Hocus Crocus Gardens & Trees · Killinghall, Harrogate
Gardeners in Killinghall
Rated 4.5 from 19 Google reviews
Hocus Crocus Gardens & Trees covers Killinghall. It is one of the easier runs on our patch and one of the busiest for lawns. Killinghall had a population of 4,132 at the 2011 census, which makes it larger than nearby Pateley Bridge, and a good share of those homes sit on newer estates where the garden was handed over as a rectangle of turf, a bare boundary and not much else.
Free visit and a written price. No hard sell.
WhatsApp Karen a photo of your garden Call Karen on 07816 779 064
New build gardens in Killinghall, and why the lawn fails
Killinghall has been under genuine development pressure. Bellway Strategic Land submitted outline plans for around 120 homes on a 16 acre site west of Ripon Road on the northern edge of the village, nearly 400 objections were filed against the expansion, and the wider Local Plan work identified a large number of potential development plots across the parish. In the garden the consequences are predictable, and fixable. Site traffic compacts the subsoil until it drains like a car park. A thin skim of builder grade topsoil goes over the top, often less than a spade deep. Turf laid on that looks immaculate for one summer, then thins, yellows and fills with moss in the second. Boundaries are left bare, so there is nothing to look at and nothing for the birds. We meet the same three problems on new plots all over the village.
Karen is a gem. After approaching several unsatisfactory firms, we discovered her and found her pleasant and easy to get on with, hard working, imaginative, reliable and very thorough in both the planning and the execution of the scheme. In two days she and her team transformed our incredibly boring garden into a very attractive, low maintenance one. Highly recommended.
Mervyn & Joyce, Harrogate
Google review
Turfing done from the subsoil up
Good turf on a bad base only buys you a better looking failure. On a Killinghall new build we start underneath. We break up the compaction, improve and deepen the soil rather than adding another skim on top, set the levels and falls so that water leaves the lawn instead of standing in it, and then lay premium quality turf with bespoke edging so the shape holds its line. Karen has been laying and looking after lawns here since 1998, and where the ground is telling us something odd, which on a two year old plot it usually is, she can take a soil analysis rather than guess. If the lawn you already have is worth saving we will say so and rake the moss out, feed and overseed it instead of selling you a new one.
Bare boundaries, hedges and the first trees
The other half of a new Killinghall garden is its edges. A bare boundary with nothing in front of it is what the developer left behind, not what you have to live with. Hedging is the cheapest privacy and shelter you will ever buy and it does far more for wildlife than a panel ever will. Beech, hornbeam and native mixed hedging all establish well here, provided they go into a properly prepared trench and get watered through their first summer rather than being pushed into builders' rubble. We plant hedges, cut them, reshape them, reduce them and take the arisings away, and Karen plants for bees, insects and wildlife wherever a scheme allows it. First trees matter too. A garden this size wants two or three well chosen small trees, not one forest species that becomes the next owner's problem.
More about Killinghall
Older Killinghall, the A61 and the church
Not all of Killinghall is new. The village sits at the junction of the A61 Ripon Road and the B6161 Otley Road, and both routes and their junctions are under acknowledged traffic strain, which is a gardening problem as much as a driving one. Roadside gardens collect grime on hedges and evergreens and need washing down more often than a back garden does, and getting a chipper or a tipper onto a frontage there takes planning rather than optimism. We work around it: we time the visit, keep the frontage clear and take every scrap of green waste away with us. The older core of the village around the 19th century St Thomas the Apostle Church is a different job again, with mature trees, long established hedges and walled front gardens that want an experienced hand rather than a strimmer.
A commuter village that still wants a garden
Killinghall is a commuter village: rural surroundings, quick access into Harrogate one way and Ripon the other. That shows in the work we are asked for. People want a garden that looks after itself Monday to Friday and is worth sitting in at the weekend, which usually means a regular mowing round, a scheduled maintenance visit and planting chosen to be low maintenance rather than a border that needs someone in it every evening. Most of our regular customers are on a fixed price service for an agreed number of visits through the year, each one scheduled, so nobody has to remember to ring and book.
The services Killinghall asks us for
Four, mostly. Lawn mowing, lawn care and turfing is the big one here and the reason most Killinghall enquiries start. Garden design and makeovers for the plots that need a plan rather than a patch up. Hedge cutting for the boundaries once they are in. And regular garden maintenance to keep it all where you left it. Each page explains what is included and how we price it.
What else we cover nearby
Killinghall sits comfortably inside our normal round rather than a special journey. We also cover Ripley, Burnt Yates, Bishop Thornton and Shaw Mills on the same run, and Killinghall sits on our areas we cover list alongside the rest of the district. Carry on down the A61 and you are into Harrogate; turn west instead and you are in Hampsthwaite and Birstwith, both of which we cover from the same base. Ring Karen on 07816 779 064 and tell her which estate or road you are on.
Before and after
Jobs we have finished
Karen's own photographs from recent jobs.
Other towns we cover
- Harrogate
- Knaresborough
- Hampsthwaite and Birstwith
- Boroughbridge
- Ripon
- Summerbridge
- Wetherby
- Every area we cover
- Ripley
- Burnt Yates
- Clint
- Felliscliffe
- Bishop Thornton
- Shaw Mills
Not answered here? Call Karen on 07816 779 064.
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