Six services, one person
Pruning, hedge trimming, felling, maintenance, mowing, brush clearing: everything that grows around your house, handled by the same person.
Six services is not six trades: it is one trade, divided up according to what people ask for. A private garden in the Rhône valley almost always calls for the same handful of moves — bringing down what has grown too tall, holding back what is spreading, opening up what is closing in, and taking away what has been cut.
What changes from job to job is not the technique, it is the constraint: the height, what sits underneath, the access, the season. That is why one twenty-metre hedge can cost four times another twenty-metre hedge, and it is what this page sets out to make legible before you ask for a quote.
Tree pruning
Reducing, thinning or reshaping a tree safely, without damaging it.
Hedge trimming
A clean, straight hedge at the height you want — and the clippings taken away.
Tree felling
A dead, dangerous or too-close tree: controlled felling and stump removal.
Garden maintenance
Regular visits so your grounds stay tidy all year.
Lawn mowing
Mowing, edge finishing, clippings collected. One-off or all season.
Brush clearing
Overgrown ground, or a legal clearance obligation: back to a clean slate.
Where to start
Nobody searches for “pruning”: they search for “a branch is touching my roof”. Here is the service that answers each situation.
- A branch is touching the roof, or rubbing the wall
- Tree pruning
- The tree shades the whole terrace
- Tree pruning
- A branch came down after a spell of mistral
- Tree pruning
- The hedge is over the pavement or into next door
- Hedge trimming
- The hedge has grown beyond reach
- Hedge trimming
- The tree is dead, split, or too close to the house
- Tree felling
- The stump is in the way of replanting or mowing
- Tree felling
- The council has written about brush clearance
- Brush clearing
- The plot has gone over to bramble, reed or scrub
- Brush clearing
- The grass grows faster than I can cut it
- Lawn mowing
- I am selling the house and the garden has to look right
- Garden maintenance
- I no longer have the time, or the inclination, to keep it up
- Garden maintenance
What each service costs, and why it varies
None of the six is priced by the hour. Each has its own unit, and one item that weighs more than all the others put together.
| Service | Counted | What moves the price |
|---|---|---|
| Tree pruning | Per tree | Access: a vehicle at the foot of the tree, or an eighty-centimetre gate. |
| Hedge trimming | Per linear metre | Height and number of faces — for the same length, the price multiplies by four. |
| Tree felling | Per tree, stump priced apart | What surrounds it: a roof, a power line, a pool. Almost never the height. |
| Garden maintenance | Per visit, or a yearly rate | The starting state: a garden kept up and one reclaimed after three years differ threefold. |
| Lawn mowing | Per square metre, with a floor | The area, but above all the obstacles to work round and the edges done by hand. |
| Brush clearing | Per are, or a flat rate | Density and slope: dry bramble and green reed do not cut at the same rate. |
This table describes how the work is priced, not a rate card: no range is shown until it has been confirmed. Each service page sets out what the quote covers, item by item.
Tax credit: which services qualify, and which do not
Most sites in this trade display “50% tax credit” across every service they offer. That is not true, and it can be checked: the French home-services scheme covers light garden work, not tree surgery.
| Service | 50% tax credit |
|---|---|
| Tree pruning | Only from the ground |
| Hedge trimming | Yes — light garden work |
| Tree felling | No — forestry work |
| Garden maintenance | Yes — light garden work |
| Lawn mowing | Yes — light garden work |
| Brush clearing | Yes — light garden work |
The ceiling for light garden work is set by decree and counted per household per year, materials included. Pruning qualifies only while it is done from the ground; the moment anyone climbs, it becomes tree surgery and falls outside. Felling never qualifies.
The tax credit requires a business registered under the personal services scheme. Ask Josué where that registration stands when he quotes: it changes what the work finally costs you, and he will tell you straight.
A job rarely calls for only one service
A hedge brought back down in height leaves an overgrown base that has to be cleared, and the volume cut has to leave the property. A felled tree frees up ground that becomes mowable again. Statutory brush clearance stops two metres below the low branches: anything above that is pruning.
That is why the quote is drawn up on site and as a whole, rather than service by service. One visit that settles three things costs less than three visits — and you keep the option of taking a line out.
Josué travels up to 30 km from Lapalud. Check the towns covered around Lapalud — Vaucluse, Drôme, Gard and Ardèche.
Where Josué travels
The journey, the ground and the regulations change from one town to the next. Six of them have a page of their own.
A tree, a hedge, a plot: tell us what you have.
The visit, the on-site assessment and the written quote are free and commit you to nothing.