Hocus Crocus Gardens & Trees · Wetherby, West Yorkshire
Gardeners and Tree Surgeons in Wetherby
Rated 4.5 from 19 Google reviews
Hocus Crocus Gardens & Trees works as a gardener and tree surgeon in Wetherby, and this is the one town on our round where the ground itself changes. Almost everything else we look after sits on Nidderdale gritstone and grows an acid soil. Wetherby sits on limestone, so the soil is limey, sharply drained and often shallow over rock. That one fact rewrites the planting list, and it is why a Wetherby garden is a genuinely different job from a Nidderdale one.
Free visit and a written price. No hard sell.
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The limestone under a Wetherby garden
Wetherby ground is limey, drains hard and fast and is often shallow over rock. Rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and most heathers will sulk in it and do better in a pot. What thrives is the lime tolerant half of the plant world: box, yew, beech, hornbeam, lavender, rosemary, bearded iris and the Mediterranean herbs. We check the ground on the site visit before recommending a scheme rather than after. Replanting sits on our garden design page, and keeping the result right through the year on the garden maintenance page.
Just had some more gardening work and trees done by Karen and her team. New lawn laid at back and borders altered to make life easier. Realistically priced for a full days work. Such a professional eye to detail. Asked them to maintain my garden monthly. Great.
Marilyn G.
Google review
Trees in a conservation area town, and which council to tell
Wetherby town centre is a conservation area, and so are Boston Spa, Thorp Arch, Linton, Collingham and Bramham. Under section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 a tree in one, with a trunk more than 75mm across measured 1.5m off the ground, is protected in its own right. The council must be given six weeks of written notice before it is cut, topped, lopped or felled, and can use those six weeks to place a Tree Preservation Order on it instead. Starting without that notice is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine.
The rules do allow for a tree that is dead or an immediate danger, although even then the council has to be told in writing five working days ahead. One local wrinkle matters too, because the county boundary runs straight past the town. Wetherby and the villages along the Wharfe answer to Leeds City Council, while Kirk Deighton half a mile north and Sicklinghall are in North Yorkshire, so the notice goes elsewhere. Karen tells you which council it goes to and what the notice needs, then works to BS 3998 with ropes and rigging rather than ladders. Details are on our tree surgery page and our hedge cutting page.
Shop fronts, pub gardens and the trade a market town brings
Wetherby has been a trading town since 1240, when the Knights Templar were granted the right by Henry III to hold a Thursday market, and it still runs on a Thursday around the Town Hall. Add the racecourse, on its ground off York Road since 1891 and staging Flat fixtures alongside the jumps since April 2015, and the Thorp Arch estate three miles south east, and there is far more commercial frontage here than in most towns of the size.
Commercial premises are what Karen does most. Restaurants, bars, cafes and pubs lead it, along with shops and shop fronts, showrooms, care homes and schools. Planting at the front of a business is judged the moment somebody walks past it, so it is kept on a schedule and visits work around opening hours. Contracts are on our grounds maintenance page, planting round an outdoor bar or covered seating on the outdoor bar and BBQ planting page, and reception displays on the indoor planting page.
More about Wetherby
The Wharfe, the Ings and the cold corner of the garden
Wetherby is where it is because of the river. The town stands on the River Wharfe, and Wetherby Bridge carries the old crossing. The Ings, the water meadows on both banks which held the racecourse before it moved in 1891, still flood when the river comes up. Gardens on that low ground behave nothing like the ones higher up: sharp and dry on the limestone at the top of the town, heavy and slow at the bottom. Cold air behaves the same way, running downhill and settling in the valley bottom, so a plot near the Ings takes a late frost that a garden on the ridge shrugs off, which is worth knowing before an early flowering magnolia goes in at the wrong end of it.
A town that already sets the standard, and getting to it
Wetherby has its own volunteer group, Wetherby in Bloom, running since 1989. It is those volunteers, not Hocus Crocus, who won Britain in Bloom for the town in 1998, took an Entente Florale gold award in 1999 and put as many as 250 hanging baskets kept planted and watered each summer. Their work quietly raises what a front garden here is expected to look like. Helpfully, limestone is exactly the soil lavender, box and dianthus want. Harrogate and Knaresborough sit between us and Wetherby, so a visit here usually joins a round we are already doing. Every town and village we work in is on our areas we cover page.
Before and after
Jobs we have finished
Karen's own photographs from recent jobs.
Other towns we cover
- Harrogate
- Killinghall
- Knaresborough
- Hampsthwaite and Birstwith
- Boroughbridge
- Ripon
- Summerbridge
- Every area we cover
- Boston Spa
- Thorp Arch
- Clifford
- Bramham
- Collingham
- Linton
- Sicklinghall
- Kirk Deighton
- Walton
Not answered here? Call Karen on 07816 779 064.
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