Local gardeners

Hello everybody, I am very interested in becoming a local gardener as a part-time job. I am young but do not have any gardening qualifications, however, I will just be offering general garden maintenance (mowing lawns, removing garden rubbish, trimming, rotovating, weed control, etc.

I am presuming that I don't need anything official to be able to do this apart from experience (which I have), as it's just building a reputation from then.

I would like to know though, on average what people would expect to pay for the garden maintenance mentioned above. I know it's dependent on the garden size etc, but just a rough idea of what I would expect to get?

Also, if anybody could tell me if there is anywhere to go (college, courses) to get some further experience of gardening.
I'm not being lazy, I just can't seem to find anywhere that does basic gardening courses and more!

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

I am sure people will be happy to offer you some advice richtich, but I think it would help if we knew which area of the country you are in.

 

Hi Rich Tich,

Have you looked at all the local college brochures (not just city centres) I know that two near us run gardening courses some are city and guilds so you could get a qualification.

Have you thought about contacting any local gardeners or landscape gardening companies to see if they need some part time help. This way you could gain some experience working with others before branchng out on your own.

Also I am new to gardening but have found books a great source of help. I have a RHS learn to garden book which covers most things, such as pruning etc

Good luck with your new venture.

 

Thanks Diziblonde, sure I should have mentioned where. It will be in Durham and the outskirts.

Hi Ellie - I've looked at local colleges and nobody seems to do anything at the moment and I cant recall seeing any such courses in the past.
Good idea about the books though, I shall get myself to a few book shops and maybe self teach myself. One of my friends mentioned getting some work experience with a gardener already set up, but I do intend just to do the basics at the moment, with a plan to eventually go on to more advanced gardening skills.

Like the books idea though, next stop Waterstones!

Thanks.

 

Hi richtich,
I think the average for gardening work is about �£10 per hour. There are a few hidden costs that some include. I don't, but some charge extra for using their own petrol equipment, and removal of any debris collected. What sort of things were you thinking of doing, Mowing? Hedges? fences? weeding? pruning? etc,
Have you thought about how you'll get yourself known? Whether you want a regular maintenance rota with extra one offs or the larger things to be done as one offs.
There is no need for qualifications as long as you know what you are doing and are confident in your know how, then you should be turning the customers away. They may be slow to start,but then they'll start queueing, By autumn you may well be inundated. Good luck, If you need any more help or advice, list of books or basic tools, let me know and I will try to help you.

 

Hi Rich tich,

Some of the books can be quite expensive. Your first stop should be ebay I reckon!!

Good luck!

 

Hello Rich tich, try Looking in charity shops for gardening books and boot sales are a good place to pick them up also.

 

Hi Compostee

Thanks for the reply, if you could help with any of this that would be great thanks.

The jobs you mentioned are exactly the types of things I am looking at, I have devised a plan of action of things that I need and things I will be doing.
It goes something like this:

Job - mowing lawns, removing garden rubbish, weeding and weed control, rotovating.

All of them things I can do now and am confident in doing them so that's all I will offer for now. Once I get going and hopefully get a reputation, I will be looking at gaining knowledge and experience in stuff like hedge-cutting, pruning and maybe even tree removal and fencing/decking, but that's all for the future and once I've established the basic gardening services.

Equipment required - vehicle for equipment and storage, advertising literature such as flyers, business cards, lawn mower (petrol preferred), rotovator, lawn rakes, strimmer.
Can't think of anything else that I would need to start up my original plan.

I would then distribute flyers through local places where I would like to work, put them in letterboxes, display in shops etc.

So basically that's it! I'd need them things to start off and as I have none at the moment, I worked out very roughly that I'd need about �£1k for gardening equipment, �£1k for second hand old van and about �£200 for advertising.
I was wondering if you're a gardener, how many gardens you do roughly each day and you said on avaerage, �£10 a garden, is that right?

Do my plans sound reasonable and realistic then??

Thanks

 

Hi richtich, shame you don't accept private msgs on your profile, Rather than bore everyone else. But you get me wrong. The charges are usually
�£10 PER HOUR. for lords sake, don't charge �£10 per garden, you could spend 3 -4 hrs at one place.
I used to have 50 regular customers on my books, some weekly, some fortnightly and the odd few monthly. I spent on average 1.5hrs at each garden. With exception of a couple that took a whole morning each. Now, I do spend a couple of mornings with a couple of gardens, but these belong to friends, unable to do their own gardens due to age or illness.
The list of equipment sounds reasonable. But I would advise a petrol mower. That way you're not carrying extension cables and trying to plug in through windows etc. A strimmer would be helpful too. You seem to be able to do the most required jobs, weeding and mowing. Some folk who are unable to do their gardens for whatever reason, but are knowledgeable, will be your best tutors. I learnt fruit tree pruning and clematis pruning through working for folk who had had nasty accidents.
You may not need to spend so much as �£200 on adverts. Get your ads in shop windows, and maybe a couple of weeks in the local rag, then you'll get the jobs, which will be followed by even more work, word and mouth is so much better and free. Don't forget to include a landline number as some folk are doubtful of just mobile numbers. Anyway, it won't be long before you're turning work away, and also able to pick and choose. I always used to bill folk at the end of the month, some folk find it easier to pay as they go.
You may want to think about public liability, especially if you're doing things like tree removal and large jobs. Don't forget to register as self employed if you need to, and keep all receipts for fuel etc.
ta ta fn

 

As a post script - try and get a maintanance job with a gardening houseowner whose garden has now become too much. The wealth of knowledge they will be able to share, is better than any book.

 

Thanks again Compostee, much appreciated.

Sounds like I'm on the right track and will be there soon.

Once again, thanks for the advice!

 

Hi Richtich,if you haven't got a lot of money to spare for buying books,your local Library would be a good place to start for gardening books.If you haven't joined one then do so and with most of them you can have them on loan for about three weeks and up to 10 books,so you could save money there.....

Also buy your self some heavy duty gardening gloves and some decent Secateurs for pruning roses and such like and you will also need a pruning saw for cutting through light branc work and possibly a heavy duty saw for thicker branches,but if at the moment you are only going to be weeding and lawn cutting these other tools can come later.....

Most of the gardeners in my village charge �£10 per hour and they expect stripes on their lawns so make sure you get a good lawn mower which has a roller on the back...

If you get any work this time of the year remember to take plenty of water to drink,and if you do write out any cards offering your services,then popping them through peoples letter boxes will help...Also offer to cut lawns for people while they are away on holiday or water their gardens for them while they are away.....

You could also ask family and friends if you can do their gardens to begin with so that they will be a source of references if anyone needs some.One people find that you do a good job then the word will soon get around.

Don't forget though this sort of work will be seasonable,so it will probably dry up in the winter months.Something to consider.

Good Luck

 

Hi Kandyfloss

Thanks for the tips also. I will be most likely to start this job early next year, it's now though that I need to get my 'business plan' into action and look at getting everything I will need.

I will have another job at the same time, HGV driver - it's just that is very flexible and I have always fancied doing this type of thing alongside it (albeit for the summer months only).

Thanks for your well wishes!

 

(albeit for the summer months only).

That's what you think at the minute. I only ever had the week between xmas and new year and the first week in jan to recoup my strengths. :D

 

If you want to pick up knowledge from books, look at Dr Hessayon's "Garden Expert" series. when I did my City & Guilds afew years ago they were pretty much the standard textbook. You would probably only need 4 to start off, The Gardening Expert, The Lawn Expert, The Flower Expert and The Bedding Plant Expert.
Keeps it down to the basics and are clear and easy to follow.