LANDSCAPER IN HEMEL HEMPSTEAD

Hemel is one of our busiest patches. Our office is in Berkhamsted, a few minutes up the valley, and our yard is at Cholesbury, so we’re in Hemel most weeks.

We do the whole job — clear it, design it, build it. Connor is an NPTC-qualified arborist as well as a landscaper, so a garden needing a conifer row taking out, the ground levelling and a patio laying is one team and one price, not three.

Why Hemel gardens are different

Clay, and what it does to you

Most of the town sits on heavy clay in the Gade and Bulbourne valleys. Clay holds water. In practice that means a garden that is sodden from November to March, moss taking over the lawn, and rainwater sitting on a new patio instead of soaking away.

It also moves — clay shrinks in a dry summer and swells in a wet winter, which is why patios laid on a thin bed crack and why retaining walls without proper foundations start leaning. Anything we build here goes on footings that account for it.

You cannot change clay, but you can work with it: break up the compaction, improve it, and give the water somewhere to go. A soakaway or a land drain is often the single best thing you can spend money on in a Hemel garden, and it is invisible when it is done.

Thin soil over rubble

The town was largely built in one go after the war, and the estates — Adeyfield, Bennetts End, Grovehill, Warners End, Chaulden, Highfield, Woodhall Farm — mostly got a skim of topsoil spread over whatever the builders left. Dig 150mm anywhere on those estates and you tend to find brick, mortar and hardcore.

This is why so many lawns here never really established: there is nothing for grass to root into. Laying fresh turf on top does not fix it. Getting the rubble out and bringing in proper topsoil to a real depth does, permanently.

Long, narrow gardens — but decent access

The post-war estates have long thin plots, which suits being broken into zones rather than left as one corridor of grass. The good news compared with the Victorian terraces in Berkhamsted and Chesham is that most Hemel houses have a proper side gate, so a machine can get round the back. Jobs here often run quicker and cost less as a result.

The Old Town, Boxmoor and Felden

Different again. The Old Town High Street is a conservation area, and Boxmoor, Felden and Nash Mills have older, larger properties with mature trees — oak, beech, lime — a good number of them protected. Those gardens are more likely to need tree work designed in from the start, and permission from Dacorum Borough Council before anything is touched. See protected trees.

Leylandii

Hemel has more overgrown leyland cypress than anywhere else on our patch — planted as a quick screen in the seventies and eighties and now thirty feet tall, taking all the light and all the water out of the ground. Removing a row transforms a garden. Worth knowing: cut leylandii will not regrow from bare brown wood, so it cannot be reduced back hard and recovered. It is either kept trimmed within its green growth or taken out.

What we do in Hemel

• New lawns and drainage — the most-asked-for job here, and the one where preparation is everything
• Patios and paving — laid to falls with somewhere for the water to actually go
• Driveways — permeable build-ups work particularly well on clay
• Fencing — posts set deep, because clay moves
• Garden clearance — overgrown plots, probate properties, end of tenancy
• Tree removal — leylandii rows especially, with the stumps ground out
• Garden design — zoning a long narrow plot into something that works

Where we work

Across Hemel — the Old Town, Highfield, Adeyfield, Bennetts End, Chaulden, Warners End, Gadebridge, Grovehill, Woodhall Farm, Leverstock Green, Boxmoor, Apsley, Nash Mills and Felden — plus Bovingdon, Kings Langley and Potten End.

We’re also regularly in Berkhamsted, a few minutes up the valley, and back in Chesham.

How we work

• Free site visit. We walk the garden with you, talk it through, sketch a rough plan on the spot and take measurements
• Detailed written quotation within 48 hours. Itemised, so you can see what each part costs and leave out anything you’d rather not do yet
• We build it on agreed dates, with our own team doing the clearing, groundwork and construction
• Everything goes. We’re licensed waste carriers, so the spoil and arisings leave legally and the paperwork exists

We don’t put prices on the website. The same job on a flat plot with a drive to the back, and on a sloping garden you can only reach through the house, are genuinely different jobs — any figure here would be a guess. The visit is free and gets you a real number.

Common questions

QUESTIONS WE GET ASKED

My garden is waterlogged all winter. Can that be fixed?

Usually, yes. Hemel sits on heavy clay, so the water has nowhere to go — the answer is drainage rather than anything you do to the surface. A land drain or a soakaway, plus breaking up the compacted layer and improving the soil, is what actually changes it. It is invisible once done, and it is the best money most Hemel gardens can spend.

Why did my new lawn never take?

Almost always because there is only a skim of topsoil over builders’ rubble — very common across the post-war estates. The grass has nothing to root into. Laying more turf on top does not help; getting the rubble out and bringing in proper topsoil at a real depth does, and then it stays fixed.

Can you get rid of a row of leylandii?

Yes, and it usually transforms the garden — light back, and the ground stops being bone dry. Worth knowing they cannot be cut back hard and recovered: leylandii will not regrow from bare brown wood, so the honest choice is keeping them trimmed within the green or taking them out. We grind the stumps too, which matters if anything is going on that ground afterwards.

Will a patio just sit in a puddle on clay?

Not if it is built properly. It needs laying to a fall so the water runs off, and somewhere for that water to go — a channel drain to a soakaway rather than a hopeful slope towards a border. On clay that is part of the job, not an extra.

Do I need permission for tree work in Hemel?

In the Old Town conservation area, and anywhere there is a Tree Preservation Order — which covers a lot of the mature trees around Boxmoor and Felden — yes. Permission comes from Dacorum Borough Council and takes six to eight weeks. We check for free before quoting and do the paperwork ourselves.

Is access a problem?

Usually less than in Berkhamsted or Chesham — most Hemel houses have a side gate wide enough to get a machine round the back, which makes jobs quicker and cheaper. We check at the visit either way.