"I'm amazed you carried on buying them after the first 2 broke....one breakage you can put down to bad luck but a second one shows its just not up to the job you're giving it!! I wonder if you might be giving the tools a bit of a hard time…"

"I can't help wondering if you reduced your "profit margin" on every job to a more realistic and perhaps fairer figure, you wouldn't have to spend 10% of your turnover on advertising!! and "

"Something I've always dreaded as I fear my records a few years back, weren't so good as now. They're keen working on a Sunday?"

"Completely agree with you there briggsandscrapem......as you say though,keep it to the more longstanding employees. It helps create a good relationship with the staff which is worth a lot. Worth making it clear though that if they lose/break…"

"I'd try a servicing kit that replaces all the parts that can cause problems..... while its completely dismantled, blow through with compressed air. If that fails, you can get a replacement carb for about £50 which will sort out the…"

"Does the housing association expect you to do a full days works for 2 men during the winter or just carry out work as necessary which as briggsand scrapem says, may well be just be a litter pick. If that is the case, I would have thought £250…"

"Unfortunately, its not just gardeners that have this problem... my son went through uni with a good science degree and he could only get a job in a lab on minimum wage. With high unemployment, employers are able to exploit people"

"I think we really shouldn't take garden maintenance quite so seriously!!. We need to appreciate that times are hard and customers often need to cut back...... the truth is that a lot of customers really don't care if whats being done is…"

"For tight customers that that are thinking of switching from fortnightly to 3 weekly, I give them a free application of lawn fertilizer......... they soon realise they need it done fortnightly!!"

"I think this is a good case for doing the servicing yourself in those quieter winter months when there's snow on the ground and not much else to do other than watch the Jeremy Kyle show!!.......My Kaaz has been going for about 8 years now and…"

"I used to have this hectic business where work was scheduled in for every available hour, monday-friday. To be honest, it was a bit of a nightmare!!..... I was always slightly behind... customers that I wanted to visit fortnightly would often end up…"

"Over the years, I've only ever distributed about 20 "flyers" and got about 30% take up for regular maintenance! I used to help my daughter wuith her paperround and noticed a few really rough gardens..... just put the flyer in those…"

"I don't think a "one off" back strain is cause for any worry about future problems...... if it happens regularly, I'd be concerned. Over many years, I've strained my back several times, to the point I could hardly…"

"All too often,with these sort of "competitions", everyone who enters is a "winner"! As the saying goes.... a spratt to catch a mackerel. The hope is that you'll be so impressed with the ad, you'll pay for it after the 2…"

"I remember years ag, when I worked for the council, we tried growth retardant on some of the verges......... perhaps they've improved them now but the problem was that the weeds ept growing at the normal rate so the whole thing looked rough. On…"

"last year, I did one old lady's grass for £4!..... I had loads of small gardens in a block, so was quite lucrative and hers literally took 2 minutes... I also got a nice cup of tea and biscuits!!"