Any idea how much tidying up a garden will cost?

[Stokey]

Am about to move into my first real house with a big (by London standards) garden. Just been to revisit the house today after first viewing in jan and it is a total jungle. The path through it is completely overgrown and it is encroaching on to the patio. Here's a view from winter, now this path is no longer visible www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-36317717.html
Any ideas on how much it should cost to cut it all back? I have no tools and no clue,
Thanks

Wow gorgeous house!!! Enjoy!! My garden the same so will be interested to see what figures crop up!

Here it would be About £8-10 an hour for the basics. More for redesigning and tree surgery.
Down south likely to be more expensive.

Thanks oshposh, very excited to finally be getting in after months of faffing... now just need a summer.

That's a lovely house!

I wouldn't pay anybody to do the first cut tbh assuming you have the use of your limbs, a car and three pieces of equipment I will list in a moment. Cutting overgrown stuff back is HUGELY satisfying and at this time of year you can do an hour or so in the evenings. The pain is taking the stuff to the dump afterwards but if you put black bags down to line your boot you won't find it too bad.

You need secateurs for the small branches, a loppers for the bigger stuff and a heavy duty pair of gloves. You may want to wear sunglasses or even goggles to protect your eyes from bits flying. You need no expertise at all. Doesn't matter what the plant is it shouldn't be growing where it is therefore it gets cut back. It won't sulk and die - and if it did, good riddance

It's £15 an hour here (just outside London).

The company i work for do gardeners in Birmingham and the London area (have an office in Croydon) for £15 ph. Once the initial clear is done would you be able to maintain it yourself?

£15 an hour is typical and imagine it would take a couple of days to tidy up. You need to think how you are going dispose of the garden debris.

We paid a gardener £125 a day and it took 3 days to tidy up our garden. It cost a further £100 to pay for the garden debris to be disposed off. Admitally our garden is bigger and I suspect it was more work. I imagine London prices will be more.

Lovely house.
It's a bit of a how long is a piece of string question. There looks as if there may be some useable shrubs already there and the large trees look promising. It may be that the garden already has a good 'structure' and you just need a good clear up which would not be too expensive. The fact you have side access to the garden which will make everything loads easier and cheaper.
If you have the money a total revamp may be better as you can have what you want. It may be worth paying a garden designer to come out for a couple of hours to tell you the sort of things you could do. I did this at a cost of £60 inc a plan of the garden. It was really useful and just pointed me in the right direction. I got rid of a lot of big ugly conifers in my garden before I did anything and it was amazing what a difference it made.
I pay £12 an hour for general gardening work £15 for proper gardeners and way way too much for tree surgeons. ( they are really expensive)

Thanks for all the advice, looks like a guide of £15/hr is reasonable. Have no idea how much gardening i'll be able to do myself, but thanks for tool advice northernlurker. Have a 2.5 yr old and 10 week old so feel a bit run ragged at the moment, and next year will be going back to work 4 days a week so don't have loads of time on my hands, but do like the idea of the girls playing while i potter around doing bit of gardening. Good idea about landscape advice parkbench, would like to try and get a bit of lawn somewhere. The house is called Acacia villa, so there must be an acacia tree somewhere, and there is a large yucca. Guess someone did some work on it at some stage but not recently!

Gorgeous house. Price not bad. Garden could be really terrific. Bet its really overgrown now though. Some good plants already in there and a dovecote! Any roses?
Agree, I think get a garden designer in for advice before starting. Esp if you want a lawn, sandpit, trampoline etc.
Not sure if you need a professional to hack back. Really just someone energetic eg DH. Suspect at this stage after all the rain, it is worth cutting everything back with sharp shears (except what is flowering or interesting) and bagging it up and taking it to the local dump. At least then the garden wont grow more over while you get it done properly and you might give the existing plants a chance. Have the previous owners left you a plant list?

Lovely house. Not sure on prices, I love gardening so would have a go myself. Cut everything back so you can see what you've got and go from there. I'm still chuckling that they marketed their house with the 'shit happens' poster in the bathroom!

Lovely house. I am sure you will be very happy there.

am a bit flabbergasted that the vendors didn't make even the slightest attempt to do something with it considering the rest of iyt looks immaculate

North London (Islington area) about £25 an hour

Didn't see any roses funnyperson and no plant list. Maybe I can buy an identification book? Or will get MIL down one weekend.
The current owners only moved in in December 2010 and are now moving to Ireland having made a killing so think they couldn't be bothered to do anything with it. Also they have a dog and 4 cats so probably mainly used for them. Think I will invest in some shears, but have got a couple of people coming to give me quotes on Saturday.
I quite liked the poster knittedslippers, don't think he is leaving it though!

Oh yuk definitely delegate if there is cat and dog poo about, draw the line at that.

I'm with funny, get someone else to clear the site. Once you start shifting dog/cat poo it really stinks!

Once it's cleared you can see what space you have and plan the garden from there. The picture looks like you have a very usable space but as it is, you won't benefit from it without it being cleared.

In London you won't and shouldn't pay less than £15 an hour for a professional gardener, more like £20 to £25.

I would love to tackle it for you! I don't mind cat and dog poo, but strongly disagree that you should totally clear it! There will be some lovely well-established plants that deserve a chance. Please don't just flatten it and start again [big sad beagle eyes].

(pm me if you'd like me to have a look)

Oooh, I didn't mean clear it completely just all the rubbish and dead stuff. Then you can see what plants you have and the space.

Absolutely lovely house. And it looks to me it's mostly plants overgrown rather than weeds so that's a really positive thing. (not that I know very much anything about gardening.) I think it's best to say by the hour £10-£15 per hour or maybe more as it's London.

By the way, we shall be expecting before and after photos.

By the way, we shall be expecting before and after photos.

I can't work out how to post pics. Moved now and it is crazy but some great trees including a copper beech, plum and lavender tree. There are 3 lime stumps in the middle that a friend says i should uproot. Loads of ground covered with wild geraniums and some enormous thistles. Got someone coming to start cutting back on Tuesday but apparently disposing of the waste is what costs. One guy wanted me to hire a skip which costs £ 300 to start.

Hi
How about having a gardening party weekend?? Invite family & friends to come & help, lay on food(homemade lasagne, garlic bread, salad, order in pizza or curry for another meal & some booze/refreshments!!)
You get your garden cleared back & have the pleasure of the company of your family & friends having fun hopefully!!
Going on the prices quoted before, I don`t think it would cost too much more to feed them & stop them dehydrating than it would be to employ a proffesional to do the first big job!

The gardeners did a grand job, had 3 guys working from 8-6.30 and cleared 2-3 van loads of waste. Think we needed it for quick fix, cost around £500. Have exposed what was a lime avenue I think, can see about 10 stumps about 3ft high lining a path. There is also a half-moon wall covered in shrubs on one side. And a marble pedastal, which apparently would cost about £800 to buy new. So now just have to decide what to do with it.