The price of a reasonable garden!

[Levanna]

So far we've had two quotes for fencing and turfing our back garden......one of £400 and one of £1100!
How ridiculous! The extremes have led me to think that the £400 quote may have been provided by a 'cowboy' and the £1100 quote by an expensive 'cowboy'!
Third quote due tomorrow, so maybe that will give us a more realistic idea. (Fingers crossed!)

are you in Brum levanna - if so I can recommend someone. Countryside Turf in Dickens Heath. The chap works like a dog and lovely too. He turfed my garden several years ago and my friend had "lawn envy" for years - still has! Also he fenced and turfed my sisters garden and various other friends.

We payed just over £1000 for a shed and fencing on our garden last January - it's not the normal flat panels - lots of little 'slats' rather than big panels though.

If your in Derbyshire I can recommend someone local who charged 250 for doing my back garden turf and borders and its lovely (they even have quals!)

Was just about to start a thread asking this.

We want our back garden levelled out and returfed, fences down each side and perhaps borders too, plus a new patio laying.

Would just opt for the returfing if that was all we couold afford though. Last residents had a bonfire on the grass and it is ruined.

Need it done as cheaply as poss really.

thanks for the recommendations Jampots and Frizbe, but I'm in Manchester. I've come to the conclusion prices are so high due to the housing boom in this area, I should imagine they can pretty much take their pick of all the work available!
We are going to give it a go ourselves, certainly the most viable method for us and we've nothing to lose really; the garden couldn't look worse than it does now . (The third quote for turfing was £400 and £500 for fencing again.)
I had even considered laying the lawn from seed, but I don't think we will, the hens would have a hay day!
Is the area of your lawn that's damaged large nutcracker? Would seeding that area be an option for you? It would save £'s .

Levanna - the fencing prices sound comparable to what we had done (Midlands). Turfing prices I have no idea. Make sure you get decent turf, though, ie lawn turf and not meadow turf or grassland turf.

Levanna tbh depending on the size of your garden, these quotes sound pretty standard to me, but I'd go for the cheaper cowboy! Laying turf is really not a particularly difficult or skilled job (not that I could do it!)

As a rule of thumb, if you want a really nice job done of your garden and it is more than about 40 or 50 ft, expect to pay almost as much as you would for a new kitchen. After all, you use it about as much if you factor in the fact that you don't use it at all in Winter but use it all the time in Summer, and the labour cost (which is the primary cost) is the same or more.

I'm talking bushes rockeries, herb patches and tree/s though, plus re-planting, so if you have a big garden, £1000 just for turfing alone doesn't sound enormous to me, particularly if they need to use something like a rotivator, but it does all depend on size, whether extra topsoil needs to be added, etc.

everything's relative I suppose! I just hadn't budgeted these sort of amounts, so, my fault. Then again, we don't mind putting in some work instead . The area we are having turfed is about 30'x 20'(maybe even 20'x20'). (The rest made up of flower beds/water feature/hens/veg patch/seating area, all of which we'd make ourselves - apart form the hens!) The fencing is literally a case of slotting new panels into the posts which is why I baulked at the price.
this spring is looking busier and busier!
Thanks for the advice and info.

We fenced, turfed, bordered our garden which was fairly long. It was lovely doing it with DH (child-free at the time of course). we even built a wall and a couple of ponds. We also had a few 'gardening' BBQs & parties and got friends to help out with things we couldn't do just the two of us.
We loved being in the garden ever since as we'd done it ourselves!! we miss it terribly since we moved.

You are absolutely right Blossom2 , we've decided on the DIY route, it's proving to be fun already! Knowing that we did it is bound to make it all the more enjoyable when it's got to the stage where we can sit back and enjoy (between bouts of upkeep ).
Thanks!