet summer, with a child's blue plastic slide and a garden table barely visible in the middle of it and bramble along the fence
A small Devon garden lost under waist high grass and weeds after a wet summer, with a child's blue plastic slide and a garden table barely visible in the middle of it and bramble along the fence
A field margin part way through a clearance pass, cut grass lying in windrows on the near side and standing grass and cow parsley still up on the far side, with a stone barn behind
A field margin part way through a clearance pass, cut grass lying in windrows on the near side and standing grass and cow parsley still up on the far side, with a stone barn behind
A Devon garden cleared right back to bare soil, with a shed, an apple tree and a dry stone wall all visible again and the cut material stacked in a pile against the wall
A Devon garden cleared right back to bare soil, with a shed, an apple tree and a dry stone wall all visible again and the cut material stacked in a pile against the wall
A tipping trailer behind a pickup on a Devon lane, loaded high with freshly cut grass and nettle, with a fork, a rake and green waste bags on the gravel beside it
A tipping trailer behind a pickup on a Devon lane, loaded high with freshly cut grass and nettle, with a fork, a rake and green waste bags on the gravel beside it

Where we work

Exeter, its own districts, and 20 miles out

Every place on the list has its own page, written for the ground you actually get there rather than the same paragraph with the name changed.
All 24 areas covered

Questions

Questions we get asked

How much does it cost?

£60 an hour including VAT, with a two hour minimum, so the smallest job on the book is £120. Half a day of four hours is £240 and a full day of eight hours is £480. A second person, where the job needs two, is £30 an hour on top.

Why price by the hour instead of quoting for the job?

Because nobody can tell what is under a season of growth until it comes off. A fixed price for clearance is either padded to cover the worst case or gets revised on the day, and both of those cost you more than an hourly rate does. You are told roughly how long it should take, and you pay for the time it actually takes.

Do you come and look first?

Not as a rule. Photographs and a rough size are enough to estimate the hours, and a site visit adds a trip to the cost of a job that has a published rate anyway. If the access is unusual or you want someone to stand in it with you first, say so and it can be arranged.

What happens to everything you cut?

Your choice. It can be raked up and taken away under the waste carrier registration, with the tipping charged on at cost. It can be stacked in a corner to rot down, spread as a mulch, or left in windrows where it fell if you are happy to deal with it yourself, which is the cheapest option because it is quicker.

How do I book, and what do you need up front?

Send photographs, the postcode and a rough idea of the size. Back comes an estimate of the hours and the next dates that work. A 50% deposit of the estimated time holds the date and the balance is due when the work is finished.

How far do you travel?

Exeter and roughly twenty miles around it, which takes in the estuary and the coast down to Teignmouth, east to Honiton and Sidmouth, north to Tiverton and Cullompton, and west to Okehampton and the edge of the moor.

Is there anything you will not take on?

Tree work needing a chainsaw at height, anything requiring a licence to move ragwort or Japanese knotweed off site, and ground you cannot reach without going through a house. Say what you have got and you will be told straight away if it is not a job for a brush cutter.

How quickly can you come?

It depends on the week and on the weather, since cutting sodden growth takes longer and makes a worse job of it. Ask for the next available dates rather than a promised turnaround, because a turnaround printed on a website is a number nobody can hold anyone to.

See the hourly rate

Book a clearance with Exeter Strimming Services

Send a postcode, a rough size and a couple of photographs. Sam Hembury will come back with an estimate in hours and the next dates available.

Book a clearanceCall 07366 321657info@hemburycontracting.co.uk
Call 07366 321657Book a clearance