What Hackney gardens are like
Hackney has a bit of everything. Long thin Victorian plots off Graham Road and around London Fields, some of them still with the old fruit trees. Post-war estates with communal greens that the council mows but nobody edges. Converted houses where the garden belongs to three flats and gets looked after by none of them. New-builds around Hackney Wick and Homerton with a small courtyard, a few raised beds and a lot of decking that’s gone green.
Clapton and the streets near the Marshes have some of the bigger gardens in the borough, and the ones that go feral fastest — bramble, bindweed and sycamore seedlings move in over one wet summer.
What we do here
- Regular maintenance — the weekly or fortnightly round. Mow, edge, weed, deadhead, sweep, bins area tidied. Small courtyards are often a monthly visit.
- Hedges — privet and laurel mostly, plus the front-garden box that’s outgrown its shape. Reduced, shaped, cleared up after. We work around bird-nesting season.
- Lawns — the shaded, trampled, dog-worn lawns of E8 are a speciality. Scarify, aerate, overseed, feed; then a mowing rhythm that keeps it.
- Clearance — for the just-moved-in jungle or the garden that got away during a busy year. Cut back, dug out where it matters, taken away, and a plan for after.
Practical things
Most gardens are through the house, so we bring kit that fits and put sheets down. Communal gardens: tell us who’s paying and who has the key and we’ll take it from there. Green waste leaves with us.