That £26.50/hour for weeding is insanity?

[LaBellySausage]

I'm looking for someone to come around for 3 hours/week to help with weeding the garden.

I was given a couple of names of local people who do gardening. I expected to pay somewhere between £10-12/hour, perhaps £15/hour if the person was an experienced gardener. I believe minimum wage is £8something but I don't think people can live on that.

The first person wouldn't give a quote til they came to view the garden and then was hesitant to give an hourly rate, preferring to give a rate for 'the job'. It's not a job that can be finished- it's like when I shave my legs the bastards on the other one have started growing back when I start the second. I just want a few weeds less per week. He eventually said £18/hour. I thanked him for his time but said it was a bit more than I had budgeted. The second guy said £26.50/hour!

This is simple weeding. Trowel and hoe provided. £26.50/hour is about £55,000 annually.

I worked jobs like this while in uni at minimum wage. For reference, we live in a very inexpensive part of the country- he would not be weeding Chelsea Flower Show. Both candidates were local so didn't have more than a 5/10 minute drive.

Am I being unreasonable, or is this a crazy rate?

Can you get a load of mulch down now to smother the weeds?

Why can’t your partner do the weeding, when you do the grass. Something todo together

Otherwise you may find looking on your local FB that teenagers are looking for small jobs

[quote LaBellySausage]@gamerchick you're right it wouldn't be that much. We would only need them for 8-9 months of the year.[/quote]
As do most gardeners' clients.

Which is why they need to charge enough to cover themselves for the months where you lay them off.

Unlike your cleaner who I assume you use all year round.

For reference, my parents are based in Birmingham. Their weeding/garden maintenance quote was £40 for 2 hours every two weeks between the months of April & October.

Do you know any young people that might want to earn some extra money, you could probably pay them about £10 an hour as they would have no overheads to pay for. DS would have done that as a teen, in fact he used to do DMs garden and she paid him about that

@Retrogal I live in an area which has a very low cost of living- not comparable to the SE

Yeah that deffo sounds like someone who doesn’t want to do just weeding!

Put out a request on gumtree, or a card up in the supermarket, offering it as a weekend or after-school job for a local teenager. You’ll more likely get someone for the rate you want to pay.

Count yourself lucky! I asked a gardener about laying a lawn, and based on his quote , the time he said it would take and the cost of the materials, his hourly rate worked out to over £200 an hour! Needless to say I didn't hire him.

If you get someone cheap they're probably likely to dig up the wrong things or hack stuff and kill it. This happened to my MIL

Gardening - traditionally a male job.

Cleaning - traditionally a female job

Draw your own conclusions.

@LubaLuca that's a good idea I might try to find someone like that.

It very much depends on area. What part of the country are you in?

I would expect to pay £20ph.

Our gardener charges £20 an hour. I believe that’s the going rate.

In NE Scotland, I pay £25/hr for gardener and £15 / hour for a second person to labour if the job needs it. So basically one of the 2 knows what he is looking at and the second does as told.
They take any waste/ trimmings away and if there are 2 for a job like weeding it would reduce time spent.
They are insured for any damage they do to my home or to each other. They provide all equipment.
I have used retirees who are basically hobby gardeners too, but they don’t have insurance and only work when they fancy it / are not on a cruise.

You’re not worth their while, so they’re quoting you a high rate. You say yourself it’s temporary, seasonal and you do most of the ‘proper’ gardening.

You want an odds jobs type not a ‘proper’ gardener.

Good grief, I'm all for paying a living wage but £26? Now that's ridiculous!
In the unlikely event that you're in my small town I'd do it for nothing. I find weeding incredibly satisfying.

Perhaps you might find a local cleaning lady who'd be willing to do it at the same/similar rate as she charges her domestic cleaning customers? I have had a couple of friends who've found a successful arrangement that way, as it doesn't require a professional horticulturist.

My husband is a gardener. He charges £20. This covers
Tool maintenance
Admin
Travel
Not to mention that gardening is outdoor labour, so not the same as cleaning indoors. He is also a cleaner for the council part time and earns £10 an hour for that, but as that is a paye job he doesn't have to worry about pension, sick pay, holiday pay etc. So it's very different to his self employed work.
All the work he does to keep the tools in by good shape e.g. Oiling sharpening etc.
The hourly rate is what it is, it has to be to be able to earn a living. There is a lot of travel and upkeep on top of just the hours the gardener is actually at your house this has to be accounted for. Also gardening is dependent on the weather so during the recent freezing weather he couldn't work at all. So no, £26.50 an hour does not mean that person who quoted you for just weeding makes £55000 a year. If you want to pay the minimum you will have to ask a student or similar, not someone who relies on gardening for a living.

You're trying to recruit a Gardener, when what you want is a labourer. Plus, they've already spotted you're going to be one-of-those customers and are quoting prices accordingly.

Unlike cleaning, your gardener will be working in all weather. However I wouldn’t expect to need to weed as often? Perhaps once a week in the spring and summer but not all year round? You may not need them at all in winter.

20 to 25 pounds an hour in london is normal.

Horticulture is a skilled and underpaid profession. Good on them for trying to get a decent rate.

They can charge what they want, why be offended? Either pay or don't. No-one can weed the equivalent of a full time week and it's a bit of a s* job. Gardeners don't want to turn up and do the worst bits.

That said someone I know markets themselves as a gardener, isn't very qualified and tries it on with prices so would probably quote similar. They earn about £2k a year so are definitely not on £50k. Many people like that are doing gardening as an alternative lifestyle so don't work every day or even every week if they can help it. Weird but true in that industry.

Obviously some very hard working and professional gardeners out there. But it's a mixed bag.