Hourly rate for a gardener in London?

[koolforcats]

I'm in need of a bit of extra assistance with my garden so was planning on finding a gardener. The one I've found so far charges £17 an hour. I've no idea if this is expensive or about what I should expect to pay in London?

We used to use a local gardener, who charged £10 an hour (this was two years ago, so his rates are probably more now) but he wasn't a specialist gardener, but had taken early retirement and did a bit of gardening to supplement his pension.

We have recently started to use a different gardener - this one charges £17.50 per hour, but there are two of them so it actually costs us £35 an hour. These guys are 'proper' gardeners, and offer a more complete service (e.g. they will offer advice, returf lawns, cut back trees, move shrubs etc). Whereas first gardener was more of a mow lawns/weed borders kind of service.

We're in SE London suburbia.

Brill, thanks. I guess this is the price to expect then!

Sorry, just jumping on the bandwagon here.... Can anyone recommend a gardener in the Sutton/surrey area? faytality would that be near you?

I work as a gardener in London and charge £18ph for maintenance if that helps