On 1 Jan, 13:28, "Kate Morgan" wrote:
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

Just a few thoughts from someone who made a living that way for a
time. After a couple of years I went into private service and had a
more secure and rewarding career and wasn't much worse off
financially.
You don't get a lot of gardening done in less than 2 hours.
You're probably thinking - 25 quid an hour - 40 hour week = £1000. It
doesn't work like that.
The gardener can't charge for time between jobs, time off for bad
weather, time spent promoting their services, time spent on paperwork
and on and on and on; so in fact it's difficult to accumulate a great
many billable hours.
Then there's the overheads like transport, tools, machinery etc, yard
rent etc so £25 per hour isn't that bad for a skilled professional but
of course not all jobbing gardeners are, so it's worth looking at
their credentials.