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Gardening rates

jeanie1900jeanie1900 Posts: 14
in Problem solving
Can I pick everyone's brains please? What's a reasonable rate to pay a gardener? I recently had one charge me £30 for half an hour! All he did was strim some of the grass (we have a small to medium sized garden) and didn't even take the greenery away! Is that taking the mickey? It certainly felt like it
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  • owd potterowd potter Posts: 979
    edited May 2021
    I guess it will be variable, depending where you are and how much work or how regularly you need one.
    If you only have a small amount of work to be done, say 1/2 -1hr occasionally then travelling will be comparatively high and you will find it difficult to get someone as cheaply as say a morning per week regularly
    £60/hr sounds exorbitant to me, so I would agree that seems like taking the ****
     
    Just another day at the plant...
  • debbiemartindaledebbiemartindale Posts: 23
    I guess it depends where you are in the country. We are in the South West and have a gardener in to mow the lawns . It takes about 2.5 hours on a ride on and he strims the banks. He charges about £90. He dumps the cuttings in the hedges here. 
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    When we call a plumber or a washing machine engineer we expect to pay for the time spent on the job, any parts and a call out fee.  We also expect them to know what they're doing and clear up after themselves.

    I wouldn't let an untrained gardener loose on my plot, especially with a strimmer, but I would expect a skilled gardener to clear up.  After that the fees would depend on which part of the country you're in, how much competition there is and how far they came.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • jeanie1900jeanie1900 Posts: 14
    They only live down the road, so there's no travelling expenses!
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    In that case I suggest someone different next time you need a job doing but, again, it depends on location.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • PerkiPerki Posts: 2,527
    Like everyone else has mentioned it depends on where you live, hourly rates can vary across the country from £10 ( usually someone wanting something to do, like recently retired  ) all the way up to £60 - 70 down south, if you are not happy try someone else . Did he / she give you an hourly rate ? or a fixed price grass cutting is usually a fix price. And removal of waste normally occurs an extra cost waste removal is expensive , I personally refuse to take a lot of waste away like grass it horrible to get rid of. 
  • jeanie1900jeanie1900 Posts: 14
    There were 2 of them. The other guy is his 21 year old son. But it still sounds a lot to me. And after all, if they were only here half an hour that's £30 an hour for each of them!
  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    It’s far too expensive for most parts of the country but now telling us there were two of them puts a different slant on it. And when you say “half an hour” and “just down the road” would it be fair to say that from leaving their front gate to returning to their front gate it was more like 45 minutes? 45 minutes and two people equates to £20 an hour. That’s at the top end of reasonable but I would not say it is exorbitant
    Rutland, England
  • Chris-P-BaconChris-P-Bacon Posts: 943
    jeanie1900 said:
    There were 2 of them. The other guy is his 21 year old son. But it still sounds a lot to me. And after all, if they were only here half an hour that's £30 an hour for each of them!
    It's highway robbery! I certainly wouldn't be inviting them back.
  • jeanie1900jeanie1900 Posts: 14
    Actually no, they live 5 minutes away & they have other jobs they do in the area too!
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