A gardener has revealed the common mistake Australians are making in their backyards, costing them clean-up bills in the thousands.
Gardening business owner Santiago Rodriguez told Yahoo News that while everyone is busy, maintaining the garden is often the first household chore to fall by the wayside. The result is overgrown plants and trees, which can lead to clean-up costs piling up.
“The worst mistake you can make is letting your garden get overgrown,” he told Yahoo News.
“It becomes very expensive to get it under control.”
It’s not just paying for the time of a team to clean up the garden that is costing homeowners, but also the council tip fees, which, depending on the size of the garden, can total over “a couple of thousand”.
This week, 22-year-old Santiago, who started his gardening business, The Gleamin Roo, just last year, said he’s seen firsthand residents get caught out by costly gardening bills after months of neglect.
“Neglect the garden, and you’re going to have to get ready to pay a big bill to get it under control,” he warned.
He said this happened at a recent job in the Sydney suburb of Oatlands, where a client didn’t have time to take care of his garden.
He said by the time he was called in, it was a “big bill” to remove all of the waste, and it took nearly a week to get rid of all of the overgrown foliage.
Gardener’s battle with 100kg shrub
This week, Santiago filmed himself using his van to pull a 100kg shrub out of the ground at a resident’s home. The two-day gardening job cost the homeowner $1,500. He said it wasn’t even the worst backyard he’s seen.
The video has been viewed millions of times on Instagram and TikTok.
“This was just a normal garden clean-up. I didn’t want to spend time wasting digging, so I decided to tie it to the tow bar and just go for it,” he explained.
Santiago said it would have taken “hours of cutting all of the roots” to get it out.
The business owner, who only started operating in July last year, said he’s busier than ever after the recent wet weather.
“Everything grows so quickly at the moment,” he explained.
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