Strimming and overgrowth clearance in Ottery St Mary

The town sits in the Otter valley on gently rolling ground, and the valley floor holds mist and damp well into the day. Shaded ground stays wet, moss and lichen establish quickly, and the growth that likes those conditions is exactly the growth that a mower will not deal with once it gets away.

Gardens on the valley bottom are heavier work than the ones on the slopes above the town, and the difference shows up in the hours rather than in the square metres.

The compact historic centre around the church has Georgian and Victorian frontages with plots running back behind them, and cob and thatch survivals in the surrounding lanes. The cutting on those is usually modest and the access is not, which is the pattern in every old Devon town on this list.

Near thatch and cob the nylon head goes on and the blade stays for open ground, and anything within throwing distance of glass gets cut facing the other way. That is a working practice rather than a caveat.

The river runs through the middle of the town, and any boundary that touches it carries the usual waterside list: nettle, bramble, hogweed and self set willow, all of it fed year round. That strip is always the heaviest few metres of a garden.

Cut material from a river bank is loaded out rather than stacked, because anything left near a watercourse can be moved by the next high water and become somebody else's problem downstream.

The post-war and modern estates spreading north and west have ordinary suburban plots with side access and gates, and they are quick, predictable work. Beyond them the ground opens into Otter valley farmland with paddocks, smallholdings and long hedgebank faces.

That rural work books by the half day or day and the arisings usually stay on site, which is both cheaper and what most owners of that kind of ground actually want.

The lanes around the town carry larger houses in real ground, some of them with old parkland boundaries of the kind found around Cadhay. Long hedges, established banks and orchard grass are the standard list, and the hours go on the length of the boundary rather than the area of the lawn.

That work books by the half day or day. Where a hedge base has not been cleared for several years, the first visit is the expensive one and everything after it is quicker.

After that first visit, a boundary cut once in early summer and again in September stays usable all year, and the September cut is always the quicker of the two because there is simply less standing to take off.