Although this is not a question related to plants, I hope someone may be able to help.
I’m a self employed gardener in Surrey and work on a basis of charging an hourly rate.
Each of my customers have a date/time on my schedule.
Most of them are fine, but I have one who regularly ‘puts me off’ by saying that it’s too cold or wet to work, even when I point out things that genuinely need doing and won’t harm the garden. The consequence is that I don’t get paid.
In the past, I have been willing to re-schedule, by missing another customer, but increasingly don’t want to do this as it’s not fair on them.
I’m interested to know how other gardeners charge for their services.
I know that many have more formal arrangements with clients through contracts/agreements, but how are these specified ? – do they list the things that will be done in the garden and at which times e.g. – cut the lawn fortnightly from March to end of Oct, edge the lawn once a month, cut the bushes “at the appropriate time”, prune the trees in winter etc ?
You may be a gardener yourself who has encountered this, or know people with gardeners.
Any help would be appreciated, Thanks