rates of pay for professional gardeners

[loobs2]

Anyone know the going hourly rate for a gardener? We desperately need help with ours - general cutting back and weeding - and I've just been quoted £17 an hour - yikes!

Hi, its one of those things where you will have to plough thru the internet for your are, Regards Geoff

Hi, are your gardening services still active?

I would appreciate some gardening on my front garden that needs cutting back.

Many thanks
Jen

"nanasueathome" your comment makes absolutely no sense. You were given a price for a job to be done, you agreed to the price feeling it was "fair enough" and the work was carried out.
But because they did it too fast you consider yourself to have been "ripped off"? So, if the two workers spent 4 hours there working much slower and did exactly the same job, you would feel that you got your money's worth? Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? People quoting for a job can't estimate exactly how many hours a job will take, so therefore give a price for what the job is worth to them to do and what the customer considers a fair price for the price to be done, if you agree to that then it is irrelevant how long it takes and to say you have been ripped off is ludicrous.

"We were just ripped off and charged £180- for 5 hours work. That works out at £36 pr hour. Never use people who say they charge by the work, not the hour and then only do part of the work. We paid but will not use, nor recommend this gardener."

Again, someone that doesn't understand what "ripped off" means. If a gardener has expensive professional tools, and experience and training that allows them to get work done faster, then there is absolutely no reason or incentive for them to charge by the hour. They might as well use a flymo lawnmower and work as slow as they can at your garden,just letting the metre tick over. But then you'd complain about that as well wouldn't you? So you actually want it both ways, you want a professional trained person to do a good job, but you also want to pay them just above the minimum wage for the privilege.

We paid £85 per day for the Gardener and £60 per day for each assistant.

I can recommend my handyman who also does gardening bits and bobs. He charges by the hour and lives local to me in Southampton this is his website for more information www.pandmearlservicesltd.co.uk

I'm a self employed gardener based near Ruabon, Wrexham. I've been working as a gardener for 5 years now and do weekly or fortnightly garden maintenance for regular customers. I charge sensible rates and don't chop down jungles!

Professional gardeners can cost anywhere between £15 - £25 an hour depending on experience.
Some people don't have the best tools any insurances, that's why they are able to charge less.
You get what you pay for most of the time and professionals will charge more because its their full time profession and they know what they are doing.
I use www.zengardening.co.uk/ a professional gardening service in surrey, and always happy with the rates.

Remember "gardener" covers the whole gamut from "person who cuts grass, blows leaves and trims hedges" to gardener who knows plants and how to care for them, when to prune etc. Nothing wrong with employing a grass cutter/hedge trimmer if that's what you need, but if you need a gardener you will need to pay more, just as you expect to pay more for a plumber or electrician.

We pay £20/hour for someone with no qualifications but experience, and we're in outer London but inside the M25. They bring their own tools but they don't take the garden waste away. We pay the local authority for the use of two big brown bins and they're emptied every fortnight for half the year and every month for the other (more dormant) half.