Is £11 per hour, taking the piss for a gardener?

[BlackSoggyOnion]

I see a lot of people advertising they want a gardener for £11ph. I can't get one for love-nor-money under £30ph (& they take the crap away). Do any of you pay £11 or are they chancing their arm?

I pay £18 per hour

Ours is £20 p/h and that's a 'he likes us' rate.

He charges everyone else £3o p/h.

Like those Freecycle people who say they need a free TV but it has to be 50 inch or bigger and still with it's box and you have to deliver it to them.

Taking the piss.

Well, there are gardeners and there are gardeners.
If you want a chancer doing a bit of clearing, and weeding etc, then maybe £12 per hours here.
If you want someone qualified to tend your specialist shrubs and create stunning boarders etc then yep more like a day rate of about £150
You want a large hedge cut that takes all day you are looking at £500.
You want your garden completely landscaped and replanted, then how long is a piece of string.

For what it’s worth we get notices on Facebook and in post office asking for a cleaner and ‘willing to pay £8 an hour!’ Okaaay then... 🤷🏼‍♀️

it is hardly more than minimum wage and the have to pay their own NI, pension etc

Mine is £20 but charges me £15 as I don't care when he comes.

We have a guy who comes in once a month to do 'big' stuff in the garden that I can't/won't do and he charges £150 a day from 8am-4pm. He does amazing things out there, though, and our garden is beautiful despite our revolting dogs digging holes and trying to shit in the veg pots.

Ours was £20ph (Leeds) and he killed all our grass!

I desperately want a new one because DH and I are useless but scared to get another now in case it's another waste of money.

Ours is £15 per hour, he isn’t really a proper gardener he mows the lawn and tidies up a bit

We have gardeners (reliable and lovely) that are £34/h but they work as a pair so it works out £17/h each but we also have them for 5hrs every fortnight for 12mths a year so we get a slightly better deal than those who only want an hour or so in the summer.
There are cheaper guys round here who will do odd jobs like mowing the lawn or are not so great (we tried one before we found these guys who was £12/h - who decided he would do what he wanted not what I asked him to do)

Depends if you want someone trained, who knows what they’re doing. Qualified and experienced, minimum £15 per hour but more likely £25+ outside the Home Counties. I’m fully qualified with 10+ years’ experience in numerous high-profile gardens, and I charge £30 an hour.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys. I’d be very wary of anyone charging less than £15.

I'm in the wrong business...currently covering care calls for elderly people for 8.37 per hour and in the south east...would much sooner be a gardener. What qualifications do you need?

Experience over qualification if you’re just talking general stuff (not a whole replanting scheme). Mine charges £12/hour.

We pay £15

Ours was £25 ph. he’s just quit our area and no other gardeners are about.

What Ploppy said.

If someone wants someone to run a lawnmower over their grass, then it's not unreasonable to pay them even less than that - NMW is £8.21 for over 25s, less for younger folk, so £11 an hour would be great for someone earning a bit, without qualifications and skills or having to py out for training or equipment.
OTOH, if you want people who are trained and are putting knowledge and experience into gradually developing your garden, that is a different job altogether.

I pay £35 for two of them to.come for an hour. (Effectively £17.50) They take everything away and bring all their own equipment. I'm happy to pay that, but if it got much higher, I couldn't justify it. Like all self employed people, they have to know their market - cover your costs and make "enough" but being able to get enough work to keep going.

My husband is a gardener. He charges £15/hour and believe me, we are not rich from it!

After tax, diesel, equipment, insurance, days that he gets rained off and customers that cancel in the winter, it barely clears minimum wage over the year

He's self employed so no paid holidays, sick days, paternity leave or pension. I have no idea what would happen if he couldn't work and it's hard physical labour so he won't be able to do it forever

Pay your gardeners well pleeeease!

It depends what you actually want, someone to run the mower over, spray some weed killer on your slabs, rake up leaves ie. non-skilled manual labour then £11 is probably reasonable depending on area & assuming you're providing all tools & materials so they have no outlay. The minute you want someone to tend plants and enhance your garden, cutting things back in right season and the correct way, plant the right things for soil type and so forth at least double it. I had to point out to NDN's Polish (only mentioned to show non-local so not familiar with local plants & I suspect they're working for a pittance which I don't agree with) that the flowers they were carefully weeding around were also weeds. Tbf don't think NDNs have a clue either so probably would've been happy with half a job.

We had a tree surgery and gardening company come and remove two trees, fix a paving slab and cut back some bushes.

Two lads, were here two hours and £260!

They were the cheapest quote we got!!!!!!