When did gardeners get so blooming ;-) expensive???

[citizensm1th]

Greg_D said:

'Citizen smith' - says it all really. I think you're reading WAAAAY too much into it. I'm in no way rude to anyone. I just don't accept that basic work is now £25/hr. you can project whatever image you like onto me but rebranding grounds maintenance as some sort of artisan occupation simply doesn't wash (and you'll notice that not one person has replied to this thread admitting to paying it)

Time to climb down off your high horse and actually answer my question posed in my previous last paragraph.

What i am reading in to it is you want some one on the cheap to do a job you do not want to do when the market is dictating a rate you seem to think is to high because its a menial job, to quote you "We need a new set of gardeners and they are all asking £25/hr" .

While you may not accept basic work is now £25/hr it seems in your area it is so either pay the going rate or do it yourself.

Would i pay for a gardener,artisan or not ,no i enjoy doing it myself and have better things to spend that kind of money on

[jamesRS6]

a £10 per hr guy has to be on benefits or retired and paying no tax you cannot make a living doing that job on £10 per hr.

A reasonable price to pay to get your lawn cut, edges trimmed, weeding etc Id say would be £20-£25 depending on the size of the garden.

[Sheepshanks]

Japveesix said:

Gardeners are widely reported to be the happiest workers around. It's pleasant, creative, keeps you fit and healthy and there's immense satisfation in seeing things grow and develop. It can also be very local and very flexible so good for avoiding commutes etc and taking days off if needed.

They're not so happy that they'll do it for buttons though, the buggers!

Japveesix said:

... businessmen driving past in the 5 series BMWs then she'll probably really enjoy the change.

Businessmen? 5 Series is a sales reps car.

[Granfondo]

Willy Nilly said:

Horticulture is a profession in itself. You can pay your 10 quid an our, get the lawn mowed-ish, the mower broken, most of the flowers mowed, trees pruned at the wrong time of year, no liability insurance, your trimming fly tipped, or you can pay for someone that knows what they are doing. Do you think the grass at Old Trafford just grows and they chuck a mower across is on a Monday afternoon?

There's been a lot of st on the Old Trafford pitch lately though!

[Willy Nilly]

Granfondo said:

Willy Nilly said:

Horticulture is a profession in itself. You can pay your 10 quid an our, get the lawn mowed-ish, the mower broken, most of the flowers mowed, trees pruned at the wrong time of year, no liability insurance, your trimming fly tipped, or you can pay for someone that knows what they are doing. Do you think the grass at Old Trafford just grows and they chuck a mower across is on a Monday afternoon?

There's been a lot of st on the Old Trafford pitch lately though!

Should make the grass grow

[anonymous-user]

55palfers said:

Is it a gardener or a labourer who can push a mower in a straightish line?

World of difference.

Had the latter last year. He dug up all my dahlias and cannas, knackered a Stihl strimmer and generally failed to actually do any gardening.

Have just engaged a promising chap at £150 per day (West Mids) so fingers crossed

I'm further South than you (read: more expensive) and that sounds about right. This is a year round contract - gardeners are properly trained and provide all the equipment, chemicals, fertiliser etc. No, it isn't cheap but its a big garden we don't want/can't do it all ourselves. Our choice.

We also have another guy for growing veg and looking after the greenhouse who IS on £15 an hour. Again, all his own tools. More of a hobby for him and cash in hand. It suits him and we just treat him like any other friend except that he gets paid for a few hours here and there. No way would we ask him to do what the contract gardeners do for £15/hour (he'd have to be full time and then struggle I think!).

[jamesRS6]

Have a word with yourself OP , just seen your house on another thread lol . Come on.

[MX5_Nuts]

jamesRS6 said:

Have a word with yourself OP , just seen your house on another thread lol . Come on.

The last quote I did for basically a millionaire she laughed at me when I quoted £17 per hour. They're all the same.

[J4CKO]

MX5_Nuts said:

jamesRS6 said:

Have a word with yourself OP , just seen your house on another thread lol . Come on.

The last quote I did for basically a millionaire she laughed at me when I quoted £17 per hour. They're all the same.

That's why they are !

Sometimes you have to let other folk make a crust, and sometimes when you sell stuff you may have to let someone get a bargain, I know wealthy people who are terrified of either scenario, cost of everything and value of nothing.

There are wealthy folk who get that way by getting stuff done and not paying when complete, they are the worst, my father in law had dealings with one, quite well known, died last year and he got a hotel kitchen fitted and never paid, the mere mention of his name used to set my father in law in a rage.

[Hoofy]

PostHeads123 said:

I always give him a coffee and make it very strong to give him a caffeine hit so he can get more done

Thanks for the tip. Will have to remember that one.

[MX5_Nuts]

Hoofy said:

PostHeads123 said:

I always give him a coffee and make it very strong to give him a caffeine hit so he can get more done

Thanks for the tip. Will have to remember that one.

I bet he wastes more time pissing behind the shrubs when he's not looking.

[shedweller]

To describe gardening as unskilled is incredibly offensive to me, you don’t want a gardener you want a slash and burn artist at 10phr operating out the back of a car with a crappy mower from screwfix….. Who will muck you about at every opportunity so you can come back on here and complain about “trades” all being st.

I am a professional gardener and I run a gardening business that employs 3 other guys 12 months of the year.

2 vehicles - with everyone insured
12k value in tools on each vehicle daily in normal use.
Uniform
Annual training (first aid spraying etc etc)
Premises
Waste carriers tickets
Waste disposal costs
Equipment repair and purchase 6k pa
Fuel 150+pw
Employment costs

And then I need to pay wages & holiday… How much is reasonable to pay someone with a degree who turns up every day, works hard and has kids/mortgage etc??? - Good trustworthy hardworking and knowledgeable guys are like rocking horse st - Something you will find out for yourself shopping at the bottom of the market.

In rural Devon I charge £25phr if its just a couple of hours due to travelling time etc, regular customers (weekly) of more than 4hrs per visit are charged at £22phr inclusive of waste disposal (maintenance)

The people we work for range from Doris who wants 2hrs a fortnight in her bungalow, up to individuals who spend 20k a year on garden maintenance.

We are busy…… If you want 2hrs of my time it will be mid September.

[pim]

I used to do gardening I charged 8 to ten pound a hr.Cutting grass tidying and planting.Then it starts oh can you cut the Leylandi.

You end up adding on for little money.I look after my own garden the few quid it pays and what people want not worth it.

[V8RX7]

I can see both sides of the argument.

As I pay Tradesmen (carpenter, electrician, bricklayer) £120-150 / day and they are far harder / in demand than a general gardener (we're not talking Kew Gardens here) then I wouldn't consider paying a gardener that much and I know I can get them for £100/day.

Equally I wouldn't expect a gardener to turn up and mow a lawn for less than £15 even for a 20 minute job.

I know a local millionaire who has retired and was bored so bought a mower and is happily mowing lawns for £30 for small and £50 for large and he's inundated !

Edited by V8RX7 on Friday 19th May 21:21

[kurt535]

Greg_D said:

Mr GrimNasty said:

Greg_D said:

We need a new set of gardeners and they are all asking £25/hr (Worcestershire) our last lot were £10/hr which was fair considering the fractional nature of the job and travelling time to the job.

What the actual hell! when did gardening suddenly become a 'skilled' job as opposed to running the mower round, strimming and pulling up weeds?

Does anyone actually pay that much?

£25/hr is cheap, all the overheads, downtime, etc. won't even make £2K a month before expenses/deductions.

Any cheaper and you will be employing an illegal/dodgy bloke (unless semi-retired just doing it for a hobby).

Get sweaty yourself if you don't like it!

That's for 3 of them, so most of the overheads (van/equipment/repairs etc. are split)

not cheap enough for a menial job

'work' 10 hrs/day to get 8 billed = £200/day
6 days a week is more than £5k/month gross

it doesn't cost that much to run a mower/strimmer!!!!

Got your finger on the pulse what a log normal distribution business costs to run then hero.

[kurt535]

shedweller said:

To describe gardening as unskilled is incredibly offensive to me, you don’t want a gardener you want a slash and burn artist at 10phr operating out the back of a car with a crappy mower from screwfix….. Who will muck you about at every opportunity so you can come back on here and complain about “trades” all being st.

I am a professional gardener and I run a gardening business that employs 3 other guys 12 months of the year.

2 vehicles - with everyone insured
12k value in tools on each vehicle daily in normal use.
Uniform
Annual training (first aid spraying etc etc)
Premises
Waste carriers tickets
Waste disposal costs
Equipment repair and purchase 6k pa
Fuel 150+pw
Employment costs

And then I need to pay wages & holiday… How much is reasonable to pay someone with a degree who turns up every day, works hard and has kids/mortgage etc??? - Good trustworthy hardworking and knowledgeable guys are like rocking horse st - Something you will find out for yourself shopping at the bottom of the market.

In rural Devon I charge £25phr if its just a couple of hours due to travelling time etc, regular customers (weekly) of more than 4hrs per visit are charged at £22phr inclusive of waste disposal (maintenance)

The people we work for range from Doris who wants 2hrs a fortnight in her bungalow, up to individuals who spend 20k a year on garden maintenance.

We are busy…… If you want 2hrs of my time it will be mid September.

Full support from me Shed. There can be some very narrow minded people on here.....

[citizensm1th]

kurt535 said:

shedweller said:

To describe gardening as unskilled is incredibly offensive to me, you don’t want a gardener you want a slash and burn artist at 10phr operating out the back of a car with a crappy mower from screwfix….. Who will muck you about at every opportunity so you can come back on here and complain about “trades” all being st.

I am a professional gardener and I run a gardening business that employs 3 other guys 12 months of the year.

2 vehicles - with everyone insured
12k value in tools on each vehicle daily in normal use.
Uniform
Annual training (first aid spraying etc etc)
Premises
Waste carriers tickets
Waste disposal costs
Equipment repair and purchase 6k pa
Fuel 150+pw
Employment costs

And then I need to pay wages & holiday… How much is reasonable to pay someone with a degree who turns up every day, works hard and has kids/mortgage etc??? - Good trustworthy hardworking and knowledgeable guys are like rocking horse st - Something you will find out for yourself shopping at the bottom of the market.

In rural Devon I charge £25phr if its just a couple of hours due to travelling time etc, regular customers (weekly) of more than 4hrs per visit are charged at £22phr inclusive of waste disposal (maintenance)

The people we work for range from Doris who wants 2hrs a fortnight in her bungalow, up to individuals who spend 20k a year on garden maintenance.

We are busy…… If you want 2hrs of my time it will be mid September.

Full support from me Shed. There can be some very narrow minded people on here.....

they are not narrow minded they just dont value other peoples time,their own of cause is priceless

[kurt535]

citizensm1th said:

kurt535 said:

shedweller said:

To describe gardening as unskilled is incredibly offensive to me, you don’t want a gardener you want a slash and burn artist at 10phr operating out the back of a car with a crappy mower from screwfix….. Who will muck you about at every opportunity so you can come back on here and complain about “trades” all being st.

I am a professional gardener and I run a gardening business that employs 3 other guys 12 months of the year.

2 vehicles - with everyone insured
12k value in tools on each vehicle daily in normal use.
Uniform
Annual training (first aid spraying etc etc)
Premises
Waste carriers tickets
Waste disposal costs
Equipment repair and purchase 6k pa
Fuel 150+pw
Employment costs

And then I need to pay wages & holiday… How much is reasonable to pay someone with a degree who turns up every day, works hard and has kids/mortgage etc??? - Good trustworthy hardworking and knowledgeable guys are like rocking horse st - Something you will find out for yourself shopping at the bottom of the market.

In rural Devon I charge £25phr if its just a couple of hours due to travelling time etc, regular customers (weekly) of more than 4hrs per visit are charged at £22phr inclusive of waste disposal (maintenance)

The people we work for range from Doris who wants 2hrs a fortnight in her bungalow, up to individuals who spend 20k a year on garden maintenance.

We are busy…… If you want 2hrs of my time it will be mid September.

Full support from me Shed. There can be some very narrow minded people on here.....

they are not narrow minded they just dont value other peoples time,their own of cause is priceless

Citizen, you and me are the same hymn sheet. But I do feel are narrow minded thinking a person's time is worth less because they do a manual job like 'gardening'.

[Randy Winkman]

V8RX7 said:

I can see both sides of the argument.

Surely since this is PH there is only one side to this argument. i.e. A fair price is whatever it costs to get someone to do the work. Notwithstanding that, gardening has always been stupidly cheap compared with getting anything done inside the house. Along with getting a bike fixed. That'll be the next thing to go up in price.

[shedweller]

Greg_D said:

We need a new set of gardeners

May ask what happened to the last "set" of £10phr gardeners you had???

Were they... Messy,unreliable,unskilled,rough thickos........ Cheap???