A mown lawn and beech hedge looking out to the North Downs

Your gardener in Dorking

Garden care for Dorking’s sandy hills, clay valley and chalk slopes, by a family-run Horley firm.

Looking for a gardener in Dorking? We’re F. Nutton & Son’s, a family-run garden maintenance business based in Horley, about eight miles east, and we’ve been at it since 2004. Dorking is a town where the soil changes within a few streets, and that shapes nearly everything we do here.

The Deepdene and the Nower are greensand hills, and Glory Wood, the highest point in town, sits on the same sandstone. Along the north bank of the Pipp Brook runs a band of dark Gault clay, and beyond it the chalk climbs towards Ranmore and Box Hill, where Denbies grows England’s largest vineyard. So a sandy lawn on one side of Dorking can be bone dry while a clay one a mile away is too wet to walk on.

Housing is just as mixed. Rose Hill, laid out around The Oval from 1831, was the town’s first planned estate. The Deepdene roads followed in the 1920s and 30s, Chart Downs straight after the war, and Goodwyns in the late 1950s and 60s. Old gardens with mature hedges sit a short walk from tidy post-war lawns.

Garden services in Dorking.

Tall yew hedge cut flat around an arched gate

What people in Dorking usually ask us for

Most want regular maintenance, often fortnightly: mowing, edging, border weeding and hedge work through the year, and the leaves cleared every autumn. That last job is bigger here than in a lot of towns, because woodland presses up against Dorking on several sides. Lawns come up a lot too: clay ones stay wet long after rain, sandy ones brown early, and each wants cutting in its own way. Main hedge cuts are planned for September to February, outside the nesting season, and we take every clipping away.

Commercial grounds across the town

Dorking’s commercial side is compact. Offices and units cluster along Station Road, including Dorking Office Park and the Dorking Business Park on the old gasworks site. Around them are schools, care homes, hotels, pubs and churches, with St Martin’s spire standing over the centre and a conservation area covering about 47 hectares of the old town. Commercial clients get a written yearly schedule and a fixed price, billed monthly or quarterly, with insurance certificates on request.

Grounds maintenance for Dorking businesses.

Annual contracts for blocks, offices, schools, care homes, churches and landlords.

Gardening in Dorking: your questions

Anything else, just ring. You’ll speak to the people who do the work.

Is Dorking inside your area?

Yes. We cover about 15 miles round Horley, and Dorking sits comfortably within that, along with Brockham, Westcott and Pixham. Being eight miles away means we can still pick a dry day for your lawn rather than a fixed slot.

Can you work on gardens in the Dorking Conservation Area?

Yes. Everyday garden work like mowing, weeding and hedge trimming carries on as normal. Trees are different: work to them in the conservation area needs six weeks’ notice to the council, and it’s a job for an arborist, so we stick to lawns, hedges, shrubs and borders.

How do I get a quote?

Ring 07720 886244, Monday to Saturday between 7am and 6pm. We’ll come out, walk the garden with you and give you a fixed price for free. What it comes to depends on size, access and how often you’d like us.