Gardening

The Committee have been investigating the best way to keep Mi Sol neat and tidy with regard to the employment of Gardeners. Everyone agrees that Mi Sol is too much for one Gardener to cope with on their own. It costs about Euro 12000 per year to employ one gardener, plus having to employ an Accountant to deal with the Social security payments, insurance etc.

It was decided to investigate the possibility of employing a Company on a contract basis, the feeling being that it would be better to have the Park given a thorough clean up two or three times a year, rather than employ one Gardener trying to cope on his own. The key here would be the cost.
Several Companies were approached with a view to acquiring at least three estimates. In the event only one Company put forward a quotation, which was discussed at the Committee meeting on the 20Th November.

Essentially the quote was in three phases. The first phase was to strim, weed and apply weed killer, and trim bushes throughout the Park at a cost of Euro 4500.

The second phase was to prune all the trees, which again was quoted at Euro 4500.

The third phase would be to again prune bushes, clear all areas that had been previously been sprayed with weed killer, and generally tidy up the whole site. This quote was for Euro 3600. As you can see this cost is fairly comparable with employing one Gardener full time.

Fundamental to the thinking of the Committee was that the common garden areas should be made almost maintenance free by either covering the ground with plastic and gravel, or planting "ground cover " plants or using the chippings from the tree cutting as a mulch to inhibit the growth of weeds.

Given that there were no other quotes available to the Committee at that time, and that the Company had agreed to wait until January to be paid, it was decided to to go ahead with phase one to see how the Contractors performed, before committing ourselves to the other phases of the work.

However in the period between that meeting and the last one on December 4Th, we received a quotation from the former Gardener Steve Foley, his quotation was also for phase one, the price being Euro 4380. During this period we also received bad news on the financial front, effectively reducing our Bank balance by over Euro 3500. In addition we still have no idea how much it is going to cost to repair the swimming Pool. ( More on this subject in a later post)

In light of this it was decided to defer employing any contractors until the subject has been discussed again in January. I have spoken to the contractors and explained this to them.

It is important we keep on top of the gardening, and improve on it all the time, however it is more important to pay the utility bills first. I am not happy for the Community to be committed to spending money that is not actually in the Bank to spend.