How much should you pay a gardener?

We pay ours £18 an hour. We’re in Bristol. He comes every other week.
He keeps the garden tidy and will do anything I ask him to do. He supplies everything and leaves the garden looking very tidy. He is not what I would call a proper gardener but I’m happy as it’s too much for us now. I still do a lot of the pruning myself as I enjoy it and it stops them whizzing round and chopping the heads off plants. He is a very nice young man with 2 assistants who are also very nice. DH still insists on cutting the grass as no one can do it as good as him.

As we babysit her daughter while she works we pay £10 ph, but her usual rate is £20, trained landscape gardener.

Sago I was having a cuppa when reading your post and nearly spilt my tea, you’ve made my day ???

I paid my first gardener £15 but he retired and I used an agency that charged £20 an hour but the following year said they were increasing their price to £40 an hour! I was struggling to find anyone that didn’t insist on fortnightly but luckily a new gardener advertised on my local Facebook page and charges £20, comes monthly.

DiL's gardener - who does know his stuff - charges £25 per hour. Takes all clippings etc away with him.

She pays cleaner £25 an hour, Cleaner provides all her own equipment except for mop and vacuum cleaner.

We have neither but pay window cleaners £30 to do our windows every six weeks or so. It takes 2 of them about 40 minutes.

All three have just asked for increase to help with their petrol costs. Window cleaners put £2 on every customer's bill.

Due to rise in fuel costs my gardener raised his price from £30 to £35 very recently. This is for a session doing whatever needs doing eg grass cutting/trimming edges, weeding, trimming back shrubs. He brings his own equipment and takes a lot of the cutting/clearing out stuff away. I do have a large garden refuse bin and depending when its due for emptying he puts grass cutting in that. Visits 4 weekly as I am able to cut the grass in between. Wouldn't say he is the best but okay, willing and available.

My mother had a gardener for £120 for the day once a fortnight but certainly did not put in the hours what with arriving after 9 and moving off after 3 and with coffee break and lunch break. And had to be told obvious things to be doing..... There is now a lady who does a couple of hours at £20 an hour.

Always annoys me that gardeners (usully male) get paid so much more than cleaners per hours when (unless special expertise required) they are both doing a manual job. Another case of inequality of pay for similar work?
(But f gardeners are like hens teeth then maybe the market palce speaks!)

£15 an hour, she has all the necessary equipment and I provide the pots etc.

Find out if the local college have students doing horticulture and need experience/project work if you have a large garden they are often looking for people willing to let them come and work supervised.

£20 an hour per person. We have a team of two who come in every fortnight. This is in Surrey.

£15 to £25 an hour is about standard I think

Chestnut

Fleurpepper

It depends what you call a 'gardener'. I would be happy to pay a lot more for someone who truly knows her or his stuff. Many so called gardeners have not got a clue.

I agree. As I said, our gardener just cuts things back which keeps things tidy but often too much. He hacked a large but beautiful buddleia back to the core and it is just a dead stump. I was not happy. He is not a gardener, he's a man with a machine who hacks plants.

They are called mow and blow services round here!

From my eyrie (sewing room window), I watch the activities of the 'Gardening Services' team in action across the road. Huge, spivvy but smart vans, full of eye-watering electrical gizmos and PPE. Most have no visible inkling of how to 'garden' - like the young one I watched whose long-handled lopper was used like a bowler's throwing arm to hack at out of reach branches.
They whizz in and whizz out.

What many of us seek is a 'plants person' who enjoys and delights in their work for you and is knowledgeable, a dying breed, I fear.

Kittylester, I agree that being much younger and so hopefully " seeing you out" is quite important. Our neighbours gardener has just had to be retired - he was 92 and although physically fit he was no longer mentally able to make the one hour commute each way by public transport. She has had to start again with a new, female gardener who is mid thirties and she hopes this will " see her out" .

I had one at £15 an hour, he retired and my new one, found with great difficulty, charges £25 an hour. That made my eyes water but seems to be about average around here in N. Bucks

Just to clarify my gardener also does the ironing and hoovering in return for all meals cooked from fresh and his washing. There is a tariff for additional services but these are often related to high days and holidays and a pro rata rate applied.

Kittylester, you’ve hit the jackpot I think. It’s clear getting a gardener isn’t easy and yiu have a talented enthusiast
I have a retired police officer who directs
His young assistant in lawn mowing and basic weeding. I’m just relieved to have found them

I pay my gardener £22.50 an hour. He brings all his own tools, lawnmower etc.

I'm sure the price varies but I live in a pretty cheap part of the UK and pay £15 ph.
It took me years to find someone. Many, many "gardeners" quoted and promised then never turned up.
My guy lives in the village. He's hopeless as a gardener as he doesn't know a weed from a flower, but fine for cutting grass and hedges.

Our gardener is a garden designer as well and she has planned and planted our front garden and one bed in the back. She makes really good suggestions for planting and moving stuff around.

She makes fabulous door wreaths at Christmas, runs courses and is so young she will definitely 'see us out'.

Just had conifers cut and some back hedges cost me £600 but I knew my husband couldn’t do that himself. And there was an awful lot to take away so I was happy to pay it.

Love it big Berthal me too.

Fleurpepper

It depends what you call a 'gardener'. I would be happy to pay a lot more for someone who truly knows her or his stuff. Many so called gardeners have not got a clue.

I agree. As I said, our gardener just cuts things back which keeps things tidy but often too much. He hacked a large but beautiful buddleia back to the core and it is just a dead stump. I was not happy. He is not a gardener, he's a man with a machine who hacks plants.

I have gardening help one day a month and he brings his petrol hedge trimmer but uses all our hand tools (pruners and so on). Because we have a wooded area, we have someone else (specialist) to help maintain that. He brings all his equipment include harness for tree surgery and chain saw. He has to have a licence to use that.

Both charge £15 per hour. Woodland man had just put it up to £17:50 due to fuel costs (travel and equipment).

We live in Cornwall.

It depends what you call a 'gardener'. I would be happy to pay a lot more for someone who truly knows her or his stuff. Many so called gardeners have not got a clue.