Aiden Jay Taylor has come to the aid of the East Riding pensioner – and you can lend a hand too
The East Yorkshire garden that landscaper Aiden Jay Taylor has set about transforming for an elderly resident(Image: Aiden Jay Taylor)
A Hull landscaper’s heart has been melted by the plight of an elderly customer who was struggling with her large and overgrown garden. Aiden Jay Taylor was booked to clear bushes and dig out roots at an address in East Yorkshire, after he had been working to replace a gate at a neighbouring house.
When he arrived at the property, Aiden said: “Instantly my heart strings were pulled. The customer was an 80-year-old lady living on her own.”
Her garden turned out to be a veritable jungle which was impossible for the householder to access. As she was “unsteady on her feet” it would have been unsafe for her to do so, said Aiden, who has been running his small landscaping company, Kingstown Landscapes, based in west Hull for about two years.
“She wasn’t able to get out in her garden to put her washing out. Clearing the bushes was the big thing – she said someone had tried to give it a go about two years ago but it was too much to tackle.”
Aiden decided to set up a GoFundMe appeal asking people if they could “help us make an elderly lady’s dream come true”. He said on his appeal page: “I thought to myself, ‘how can you charge this lady any money for this job?’.
View of the overgrown garden before…(Image: Aiden Jay Taylor)
… and after(Image: Aiden Jay Taylor)
“What I got to thinking first was, I really wish I was in a financial situation where I could pay for this myself, but at the moment I’m not. So the next thought was, community spirit, and how can we help?”
The cost of the main work, to clear the garden, has been costed by Aiden at about £850. The GoFundMe has already generated almost £500 towards a £1.2k goal which would also give the pensioner some grass.
Aiden said while plenty of offers of free labour had been forthcoming, which was “kind”, he felt “a bit paranoid about that” and did not want to arrange for strangers to be arriving at the property. Instead he asked for donations that he hopes will be enough to cover the work done – a membrane has now been laid so the garden is a “fresh canvas” – and to at least give the resident a lawn.
“Any funds raised will be going back to the customer as a reimbursement and to fund any grass rolls and top soil, so she has a garden,” he said. “This lady may have a million pounds in the bank or a hundred pounds.
“I’m not judging. All I see is a lady who wants a nice garden, because she is too old to do it herself, and I don’t want her to have to pay for it. Elderly people have served this country already.
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“I don’t want to disrespect the lady, or any of her family members who see this appeal page. I’m not doing this as charity, I’m doing this because I want to.”
Any extra raised over the amount needed for the work will go towards possibly giving the resident what she wants, such as fencing, a little patio or a bench, Aiden said. “If we go over our target, the extra money will be given to her to pay for a regular garden maintenance man who can do a cut for her fortnightly/monthly.”
Aiden created a public Facebook post where he has been updating followers on the progress of the job. He said: “One guy who I do know, Phil Hardy of Elemental Creations, came down with a strimmer with a mulching blade on it.
“We must have had a pile of greenery as big as a single-decker bus and he brought it down to the size of a car. We had it reduced down to only six bulk bags and the main thing is he did not charge a penny to take them away.”
Aiden said: “The lady was just so happy at having the garden cleared. I did suggest gravel to her but because she has difficulty moving about, she didn’t want that – and she does like grass.
“She said to me, ‘why are people giving me money, I don’t know people around here?’ I told her it was just a gesture and she was so shocked.”
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