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Nah, no need Tagalog, go for pidgin. Although it takes years to get it right and some never do.
I try not to hire mainland people for landscapers, lawn care or anything else to do with plants. Things are too different here and until they've been here long enough to figure it out, I don't want to be part of their learning curve. I had a small tree I wanted removed and the guy was from the mainland and cut it down to ground level. What good is that going to do and now there's no trunk to use to lever out the roots. Does he really think cutting it down is gonna kill it? Now it's more of a problem than at the start. That was cut down ten days ago and it's already sprouting back up. Sigh! Guess next time I'll do it myself.
Same with the Guinea grass. I don't want that mowed, I want it dug up. Takes a pick ax, but done once and done well it's done. Just mowed, it's mowed way too often.
We have a lawn care service for the rental house that runs about $50 a month. They come past once a week to look at it and if it needs anything they fix it otherwise they come back the next week. They have a lot of clients in that neighborhood or they'd probably spend too much time on gas going around checking on things.
Going rate for this type of work on the East side of the Big Island is $15/hour. That's assuming the buyer of said services isn't requesting things like proof of insurance or trying to pay with a credit card. That is also the default rate for good, unlicensed "handyman" type jobs.
I don't know what licensed, insured, tax-paying companies charge, but ^^there's your starting point for gray-market services.
Good thing the cost-of-living matches the low rate of pay... oh wait it doesn’t!
"Does he really think cutting it down is gonna kill it?"
Drill a hole in it and fill hole with Milestone. It will die. A teaspoon will probably do it, use a tablespoon if you're unsure. It's also good for killing bananas with bunchy top virus because you can put a drop in one of the bananas and every banana on that rhizome will die too.
Yipes! $100 for it, well, I'll just dig up the roots, it wasn't that big of a tree. Not sure if I want that ferocious of a poison around and the tree is in the raised bed vegetable garden. The renters didn't do any gardening and they'd been there for three years so it's three years worth of Guinea grass and that annatto tree in the garden. They did RoundUP the Guinea grass before they left, though. That's enough poison on one poor garden.
I suppose a garden service would have that type of poison and it probably wouldn't take a whole lot to do in a tree, although it just seems ferociously poisonous. Although, it would also be one more cost of doing business.
I didn't check to see if they'd even ship the stuff to Hawaii, the price was too high to investigate further.
Lots of competition, but I'm sure you could find some work, BUT only if you are doing it as an individual, if you need to hire people you will probably run into problems. Lots of paperwork, WC and taxes.
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"I didn't check to see if they'd even ship the stuff to Hawaii, the price was too high to investigate further."
Yeah it's steep for sure, but I justified it by telling myself it's a "lifetime supply". I'm probably down to half bottle, but that's most because of sharing it with neighbors.
I pay 675 a month for just 2 visits to mow my 2.25 acres.
Another 1250 a month to do 5 acres; again two visits a month.
You can make some good money, the market is flooded but once you are in and do a good job you are set.
A good gardener will get stolen by others when they see you do good work.
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