How much would you expect to pay a gardener for day’s work?

[Wel]

We are in the South. Medium/large back garden and a decent sized front garden that is messy but not a death trap.

2 guys will be coming next week to do as much as they can in a day. Includes removal.

What would you expect to pay?

My peice of shit ex landlord charged us 1400

£400-£500

Get the price beforehand.

A young lad came to my door looking for 'good, honest work'. Said he cleaned paths.

Great. My shoulder was shot at the time, so I could have done with the help.

How much to clean my front path?

£100.

I told him that I couldn't afford that. Straight away he went to £50. For half an hour's work?

I declined.

Here in the south-west a qualified gardener with van / insurance / tools is £25 per hour plus extra to remove rubbish.

I have just paid £180 pp per day.

£20 an hour each.

Possibly slightly less for a full day. Between £120-£140 per day each.

We pay £25 per hour per person not including VAT.

30-40 Euros here per hour per person so that would be between 350 and 500 pounds based on a 6 hour day.

We just paid £220 for gardener and his youth (trainee? apprentice?) for a day, clearing beds and cutting back lots of overgrown shrubs. They also took down a rotting pergola type thing, it cost an extra £30 to dispose of the wood from that, as their permit for the recycling centre only covered garden waste. But I think Northern Ireland tends to be a bit cheaper for manual jobs still.

£25 pp/ph

We pay our gardener £20.25 per hour.

My gardener is coming for the first time tomorrow, and he is charging me £20 per hour for 6 hours work.

Until recently, I was paying £50 for an hour with two gardeners.
They bring all own tools, work hard for the full hour.
Take away all the grass, hedge cuttings, weeds etc.

Although it feels a lot, that is wages x 2....waste disposal......van to be bought, insured and maintained..... all the equipment to be bought, maintained, and insured......presumably some liability insurance.......the owner will have to have insurance for injuries to employees........then build in sickness pay and cover for annual leave .........owner has to pay NI contributions and pension contributions on top of the wages the gardeners receive ........the rates have to be high enough to allow for the fact they might not work a full day or even occasional days (snow perhaps) when they can't work at all ........or presumably a buffer for a client dropping them suddenly, or a bad debtor etc.

You can see how it adds up - very different from Dave from the pub saying he'll cut your grass if you bung him twenty quid.

That sounds very fair.

I objected to the young lad who turned up at my door looking for £50 for half an hour. (I posted earlier. He initially wanted £100. I must look as though I'm in my dotage.)

I get £29 an hour working as a supply teacher, so I wouldn't expect to pay much more than that for an hour's work from a gardener.

I paid £330 for one-off work last year and the gardeners were in and out very quickly - just under an hour. However, it was a squad of three men and they pruned a cherry tree, shaped some bushes beautifully and took all the rubbish away with them.

Given that it was heavy work that would have been very difficult for me and needed specialist equipment, plus they had to deal with a mature tree, I think that was fair.

Mine mows and edges the lawn, weeds the beds and does general garden maintenance. He charges £25 an hour. I'd expect to pay more for things like tree surgery and heavier work. I'm in the relatively expensive South-East, for context.

£500 sounds a bit pricey to me for just general clearance.

If they are actually landscaping then maybe it is more appropriate.

You don't need the best people in the world to clear stuff.

I suspect you are paying a "I live in a big house and need it done quickly" premium.

Sounds horribly expensive, but I think it’s worth it as part of the cost of moving costs, and you just need to suck it up and hope it looks lovely when people come to view! When we listed we bought cheap new garden furniture, and a new L shaped sofa to define our snug, plus painted bedroom furniture white and replaced with a new IKEA wardrobe. We also borrowed or bought some dressing ‘bits’- headboard displays, matching bedspreads, that sort of thing. As a result the house looked immaculate for the pics and we had over twenty viewings.

Spend was probably £2k (plus significant input from me decluttering and painting!) but we transformed our home. I don’t think we added value, but we did increase the saleability. We sold quickly, at an excellent price, and got people through the door.

If I saw a house with the garden in a state I would wonder how many hidden horrors there were in the house, as it might indicate general poor maintenance, and would offer accordingly.

If you were quoted £500 would you haggle? I personally have never cause it’s so awkward. Curious if people would or not

£500 sounds fair to me.