Quote for minor work- toooo high?!

[smerlin]

Hello lovely gardeners

Am hoping someone can help with a quote I received

Not good at measurements but my back garden is maybe 15-20m long, basically a standard terraced house rectangle with central lawn and beds round outside.

Have received quote for
-putting in wooden raised bed 2.5mx1.5 and filling with 2tonnes(?!) compost. Two planks high
-remove one small dead tree (not much taller than the fence)
-weed flower beds

This has been costed at £1700!!

It includes concreting posts of raised bed into ground which I'm not sure is necessary but even so, is this normal?! The raised bed kit I looked at online was £200 so not sure where rest of cost comes from? Quote included £1000 of labour!

I had someone come yesterday and tut about it and tell me it would need a day on it cutting back grass and brambles and quoted it would be £400! That’s £50 an hour! I don’t know about your landscaping but I thought that might give you an idea of how much the hourly rate might be

We got a quote for something similar for our tiny tiny garden and and it was £££. So I suspect this kind of work is more expensive than you might think. We never did get the work done.

We have just had some raised beds put in our garden, higher than yours but we needed 65 sleepers, they were concreted in and also had metal supports put inside.
The materials came to £2000.

I can't comment on the labour as that was
'Mates Rates' but it was labour intensive, cutting & placing the sleepers etc,

I'll try and find the invoice, how many hours etc and let you know, might help gauge whether it's reasonable or not!

Here's a ohoto!

Seems very high. I would shop around.

I've got a recommendation from a friend of two guys she uses, they charge €30 per hr (total) for tidying and pruning work (non expert) but she says they do a fab job and they take away the cuttings/rubbish. £1700 sounds like a lot to me.

The £2000 didn't include any compost or soil or anything!

We need about 2 tonnes of top soil even after we've filled the bottom of the beds with sand, an old patio and anything else we could get rid of to save us a skip! ☀️

I had a corner of my garden turned into an allotment four years ago - five raised beds (not huge each about 1.5mx1.5m), a membrane and stones between them all, picket fence around (say 5m x 5m) on two sides and two gates. Filled with soil and five new hedging plants put in. They had to take out lawn and a small tree. £3000. I am in the midlands, so I think your cost sounds little high but not ridiculous.

I got a quote from a bricky recently to recement some patio edging stones that are all loose.
He announced what I had wasn't suitable so would need new £300 for materials and £300 labour

My gardener however is mixing cement and sticking them down at £10 an hour...so far he's spent 1 hour and done about a quarter of it.

My advice would be to get a gardener/odd job man in get them to do the weeding, then move onto the next job and the next job at £1,000 labour that's 100 hours by normal gardener rates

I work part time for a professional landscape and sports ground maintenance company. I am paid £10 an hour. Your quote sounds expensive.
In passing, I would add that the travelling tree surgeon types should be avoided. We go to plenty of awful jobs where they've done a job badly, harming the tree and charging a fortune.

Thanks for feedback everyone- seems like a huge range! I requested a single raised bed with dimensions above so not hugely complicated- was expecting something like photo below

Am going to separate out weeding, tree surgery and raised bed into three separate jobs and get the right person for each as I suspect part of the issue is paying landscape gardener rates for basic weeding as well.

They have claimed it will take them 3 days with three men which to be honest I simply do not believe. DH and I built my daughter's big wooden playhouse in about 4 hours with windows, doors, roofing felt etc so I do fail to see how this job could take so long.

What type of tree @smerlin?

They are trying to rip you off Smerlin.What I'd do in your situation is buy the beds off Ebay or get the Planks from somewhere like Wicks and screw them together yourself.Then get the top soil/compost delivered and ask them to put it next to the beds and just shovel it in yourself. Get a wheelbarrow if needed.Ask your partner or a friend to help you.
Regarding the tree being removed I'd pay for that and it would be about £50-£75 here for a small one.Regarding weeding just do 10 minutes per day and if its really bad use Rosate 360 a strong weedkiller off Ebay for £25.00.
Dont be paying £1700 they are taking the piss big style.

Thanks for advice everyone. Am thinking DIY may be the way to go here. Appreciate this is a trade but cannot see how cost can be so high for something I could do myself and certainly could if I were a more practically minded type! It's only for growing a bit of veg with my toddler!

Not sure on type of tree- about 6 ft tall with v slender trunk

We put in five raised vegetable beds, 1.2m square and three planks high each. We put membrane down around them, and pea shingle on top as paths between the beds. We used deck boards for the beds and the whole thing took dh and I a weekend (with plenty of tea breaks and faffing), and cost about £250 all in, including topsoil, screws etc.

The beds have been in place for six years and are still going strong.

£1700 seems a bit steep, I'd be tempted to get someone to take the tree and do the rest myself.