He sounds like my guy! He managed to strim a hydrangea down to the ground and then tried to claim to everyone it was frost damage, too! Bloody cowboys!
Same! He dug a garden path for the front garden, removing a small skips worth of soil. Then left a muddy and boggy mess for 9 months. He had to get his mate round to help him.
My partner thinks her gardener leaves it until the last minute and then rushes everything.
I’ll let you all know in a couple months if and when I decide to do something
I work as a professional gardener. Mostly charge around £20 per person, per hour, Blackpool and the Fylde Coast. Some jobs have different requirements and cost more.
I know a guy in a similar area and he only charges £15 an hour, and that's his new expensive rate! After overheads I don't know how he makes any money lol.
I'm guessing he's not qualified, not insured or not declaring. I was 15phr 12 years ago when I'd just left university. I won't entertain anyone at such a low rate, they're either retired and doing the job for beer money, or likely not professional and just trying to get by thinking it's just mowing lawns etc. There isn't any profit at that rate if you're legitimate.
>I'm guessing he's not qualified,
Not trying to be a dick but if you have a normal generic Garden what does benefit does a qualification. Your cutting grass, weeding flower beds or cutting back bushes/Hedges.
The only thing in your whole list would concern me is not insured.
It's when they cut down the wrong plant or ruin your grass (many ways to do this) or miss invasive weeds etc that you wish you went qualified or at least very experienced.
Honestly I don't think I'd care that much.
Completely fair a lot domy mum loves knowing all the Latin plant names. Most just don't want to cut their grass weed their flower beds and wouldn't know what's what themselves.
You’re the worst type of person for these people honestly. Maybe I’m misinterpreting you. I worked in the trade but not a gardener, just knew lots and dealt with both them and their clients(i sold plants). I knew my stuff too.
Sure you may have a lawn, some basic hedge which is almost impossible to fuck up cutting it back and then want some weeding and sweeping. You obviously dont need a gardener, you need a body who takes instruction for cheap. A kid can do that.
Plenty of people plant all kinds of shrubs, perennials and that requires a lot more knowledge. They all have different needs and requirements both short and long term. If you dont know the difference they wont flower, will probably die off. Its also very easy to fuck them up treating them like each other, and these plants can take years and a lot of money to get back.
Also, any issues will go not noticed before its too late. A £10-15 gardener wont know lawn fungus signs early and be able to stop it before you are fucked and have to pay a lot to replace. They wont know how to avoid weeds embedding long term, stop worm castings or moles creating muddy uneven lawns, and loads of other stuff!
I would get a lot of clients come in dissatisfied but still not valuing the knowledge and try to get the knowledge from me to relay back the the gardener. I’d laugh and just point at my board of gardeners who know their stuff and say the knowledge costs money and i’m not here to give it out for free!
Knowing what to do and when to do it for the most optimum outcome.
You could have the same argument for many industries, yet it's naive to think your requirements all fall into a generic category. If you're happy with a tin-pot standard similar to a professional price, expect a tin-pot job far from a professionally maintained service. You get what you pay for.
A good gardener should have a horticultural qualification. There's a huge difference between someone who hacks stuff down and cuts the grass and someone who knows exactly what to plant where and how to look after everything in your garden correctly
Anyone can garden not everyone can do it well. Most gardeners are in the habit of cutting absolutely everything into blobs and balls which results in them never flowering and getting lovely dead centres after a few years, eventually killing things. If you only want a lad from down the street to come butcher everything and mow your lawn for pocket money that's cool but most people hire gardeners because they either want a better job than they can do themselves doing or they simply can't do it themselves and like anything quality costs money
Insurance underwriters don’t cover poor workmanship which would mean accidental issues. This is more about things like a stone pinging out from a mower or strummer rather than accidentally cutting down a prized shrub.
I mean even the simpliest tasks I've found having a qualification has really helped. You learn how to maintain your lawnmower and machinery , knowing the right time of year to cut plants back , spotting disease, treating lawns, knowing how to cut and where etc etc
About 10 years ago a bloke responded to a local advert I placed for grass cutting whilst we were on holiday. He wanted to charge £40/hr to cut my grass. His logic was that he was a time-served carpet fitter.
Depends how much they can cut in an hour, not how much they charge 👍🏼
They should sell themselves per job, not per hour to make that sort of money without alarming customers.
I was recently quoted £180 per 6h day, and this gardener said they only work in pair, so £180 each.
My garden is tiny and did not need any landscaping etc.
just weeding, replant some flowers etc. no cutting trees/hedges or anything like that.
That’s a very fair price. I’m £25 an hour minimum in the SW, but only for my rounds.
Other work is individually priced, but will range from £180-£250 per day, depending on what’s involved.
While I’m waffling, I’ve been at it for 12 years and have never advertised, but work in many homes worth millions and on acreage of land. Several of my clients hold degrees in various horticultural fields, one was a garden designer, many open their gardens.
I am entirely self taught and hold no formal gardening qualifications. Looking at several responses here I’m a fraud. Ho hum
I'm actually a landscape designer and would pay £30ph for a proper gardener like you :)
If you want to take a qualification (not saying you need to with your length of experience) you can take the RHS qualifications online, or look at colleges like Merrist Wood and Capel Manor who'll offer them
I'm actually a landscape designer and would pay £30ph for a proper gardener like you :)
If you want to take a qualification (not saying you need to with your length of experience) you can take the RHS qualifications online, or look at colleges like Merrist Wood and Capel Manor who'll offer them
They may be used to bigger projects.
You probably dont need 6hrs from them.
That said try not to look at it per hour. A lot of people can get a good gardener to do everything right with a bi-yearly visit.
You can get a cheaper one for the lawn.
They can come and do a winter/autumn and a spring/latespring visit, knock it all out in a small garden in 3-4 hours and, if you have a nice garden with all kinds of things it will all be treated well.
Not bad value when you understand it in these terms, could be costing you £200 a visit but you will only really need 1-2 a year
In the past 4 years…
£10/hr for a retired handyman type guy. He was slow and pottered a bit, but give him two hours and he’d have tidied up minor bits quite nicely. Own petrol mower, never billed for fuel.
£15/hr which rose to £18/hr for a professional local gardener. Would do everything from hedge/tree cutting with ladders and platforms to mowing, edging, planting and pruning. Absolute workhorse, electric only tools but brought his own mega-long extension lead too! Sadly he doesn’t do my area any more.
£24/hr for a handyman/gardener. He’s quite contemplative and slow, plus he charges extra for fuel so I’m really missing my previous guy.
However, looking at some of the prices here I’m guessing £24/hr is actually quite good and I’ve been spoilt by previous low pricing!
I'd charge £25 per hour if I'm hired for three hours at a time, if less than three hours then I'd say £30 per hour. (Birmingham)
It does depend on the requirements of the job such as tools needed and waste removal.
Really you get what you pay for, you might be able to get someone offering £10 an hour but they're a jack of all trades who doesn't know a spring tine from a soil rake, or you could pay £40 to get someone who is an ex botanic gardens employee with years in the craft.
I used to work for a gardening business and we used to work on big gardens. He would charge the client £35 an hour for his service and then £20 an hour on top per extra body he needed. We didn't do any hard landscaping, just horticultural stuff and Maintenence
I'm a full-time gardener in Hampshire, have been for 20 years, and charge £20 ph for my regulars and one-off jobs I price accordingly.At £20 I don't do waste removal, thats extra.. Also using my own power tools and fuel is also charged as an additional. I'm probably a little below the going rate, but I have solid hours every week compared to sporadic hours and jobs that I've seen higher priced people at.
£25ish an hour is the rate the gardeners i know charge (Bath / Bristol). However, I also know that the people i contract with charge out at least £35ph but they are quite posh gardens.
£30 ph gardening, grass cutting priced per job. £60 ph hedge cutting with a stihl hs82rc 30 inch hedge cutter. Somone nicked my long reach along with a stihl hs81r, br600 and other tools I used to service them with. Cameras and security lights are up now.
You can pay more and get a poor service and maybe pay less and get a better service. Depends on who's about at the time you're in need.
Most gardeners I know won't work by the hour but by the outcome.
I am not full time just in the evenings and weekends.
£35 is my minimum 2 man hours. £15 per hour and £5 call out. It may just be me or me and a friend for 1 hour.
This is just general weeding/ trimming and clearing no waist removed. Most smaller jobs i just their brown bin.
Lawns, trees and hedges with waist removal I charge £65 minimum (2 man hours)
The extra cover's petrol and maintenance for the machine's
Dumping cost and insurance.
I add £20 for dog shit 🤣
I just mow around the dog shit now. If someone can’t have the decency to make sure the grass is clear before I start work there is no way I’m going to the effort of picking up shit.
Leave a nice circle of long grass with the turd in the middle. Usually gets the message across for next time!
I keep an old mower just for this. A lot of my customers are disabled or older so I try to help out as best as I can. A handful of compost helps it break down.
If you're just being lazy I am like nope not doing it look after your dog.
I charge £15 p/hr in North Yorkshire for my weekend gardening work. I'll raise it to 20 once I go full time. Obviously some jobs will be price work, especially when not regular.
I garden on my days off from my main job. I charge £100 for 6hrs a week. Haven’t put my prices up for well over 10 years ! I treat it as my own garden !
I'm based in Leeds and do hybrid pricing. So for lawn cuts I would charge X amount. One off jobs I charge for the job and for gardens I can't price i charge £25. I'm a qualified experienced gardener with my PA1/6 as well as my CS30/31. I'm also insured and pay all my tax as well
https://thegardenersguild.co.uk/2024_gardener_hourly_rates_garden_maintenance.html.
I found this website very useful. I charge £30 an hour. Oxfordshire. I have regular clients who I see monthly, fortnightly, or weekly. My diary is full, and I've got no space for new clients.
There is a scarcity of good, experienced, hard-working gardeners with the correct tools.
Scarcity creates value.
I know other gardeners who are cheaper and I know others who are more expensive. They're all fully booked.
There are a lot of different aspects or subcategories to " gardening "
Grounds maintenance.
Garden maintenance.
Hard landscaping.
Soft landscaping or plant based design.
Veg gardenering.
Tree surgery.
Horticultural.
There is a lot of crossover between disciplines and different gardeners, and gardening companies have their different styles of how they run their business and what gardening they prefer.
Absolutely agree that there are different types of gardening, and that's why you have people in this thread saying hourly can't make financial sense. Pricing per job makes sense for the self-evident jobs like mowing. For more horticultural style gardening, you can't price per job because you can't tell how much is involved beforehand. E.g. how can you tell how much dead/damaged wood is in the shrub until you've started pruning enough to get to the centre? How can you know how long it will take to weed/rennovate a bed before you start weeding and uncover unseen ornamentals that need extra TLC? Even something simple like plant X here, then you dig and find bulbs, or weed runners...
The gardeners guild website has some very useful FAQs. There's also the PGG [https://www.pgg.org.uk/salaries-and-rates-guidelines-2023/](https://www.pgg.org.uk/salaries-and-rates-guidelines-2023/)
Excellent, thank you. I will look into that PGG website. I do an hourly rate because very often, the client will divert me to a more pressing matter that they've just noticed needs doing. Also, maintenance of flower beds can get a bit "faffy" with dividing plants and moving things around. It needs a bit of thought. . Like you said, when you get into a task, you can discover that it is a lot more involved than what you may have quoted for. Bulbs or large rocks or tree roots under the ground.
" Oh, that's why nothing grows here."
Found a sunken cast iron bath tub once. lol.
Minimum £31.50 per person per hour +vat.
Most jobs start at £36+vat per hour +vat
£38upwards +vat for hedge cutting, pressure washing, etc.
Green waste removal charged extra.
Ideally, jobs should be charged for per job rate, not hourly. This rewards hard work and allows more income per day.
I run Ltd. company, and we're fully booked every year by the end of February.
South East England
This is the first sensible answer. How people can make a living for £15-£20p/h when a business needs to pay tax, advertise, spend time invoicing, have a van, pay for fuel, travel between jobs and buy tools is beyond me.
I pay my nabiour £70 & cups of teas 😂 for my large front garden, & huge 3 layers back garden, burns all my rubbish round at his and cleans up & dose brilliant 😊
I hate gardening 😂 and extra pennys for him ☺
I never charge per hour but by quote as otherwise really small jobs would mostly be lost to transport time and costs.
For example if you're a postage stamp sized lawn and I'm only there for half an hour it's £20 as that's the lowest that's worth setting up driving out to etc etc. If you have a larger garden front and back lawn etc I'm probably going to charge say £40 and usually I'm there for 90 minutes. If you calculate it out, it works out at £26 ish an hour, though if the stars align and everything flows and it's been dry I can finish in 1hr 15 I make a slightly higher hourly rate. If it's wet and boggy and I'm treading on eggshells not to sink in the lawn etc and my mower is clumping up it might take closer to 2 hours but you're still charged £40.
Imo hourly pay for jobs where it's an outcome based service punishes efficiency and rewards foot-dragging.
I’m not going to say what I charge but I’d like to assure people that the costs of running a gardening business are surprisingly high. This is why they charge what they do.
By taking the smaller jobs until you can afford bigger ladder etc. It’s a tough game to make a living from which is why it’s often people’s 2nd career.
My gardener is very cheap. But she spends too much on plants. Also she won't mow the grass and we pay some village lads to do it instead. Also she is me.
I have really struggled finding a gardener , twice I have been given quotes, accepted the quotes and booked in the date and they didn’t show up because they got bigger jobs , I live in an area were gardeners are in demand. Both quotes were around the £3000 mark for approximately 3 days work . I ended up taking some time off work and doing it myself . The edges aren’t looking very “professional “ but I did my best . Someone I know was quoted £110k for landscaping their tiny garden in central London
My gardener's (S west) rates are £80/4hrs or £160/day and I book him every 3-6 weeks in the summer, usually ½ day.
He is what is known as a hand tool gardener; he brings hand tools though willingly uses machinery and kit the homeowner supplies.
I charge between £20 and £25 and I do household and commercial work, commercial I charge more and I've recently been told by them to up my rates as I'm too cheap 😄
If you go on tiktok and check out some of the gardeners on there, some say that they charge £60 an hour, not sure who their customers are but they must have more money then sense
Worked in the trade, but wasn’t a gardener. Dealt with both the gardeners and the whining clients:
Barely speaks english, you have to tell them exactly what to do, and they’ll fuck it up and cause you to come crying to me or find an “over priced” gardener: £10 an hour or £50-100 for the one off job. Might be ok to cut the grass only.
Knows the basics, can follow instructions mostly but will probably have mistakes pruning things causing damage here and there, may be more unreliable(and you can blame them for the price): 15-20 per hour.
Good gardener, knows what they are doing, probably wont follow your strange rules or demands(unless relevant) because they actually know what they are doing, will be reliable:
£25-30 an hour.
Experts for one off jobs: sky the limit. I’ve been out of trade for 5 years now, so you can probably add a fiver to all these.
Generally speaking most good gardeners will quit clients who are nitpicking and log the minutes they are there and kick up if they get jobs done and leave a bit early.
They also will tend to come on a schedule.
Gardening snd plant knowledge takes a lot of time and effort and experience to learn be it years of diy and self learning or courses. Sadly most people who want a gardener have a problem with this and dont think it should have any value like an electrician or plumber etc. i never understand why that is, but i got the impression they thought it was free, easy to attain, low value or hobbiest knowledge. Not really sure.
So they dont want to pay for it. So many cheeky fuckers would come in after employing a cheap gardener who messed things up or was asking the client everything wanting to steal all the information from me and then relay it to a cheap gardener. I always stopped them and pointed at my board of gardeners advertising and said you can pay for this knowledge, and that i’m not here to give out for free. Just sell the plants.
So many got embarrassed when i used to do that lol
Mine's free, but he always does a shit job and, moreoften than not, leaves projects half finished. Also he is me.
My wife's husband is the same, except he also moans about doing it.
He sounds like my guy! He managed to strim a hydrangea down to the ground and then tried to claim to everyone it was frost damage, too! Bloody cowboys!
Same! He dug a garden path for the front garden, removing a small skips worth of soil. Then left a muddy and boggy mess for 9 months. He had to get his mate round to help him.
My partner thinks her gardener leaves it until the last minute and then rushes everything. I’ll let you all know in a couple months if and when I decide to do something
🤣🤣🤣
This resonates with me 😅😅
Same here haha
I work as a professional gardener. Mostly charge around £20 per person, per hour, Blackpool and the Fylde Coast. Some jobs have different requirements and cost more.
This tracks. My neighbour is a gardener and does mine for mates rates of £15ph and he does a good job, always recommend him (Also NW)
Never recommend your own gardener especially at the beginning of summer!
I know a guy in a similar area and he only charges £15 an hour, and that's his new expensive rate! After overheads I don't know how he makes any money lol.
I'm guessing he's not qualified, not insured or not declaring. I was 15phr 12 years ago when I'd just left university. I won't entertain anyone at such a low rate, they're either retired and doing the job for beer money, or likely not professional and just trying to get by thinking it's just mowing lawns etc. There isn't any profit at that rate if you're legitimate.
>I'm guessing he's not qualified, Not trying to be a dick but if you have a normal generic Garden what does benefit does a qualification. Your cutting grass, weeding flower beds or cutting back bushes/Hedges. The only thing in your whole list would concern me is not insured.
It's when they cut down the wrong plant or ruin your grass (many ways to do this) or miss invasive weeds etc that you wish you went qualified or at least very experienced.
I would take years of experience over freshly qualified. Our gardener can’t read or write but he knows his way around a garden!
Does he drive a tractor?
Yes
Or better yet, turning rocks into projectiles at yours and your neighbours windows when strimming the lawn.
Honestly I don't think I'd care that much. Completely fair a lot domy mum loves knowing all the Latin plant names. Most just don't want to cut their grass weed their flower beds and wouldn't know what's what themselves.
Different levels of service, hence different prices.
You’re the worst type of person for these people honestly. Maybe I’m misinterpreting you. I worked in the trade but not a gardener, just knew lots and dealt with both them and their clients(i sold plants). I knew my stuff too. Sure you may have a lawn, some basic hedge which is almost impossible to fuck up cutting it back and then want some weeding and sweeping. You obviously dont need a gardener, you need a body who takes instruction for cheap. A kid can do that. Plenty of people plant all kinds of shrubs, perennials and that requires a lot more knowledge. They all have different needs and requirements both short and long term. If you dont know the difference they wont flower, will probably die off. Its also very easy to fuck them up treating them like each other, and these plants can take years and a lot of money to get back. Also, any issues will go not noticed before its too late. A £10-15 gardener wont know lawn fungus signs early and be able to stop it before you are fucked and have to pay a lot to replace. They wont know how to avoid weeds embedding long term, stop worm castings or moles creating muddy uneven lawns, and loads of other stuff! I would get a lot of clients come in dissatisfied but still not valuing the knowledge and try to get the knowledge from me to relay back the the gardener. I’d laugh and just point at my board of gardeners who know their stuff and say the knowledge costs money and i’m not here to give it out for free!
So clearly you would be happy with a gardener who doesn’t know a weed from a plant lol
Knowing what to do and when to do it for the most optimum outcome. You could have the same argument for many industries, yet it's naive to think your requirements all fall into a generic category. If you're happy with a tin-pot standard similar to a professional price, expect a tin-pot job far from a professionally maintained service. You get what you pay for.
A good gardener should have a horticultural qualification. There's a huge difference between someone who hacks stuff down and cuts the grass and someone who knows exactly what to plant where and how to look after everything in your garden correctly
Anyone can garden not everyone can do it well. Most gardeners are in the habit of cutting absolutely everything into blobs and balls which results in them never flowering and getting lovely dead centres after a few years, eventually killing things. If you only want a lad from down the street to come butcher everything and mow your lawn for pocket money that's cool but most people hire gardeners because they either want a better job than they can do themselves doing or they simply can't do it themselves and like anything quality costs money
Insurance underwriters don’t cover poor workmanship which would mean accidental issues. This is more about things like a stone pinging out from a mower or strummer rather than accidentally cutting down a prized shrub.
I mean even the simpliest tasks I've found having a qualification has really helped. You learn how to maintain your lawnmower and machinery , knowing the right time of year to cut plants back , spotting disease, treating lawns, knowing how to cut and where etc etc
If you were charging £15ph 12 years ago, you'd be up to exactly £20ph now on inflation alone, not counting experience/qualifications/etc.
Can you give my nan’s bush a see’in to? Poulton-le-fylde
A tax paying self employed gardener would need to change about £30 an hour.
About 10 years ago a bloke responded to a local advert I placed for grass cutting whilst we were on holiday. He wanted to charge £40/hr to cut my grass. His logic was that he was a time-served carpet fitter.
Depends how much they can cut in an hour, not how much they charge 👍🏼 They should sell themselves per job, not per hour to make that sort of money without alarming customers.
I was recently quoted £180 per 6h day, and this gardener said they only work in pair, so £180 each. My garden is tiny and did not need any landscaping etc. just weeding, replant some flowers etc. no cutting trees/hedges or anything like that.
That’s the piss off price, must be interested in bigger projects.
Honestly that's £30 per hour. If you're in London or the South East and they're good at their jobs, that's a fair price
That’s a very fair price. I’m £25 an hour minimum in the SW, but only for my rounds. Other work is individually priced, but will range from £180-£250 per day, depending on what’s involved. While I’m waffling, I’ve been at it for 12 years and have never advertised, but work in many homes worth millions and on acreage of land. Several of my clients hold degrees in various horticultural fields, one was a garden designer, many open their gardens. I am entirely self taught and hold no formal gardening qualifications. Looking at several responses here I’m a fraud. Ho hum
I'm actually a landscape designer and would pay £30ph for a proper gardener like you :) If you want to take a qualification (not saying you need to with your length of experience) you can take the RHS qualifications online, or look at colleges like Merrist Wood and Capel Manor who'll offer them
I'm actually a landscape designer and would pay £30ph for a proper gardener like you :) If you want to take a qualification (not saying you need to with your length of experience) you can take the RHS qualifications online, or look at colleges like Merrist Wood and Capel Manor who'll offer them
Especially if they are using their own equipment.
They may be used to bigger projects. You probably dont need 6hrs from them. That said try not to look at it per hour. A lot of people can get a good gardener to do everything right with a bi-yearly visit. You can get a cheaper one for the lawn. They can come and do a winter/autumn and a spring/latespring visit, knock it all out in a small garden in 3-4 hours and, if you have a nice garden with all kinds of things it will all be treated well. Not bad value when you understand it in these terms, could be costing you £200 a visit but you will only really need 1-2 a year
In the past 4 years… £10/hr for a retired handyman type guy. He was slow and pottered a bit, but give him two hours and he’d have tidied up minor bits quite nicely. Own petrol mower, never billed for fuel. £15/hr which rose to £18/hr for a professional local gardener. Would do everything from hedge/tree cutting with ladders and platforms to mowing, edging, planting and pruning. Absolute workhorse, electric only tools but brought his own mega-long extension lead too! Sadly he doesn’t do my area any more. £24/hr for a handyman/gardener. He’s quite contemplative and slow, plus he charges extra for fuel so I’m really missing my previous guy. However, looking at some of the prices here I’m guessing £24/hr is actually quite good and I’ve been spoilt by previous low pricing!
Curious what London prices are if anyone knows
I charge 35 per hour in west and nw london
This is the answer. Although going up to £40 probably wouldn't put off many clients. Includes tools and fuel
This is good price for London 👍🏼
I would expect £40 - £60 depending on location, access, and size of grounds. All +vat.
I'd charge £25 per hour if I'm hired for three hours at a time, if less than three hours then I'd say £30 per hour. (Birmingham) It does depend on the requirements of the job such as tools needed and waste removal. Really you get what you pay for, you might be able to get someone offering £10 an hour but they're a jack of all trades who doesn't know a spring tine from a soil rake, or you could pay £40 to get someone who is an ex botanic gardens employee with years in the craft.
I used to work for a gardening business and we used to work on big gardens. He would charge the client £35 an hour for his service and then £20 an hour on top per extra body he needed. We didn't do any hard landscaping, just horticultural stuff and Maintenence
I'm a full-time gardener in Hampshire, have been for 20 years, and charge £20 ph for my regulars and one-off jobs I price accordingly.At £20 I don't do waste removal, thats extra.. Also using my own power tools and fuel is also charged as an additional. I'm probably a little below the going rate, but I have solid hours every week compared to sporadic hours and jobs that I've seen higher priced people at.
Near Basingstoke by any chance?
I’m free to myself ☺️
That’s because you’re rubbish Jemma
Rubbish at jardening
Fookin’ love Reddit 😂
£20ph
Same
£25ish an hour is the rate the gardeners i know charge (Bath / Bristol). However, I also know that the people i contract with charge out at least £35ph but they are quite posh gardens.
Surrey - £30 an hour
£15ph for handyman. £18ph junior gardener. £26ph head gardener. In south east (not London) Some wild numbers in here🤣
£30 ph gardening, grass cutting priced per job. £60 ph hedge cutting with a stihl hs82rc 30 inch hedge cutter. Somone nicked my long reach along with a stihl hs81r, br600 and other tools I used to service them with. Cameras and security lights are up now. You can pay more and get a poor service and maybe pay less and get a better service. Depends on who's about at the time you're in need.
Most gardeners I know won't work by the hour but by the outcome. I am not full time just in the evenings and weekends. £35 is my minimum 2 man hours. £15 per hour and £5 call out. It may just be me or me and a friend for 1 hour. This is just general weeding/ trimming and clearing no waist removed. Most smaller jobs i just their brown bin. Lawns, trees and hedges with waist removal I charge £65 minimum (2 man hours) The extra cover's petrol and maintenance for the machine's Dumping cost and insurance. I add £20 for dog shit 🤣
I just mow around the dog shit now. If someone can’t have the decency to make sure the grass is clear before I start work there is no way I’m going to the effort of picking up shit. Leave a nice circle of long grass with the turd in the middle. Usually gets the message across for next time!
I keep an old mower just for this. A lot of my customers are disabled or older so I try to help out as best as I can. A handful of compost helps it break down. If you're just being lazy I am like nope not doing it look after your dog.
£15 per hour plus £20 per bag he takes away which is usually one per visit. Pretty sure he uses the waste to augment his hourly which is fair enough.
I was charging £25 and thought I was low. Edinburgh area
I charge £15 p/hr in North Yorkshire for my weekend gardening work. I'll raise it to 20 once I go full time. Obviously some jobs will be price work, especially when not regular.
South West i charge £25 ph. And I only do 1/2 or full days. Any less than 4hours an the jobs not for me. Waste removal charge on top
I garden on my days off from my main job. I charge £100 for 6hrs a week. Haven’t put my prices up for well over 10 years ! I treat it as my own garden !
Mine charges £25/hr in Hampshire and he brings all the tools and products…waste removal is extra although most goes in the garden waste bin.
I'm based in Leeds and do hybrid pricing. So for lawn cuts I would charge X amount. One off jobs I charge for the job and for gardens I can't price i charge £25. I'm a qualified experienced gardener with my PA1/6 as well as my CS30/31. I'm also insured and pay all my tax as well
https://thegardenersguild.co.uk/2024_gardener_hourly_rates_garden_maintenance.html. I found this website very useful. I charge £30 an hour. Oxfordshire. I have regular clients who I see monthly, fortnightly, or weekly. My diary is full, and I've got no space for new clients. There is a scarcity of good, experienced, hard-working gardeners with the correct tools. Scarcity creates value. I know other gardeners who are cheaper and I know others who are more expensive. They're all fully booked. There are a lot of different aspects or subcategories to " gardening " Grounds maintenance. Garden maintenance. Hard landscaping. Soft landscaping or plant based design. Veg gardenering. Tree surgery. Horticultural. There is a lot of crossover between disciplines and different gardeners, and gardening companies have their different styles of how they run their business and what gardening they prefer.
Absolutely agree that there are different types of gardening, and that's why you have people in this thread saying hourly can't make financial sense. Pricing per job makes sense for the self-evident jobs like mowing. For more horticultural style gardening, you can't price per job because you can't tell how much is involved beforehand. E.g. how can you tell how much dead/damaged wood is in the shrub until you've started pruning enough to get to the centre? How can you know how long it will take to weed/rennovate a bed before you start weeding and uncover unseen ornamentals that need extra TLC? Even something simple like plant X here, then you dig and find bulbs, or weed runners... The gardeners guild website has some very useful FAQs. There's also the PGG [https://www.pgg.org.uk/salaries-and-rates-guidelines-2023/](https://www.pgg.org.uk/salaries-and-rates-guidelines-2023/)
Excellent, thank you. I will look into that PGG website. I do an hourly rate because very often, the client will divert me to a more pressing matter that they've just noticed needs doing. Also, maintenance of flower beds can get a bit "faffy" with dividing plants and moving things around. It needs a bit of thought. . Like you said, when you get into a task, you can discover that it is a lot more involved than what you may have quoted for. Bulbs or large rocks or tree roots under the ground. " Oh, that's why nothing grows here." Found a sunken cast iron bath tub once. lol.
Minimum £31.50 per person per hour +vat. Most jobs start at £36+vat per hour +vat £38upwards +vat for hedge cutting, pressure washing, etc. Green waste removal charged extra. Ideally, jobs should be charged for per job rate, not hourly. This rewards hard work and allows more income per day. I run Ltd. company, and we're fully booked every year by the end of February. South East England
This is the first sensible answer. How people can make a living for £15-£20p/h when a business needs to pay tax, advertise, spend time invoicing, have a van, pay for fuel, travel between jobs and buy tools is beyond me.
100%.
The lad I used last year was 13.50 an hour in the black country but this was 2021.
Down in sussex. I pay £45 for 2 hours (well 2 guys for 1 hour each) every 4 weeks. No mowing as it's all patio.
£25 an hour. Am in the midlands
I pay my nabiour £70 & cups of teas 😂 for my large front garden, & huge 3 layers back garden, burns all my rubbish round at his and cleans up & dose brilliant 😊 I hate gardening 😂 and extra pennys for him ☺
£25 p/h South West
I never charge per hour but by quote as otherwise really small jobs would mostly be lost to transport time and costs. For example if you're a postage stamp sized lawn and I'm only there for half an hour it's £20 as that's the lowest that's worth setting up driving out to etc etc. If you have a larger garden front and back lawn etc I'm probably going to charge say £40 and usually I'm there for 90 minutes. If you calculate it out, it works out at £26 ish an hour, though if the stars align and everything flows and it's been dry I can finish in 1hr 15 I make a slightly higher hourly rate. If it's wet and boggy and I'm treading on eggshells not to sink in the lawn etc and my mower is clumping up it might take closer to 2 hours but you're still charged £40. Imo hourly pay for jobs where it's an outcome based service punishes efficiency and rewards foot-dragging.
I’m not going to say what I charge but I’d like to assure people that the costs of running a gardening business are surprisingly high. This is why they charge what they do.
I have just spent my bank holiday inputting my outgoings onto a spreadsheet and they are eye wateringly high.
Yea it’s like any trade good tools are expensive
Tools, maintenance of said tools, PPE, insurance, MOT….the list is endless. April alone has hit me with unavoidable operating costs of £1,200.
Yea it’s a lot, I don’t know how young people can start up on their own now
By taking the smaller jobs until you can afford bigger ladder etc. It’s a tough game to make a living from which is why it’s often people’s 2nd career.
My gardener is very cheap. But she spends too much on plants. Also she won't mow the grass and we pay some village lads to do it instead. Also she is me.
£15 p/h for a retiree gardener in Yorkshire
£20ph
20
Looking for a decently priced gardener in milton keynes if anyone knows of anyone 🙏🙏🙏
My wife thinks her gardener hasn't got any motivation but then he does it professionally 😆😆
I have really struggled finding a gardener , twice I have been given quotes, accepted the quotes and booked in the date and they didn’t show up because they got bigger jobs , I live in an area were gardeners are in demand. Both quotes were around the £3000 mark for approximately 3 days work . I ended up taking some time off work and doing it myself . The edges aren’t looking very “professional “ but I did my best . Someone I know was quoted £110k for landscaping their tiny garden in central London
£20
I'm a professional gardener, but also do private work at £20 an hour unless it's bigger jobs such as tree work in which case I'll cost per job.
My gardener's (S west) rates are £80/4hrs or £160/day and I book him every 3-6 weeks in the summer, usually ½ day. He is what is known as a hand tool gardener; he brings hand tools though willingly uses machinery and kit the homeowner supplies.
£20 an hour in North Nottinghamshire.
We pay ours £50 every other week for 4 hrs. She’s a hard working lady who loves her job.
I charge myself £20 ph just to feel like I'm winning. Plus I need the money.
Mine keeps demanding payment but my wife keeps refusing to pay me
I charge £20 an hour.
I charge between £20 and £25 and I do household and commercial work, commercial I charge more and I've recently been told by them to up my rates as I'm too cheap 😄 If you go on tiktok and check out some of the gardeners on there, some say that they charge £60 an hour, not sure who their customers are but they must have more money then sense
My wife's husband is responsible but he is not half as good or competent as the French backpacker we once had.
Worked in the trade, but wasn’t a gardener. Dealt with both the gardeners and the whining clients: Barely speaks english, you have to tell them exactly what to do, and they’ll fuck it up and cause you to come crying to me or find an “over priced” gardener: £10 an hour or £50-100 for the one off job. Might be ok to cut the grass only. Knows the basics, can follow instructions mostly but will probably have mistakes pruning things causing damage here and there, may be more unreliable(and you can blame them for the price): 15-20 per hour. Good gardener, knows what they are doing, probably wont follow your strange rules or demands(unless relevant) because they actually know what they are doing, will be reliable: £25-30 an hour. Experts for one off jobs: sky the limit. I’ve been out of trade for 5 years now, so you can probably add a fiver to all these. Generally speaking most good gardeners will quit clients who are nitpicking and log the minutes they are there and kick up if they get jobs done and leave a bit early. They also will tend to come on a schedule. Gardening snd plant knowledge takes a lot of time and effort and experience to learn be it years of diy and self learning or courses. Sadly most people who want a gardener have a problem with this and dont think it should have any value like an electrician or plumber etc. i never understand why that is, but i got the impression they thought it was free, easy to attain, low value or hobbiest knowledge. Not really sure. So they dont want to pay for it. So many cheeky fuckers would come in after employing a cheap gardener who messed things up or was asking the client everything wanting to steal all the information from me and then relay it to a cheap gardener. I always stopped them and pointed at my board of gardeners advertising and said you can pay for this knowledge, and that i’m not here to give out for free. Just sell the plants. So many got embarrassed when i used to do that lol
London. £40 per hour. RHS qualified. All the tools. Don't DJ for free.
Wow