Landscaper in March, Cambridgeshire

Sawyer's Home & Garden works out of Station Road, March, so this is not a town we visit. It is the town we are from. When you call about a garden, a drive or a bathroom, you are talking to a firm that is a few minutes away, not one dispatching a van from Peterborough or Cambridge.

March sits on one of the fen islands, raised above the surrounding levels by the March Gravels, with the Old River Nene running straight through the middle of the town. That single geological fact shapes almost every job we price here, because it means March is not one ground type but two.

The ground under March

Across the older core of the town you are usually working on gravel. Gravel is the best ground in the Fens: it drains, it carries weight, and a patio or drive built on it will sit where you put it. Sub-base depths can be sensible, post holes stay open while you work, and falls behave predictably.

Move outwards, towards Westry, the bypass and the fen edge, and the gravel thins and peat takes over. Peat behaves completely differently. It holds water, then shrinks as it dries, so ground that looked solid in February can drop away by August. On those plots we dig deeper, compact harder and set posts lower, because the alternative is a drive that dishes and a fence that leans within two seasons.

Nobody can tell which of the two you have from the pavement. That is the main reason our quote starts with a free site visit rather than a price over the phone.

March homes we work on

The town's housing runs from period property in the conservation area near the river and around St Wendreda's, through long runs of Victorian and Edwardian brick terraces, out to post-war and modern estates on the edges. Each brings its own constraints.

Older March houses often have no side access wide enough for a machine, so spoil and materials come through the house or over a neighbour's ground, and that has to be planned rather than discovered on day one. Terraces frequently share boundaries where a new fence or wall needs the neighbour on side before we start. Newer estates usually have the access but come with tighter plots and, on some developments, drainage conditions attached to the original planning.

Getting to you in March

Because we are based in the town, a free site visit in March usually happens within the same week you ring, and there is no travel charge on anything inside the town. It also means that if something needs looking at after we have finished, we are not making a special journey to come back.

What we get asked for most in March

Driveways are the single most common enquiry we take in the town, and it is easy to see why: a lot of March housing was built before two cars per household was normal, so front gardens are being converted to parking. On the gravel that is a clean job. Nearer the fen edge it needs a deeper dig and a proper drainage plan, because the ground will not simply absorb the run-off.

After that it is patios and full garden re-landscapes, usually on Victorian and Edwardian plots where the garden has been left alone for years and needs clearing before anything can be designed. Turfing comes up constantly, and honestly a good proportion of the lawns we are asked to replace do not need replacing, they need the ground underneath them opening up and improving first.

Indoors, bathrooms are the bulk of it. Older March houses often have a small original bathroom that can be reworked into something considerably better without extending, and because we do the tiling and the making-good ourselves it stays one job with one price rather than three trades and three invoices.

Working through the year in March

Hard landscaping runs all year here, but it does not run identically. Between roughly November and February the ground is wet, spoil is heavier to move, and an open excavation on the fen-edge plots can take on water overnight. That does not stop the work, it just means it takes longer and needs more care, and we would rather say that than pretend the seasons make no difference.

Spring and early summer are the busiest months by a distance, so if you want a large garden project finished before summer, the sensible time to get us out for a quote is late winter rather than May. Planting is the reverse: autumn is genuinely the better time to put plants in, because the soil is still warm and roots get months to establish before they have to support new growth.

Planning and permissions in March

March falls under Fenland District Council. For most garden work you are within permitted development and there is nothing to apply for, but three things come up often enough to mention. New hard surfaces at the front generally need to be permeable or drain to somewhere inside your own boundary. Fences and walls have height limits, lower where they front a highway. And anything in the conservation area near the river, or attached to a listed building, is a different conversation entirely.

We are not a planning consultancy and we will not pretend otherwise, but we will tell you at the quote stage if we think your job needs consent, so you find out before you have paid anyone rather than after.