"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...
My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden tidy,
you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of pruning,
nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the charges are £25
per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours work. The family
are in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit expensive.

why dont the lazy sods do it theirself?

Anne Jackson wrote:

The message from (A.Lee) contains these words:

Legitimate, decent traders could not afford to do it much cheaper.

The gardeners I know, who charge £8 per man-hour, arrange their
work (obviously more efficiently than _you_ do!) so that they
are working in the same area one day, then another area the next...

Anyone who charges £8/hr self employed cannot be making even the minimum
wage.

What do they do with their waste?
It is now an offence to employ someone without a waste transfer licence,
and I doubt anyone charging £8/hr will have a Licence.
No licence, then YOU are liable for their waste carrying. No, I'm not
joking. If they are stopped by the Police/Council, and tell where they
have been working, you can be prosecuted.

When looked into deeper, I'll guess that they are not declaring all
their takings, or meeting statutory regulations, which is the difference
between charging £8 and £20/hr.

I've set out some of the costs of a business in my previous post, and it
is clear that a living cannot be made on less than ~£20/hr.

And saying I'm inefficient is just insulting.
Alan.

--
To reply by e-mail, change the ' + ' to 'plus'.

"Anne Jackson" wrote in message
...
The message from "pied piper" contains these
words:
"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...
My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden
tidy,
you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of pruning,
nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the charges
are £25
per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours work. The family
are in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit expensive.

why dont the lazy sods do it theirself?

I get it now. You are a troll!

Well, that's easily dealt with...

--
Well if thats what u think rather than admit to being wrong

In article ,
says...
The message from "PK" contains these words:
"Anne Jackson" wrote in message
...

I own a roofing company, and I pay my roofers £15 an hour,
and I have no trouble whatsoever getting good workmen for
that rate!

but how much do you charge your clients for labour, overheads and profit?

What makes that any of your business?


Whats wrong with everyone? I can not think of any businesses that do not
charge more than they pay their people.
I would think £15 per hour extremely good rate for an employed gardener,
whether its enough to charge the customer is another matter, but as has
been pointed out several times already the sort of work required probebly
does not require years of experience and training and since no full time
professional gardener is likely to be interested in an hour a week or
fortnight I can not quite see why people are getting so hot under the
collar about it
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea

"pied piper" wrote in message
...

"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...
My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden
tidy, you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of
pruning, nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the
charges are £25 per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours
work. The family are in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit
expensive.

why dont the lazy sods do it theirself?
I believe in the saying what goes around comes around and I hope it hurts
when it reaches you, whatever it is .

On 4/1/08 10:15, in article , "Kate
Morgan" wrote:


"pied piper" wrote in message
...

"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...
My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden
tidy, you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of
pruning, nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the
charges are £25 per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours
work. The family are in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit
expensive.

why dont the lazy sods do it theirself?
I believe in the saying what goes around comes around and I hope it hurts
when it reaches you, whatever it is .


I think this is a troll, Kate. If not, someone who expresses themselves so
badly and so rudely isn't heading for a howling success at any time. ;-(

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove weeds from address)
'We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our
children.'

"Anne Jackson" wrote in message
...
The message from "PK" contains these words:
"Anne Jackson" wrote in message
...

I own a roofing company, and I pay my roofers £15 an hour,
and I have no trouble whatsoever getting good workmen for
that rate!

but how much do you charge your clients for labour, overheads and profit?

What makes that any of your business?

Because you said:

"There's no need to be nasty to Kate, she is quite right to
question the fact that someone is charging £25 an hour!

I own a roofing company, and I pay my roofers £15 an hour,
and I have no trouble whatsoever getting good workmen for
that rate!"


the self employed gardener has overheads and direct costs to cover, plus
holiday time etc.

Comparing what you pay your workers in not the correct number to compare to
the charge to the gardener's customer.

Do I guess you charge significantly more than the £15 you pay your guys?

pk

"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...

"pied piper" wrote in message
...

"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...
My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden
tidy, you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of
pruning, nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the
charges are £25 per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours
work. The family are in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit
expensive.

why dont the lazy sods do it theirself?
I believe in the saying what goes around comes around and I hope it hurts
when it reaches you, whatever it is .
yes does that mean I will have to cut my own garden gee now thats a toughie

....
My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden
tidy, you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of
pruning, nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the
charges are £25 per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours
work. The family are in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit
expensive.

why dont the lazy sods do it theirself?
I believe in the saying what goes around comes around and I hope it hurts
when it reaches you, whatever it is .


I think this is a troll, Kate. If not, someone who expresses themselves
so
badly and so rudely isn't heading for a howling success at any time. ;-(

--
Sacha
I think that you are right Sacha, I am not going to waste any more time on
the person who ever he/she is.

kate

In article , Kate Morgan
writes

Maybe my family don't want a gardener at all, maybe what they want
someone who is retired and just needs a gentle job with a few pounds in
cash and bacon butties at the end of a bit of work.

Why not contact the local gardening Club, there are often one or two
gardeners that are willing to help out on the odd days.



--
Janet Tweedy
Amersham Gardening Association
http://www.amersham-gardening.net

"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...
My daughter and son in law need a gardener just to keep their garden tidy,
you know the sort of thing cutting the lawn and the odd bit of pruning,
nothing heavy. They have approached several people and the charges are £25
per hour but the gardeners wont do less than 2 hours work. The family
are
in Edinburgh, any comments, surely that a bit expensive.

kate

Try and find one that already had clients in your immediate area. That way
their travelling costs are shared.

We hired a gardener to cut our lawns regularly. He gave us a very good rate
because our house was at the entrance of a big housing estate and he knew
he'd get lots of business as a result of parking his van outside.

"Kate Morgan" wrote in message
...
Not sure Sacha, I think it was only one person but what is annoying is
the
fact that they want to do 2 hours work, I still think that £50 to get ones
grass cut and a bit of gentle sorting out is excessive.

1 hour once a week costs more than 2 hours once every two weeks.

1 hour once a week costs more than 2 hours once every two weeks.[/quote]

I am by no means an expert here but I am the poster ......about the giant leylandiis. I let my house in Oxford through an agent and the tenants were supposed to take care of the garden. Well the agency has allowed it to go to pot, so I have now included a gardening contract in the rent. These are a professional gardening company who are supposed to keep the garden up to scratch, whatever needs doing, and they will come fortnightly and charge 30.00 per visit. I actually don't know how long they are there and can't remember if VAT is included. It might be worth while ringing round a few professional companies to gauge what you think is fair. It's difficult, try to think fairly how much you would want ,realistically,to do that job. It really doesn't matter what the gardener is paid by the employer it's what they will charge you, of course the overheads for the company will be factored in. Unfortunately you don't get anything for nothing these days and a few quid doesn't go very far especially if you are using petrol!