House we are buying has large garden and is an complete mess. How much does landscaping cost?

[CrapBag]

I am not a gardener. I have no interest plus I have health problems and wouldn't be able to do it anyway.

The house has a large garden, brilliant for the kids. But it is completely overgrown, you can barely get in it! Relatives can help with getting the trees down and cutting it back to begin with. I don't want anything fancy but attractive and low maintenance. DH wants to just have all grass but this would look really boring.

How much would it cost for someone to come in and do it? I have never had anything like this before so have no idea. We are not in the east if that helps as I know prices there are higher for everything.

There is a hedge all down one side that would need to come down, fence needs to go around 2 sides (but may be able to do that ourselves) want all new turf laid, patio at the bottom, path down to it, some plants (that I can't kill). Fairly basic and low maintenance but nice.

Any ideas? Or what did you pay?

We’re having our garden landscaped at the moment. Our house is a new build so the garden really is a blank canvas to start with – not massive amounts of clearing or weeding or cutting back of stuff before the main work can start. Fencing is already in place and brand new.

We’re having the garden sectioned off onto two levels, so the price includes the hire of a mini-digger and a bunch of railway sleepers to be used as retainers. The lower level will have quite a large patio area using Indian stone. The upper level is a combination of turf and another smaller patio area in a spot which catches the evening sun.

Materials and hire of equipment have cost £7.5k. Labour is going to be approximately £3.5k – that’s 2 men, they've estimated roughly 15 days work.

Then we will have the cost of planting up the borders to add in once it’s all done – but that will be an ongoing project.

That's a lot of money, but it's a blank slate.

When you're new to a mature garden I would live with it for year so you can see what is in it and what comes up, what it's like at different times of year and what the light is like.

I'd have a really good tidy up - perhaps pay a local gardener to do the work for you and they should be able to point out what is there that's worth keeping, what needs work and what would be good in the different areas of the garden and so on. You might find that with a bit of work and not as much expense you have something pretty workable. Then look at the hard landscaping for next year.

I'd put a patio close to the house though because if you plan to eat out there, have a BBQ, etc it's a lot more convenient not to have to traipse down the garden with everything. You could have a small seating area at the end if the garden as well.

Wow.

I guess DH is going to have to learn how to do most of it himself!

I didn't want the patio at the top because that bit gets shaded very quickly whereas the sun is at the bottom until the evening. Planning and having a nice table and chairs set and I can lounge whilst the kids play. And they had better play in the garden! The whole point of getting a big garden is for them, not us.