What's a normal hourly rate for a gardener?

[MRex]

Not landscaping, just general maintenance. We've been quored £45 for one by one company and £70 for two by another. It seems very high, just wondering if I'm massively out of touch and rates have changed a lot?

Even general garden maintenance needs someone who knows which plants to prune, how aggressively and at what time of year, and to be able to spot the difference between a wanted plant and a weed. That knowledge doesn’t come cheap.

Well it depends how big the area and what needs done. The gardener will have costs as well as their time, petrol and weed killer for example are expensive.

We pay £25 an hour but ours is cheap. It’s more like £35 an hour round here for someone who actually knows the difference between an intended plant and a weed

SAre you exp[ecting them to provide their own tools, mower, fuel; take away the grass cuttings and rubbish etc? That all costs money, and a van to move it.

I am an accountant and one of my gardener clients charges £28ph + VAT so £33.60 in total. That is for qualified RHS gardeners. Not London but relatively affluent area.

£15 an hour. Cheshire here

My mum pays £15 per hour so clearly a bargain. Don't think he's qualified, just knowledgable and him and my mum work together to do jobs. She's 80 and a super keen and good gardener but can't do all the jobs anymore by herself.

£30 an hour at minimum. You need to factor in tools, maintenance, insurance and travel on top of their basic skills.

It depends on the job. If it's mowing a lawn they charge a bit less than if digging and weeding because that is back breaking work.

No, we have tools and electric mower, as well as a green bin. They are consistent in £25 extra per bag of garden waste removal.

£15 sounds very cheap. I guess I was expecting to find someone who isn't an expert but will take £25/hr to do basics. £35-45 seems as lot more if you compare with cleaners on £15-£20.

I pay £15 an hour but he is unable to tell a weed from a plant so only really for grass and hedge cutting. He brings all tools and leaves rubbish in brown bin

£35/hour. She actually brought her uni she'd son with her (very long Easter break!) who power washed the flagstones and seating area and only charged me £70, snd I think they were both here for about two hours, maybe slightly less. He and I did chat for about 20 minutes about his uni experience as my daughter is considering it.
I also go with her to the nursery on occasion and she doesn't charge an hourly rate for that.

We have an RHS gardener to do our flower beds, no mowing or major tree work and we pay £25ph

We had a cheaper gardener before and they didn’t know what they were doing and so aggressively weeded a flower bed that it’s taken a couple of years to restore 😭

We also use a tree surgeon and a fruit tree specialist all at a similar price.

Mine charges £20 per hour, uses his own tools and takes away the rubbish.

Where would I find an RHS gardener? My mum's latest is yet another rip off merchant who has primed things at the wrong time, dissuades her from getting what she asks for and charges £40 an hour. Two gardeners there for half an hour. Cut lawns, did edges, turned over the soil and removed a few weeds but mainly left them in the turned over soil and quickly pruned a shrub she asked to be removed. Small garden front and back. Really pisses me off.

@MRex it depends on local demand. I disagree with others who say it depends on the size of the garden, as many gardeners charge an hourly rate. However, some use "demand-led pricing" and will charge as much as they think you'd be prepared to pay, especially if they are busy enough to be able to turn work down. Well etablished companies are more inclined to do this - if you want to pay less, find someone setting up on their own and building up their client base.

I'm in SW London (i.e. expensive area). Last year I picked up a leaflet in a community centre for someone charging £30 an hour. He was ok, kept the garden looking nice, but did a few things I wasn't happy with, such as mistaking seedlinngs for weeds, and over-pruning a tree. So, this year I looked for someone new. A local company quoted £60 an hour, which I consider way too much. Instead, I'm using someone I got a leaflet from a few years ago who only charges £20 an hour, but he's semi-retired and just does it for pin money, fitness and enjoyment. He's much better than last year's guy.

No idea what hourly rate mine charges. He tends to come once a month or so through the spring-autumn to tidy the front and back gardens, generally here 1.5-2 hours and charges £40-60 a time, depending on how bad the garden is. We do literally nothing to it. He maintains hedges, planting and the lawns.

We hired a gardening company for MIL, she has a big slopey garden and cant cope. £36 per hour for the gardener.. the guy with the knowledge who does the tricky jobs - proper pruning, balancing the pond stuff... £22 ph for the labourer who cuts the grass, helps with the bigger jobs and tidies up.

Ours has just gone up to £50ph, but that is for 2 people and includes them taking away all waste, and bringing their own tools. They are knowledgeable (also, a lot younger, fitter and stronger than me) and use their initiative.

So that is 2 hours of labour, if you like "hire of" top of the range, and well maintained tools that wouldn't be worth me buying for just one garden, and disposal of the grass, weeds, cuttings and so forth.
Plus of courser they have to have a van with all the costs that incurs. The gardeners themselves won't actually be ending up with a very high wage.

We pay our gardener £15ph and he has been to horticultural college.

£120, for 1 hour.

I pay £15/hr for local teen to cut the lawn, prune back shrubs and rake/weed gravel. My tools, green bin etc. But I've found one who can follow instructions so he doesn't really need to know much.

@TortolaParadise what are they doing for that much??

Today was his last day. He does maintenance; weeding, trimming and that is all. To his credit he is reliable after so many clowns and false starts.