Average Price For Landscape Gardening

A Guide to Landscape Gardening Prices in the UK

Landscape gardening is a broad term that covers many different aspects of garden design and construction.

Fencing, patios, garden pond installations, decking and turfing are just a few of the projects that fall under the umbrella term "landscape gardening".

While it's impossible to provide a guide price without knowing more details of the size and scope of the project, we can delve into the individual project costs and look at how much landscape gardeners and companies charge on a per day basis.

Explore These Prices

Throughout our site, you'll find a series of price guides for gardening projects.

Feel free to explore any that are relevant to you or skip to per square metre pricing.

Fence Panels

lap fence panels in garden

Our researched fence panel price guide is an excellent resource for those thinking about replacing a fence. It's also one of the most popular pages on our site.

We sourced prices from over a dozen fence installers and looked at online prices list before publishing our fence price guide.

Our fence panel price guide was updated in 2021:

See how much it costs to replace a fence here.

Garden Decking

Timber decking is a popular alternative to patio slabs and there are lots of different colours and styles to choose from.

We again sourced prices for a typical installation and published a price guide:

Explore our decking price guide here.

Turfing and Artificial Grass

Fake grass photo

"Fake" grass has come a long way since it was first developed and now looks much more realistic and acceptable. There are many benefits too, most notably the reduced maintenance and the fact that it won't look like Glastonbury festival when the kids play on it.

20 years ago we would never have recommended artificial grass but the quality of the products on sale now is so much better.

Our advice: Don't install artificial grass on a slope as it's very slippery.

What's our preference? Real grass of course, but if we had a shaded north-facing garden and/or lots of kids that tear up the lawn, we certainly would consider fake grass.

You can explore our real turf price guide here and over here you'll find our guide to artificial grass costs.

Garden Ponds

Pond with plants

Garden ponds were a huge fad in the 1970s and '80s before falling out of fashion.

Now they're back and if you're you thinking about adding a garden pond to your garden, we have a price guide for that too.

Our tip: Only consider a pond if you have the space for a decent sized one and you don't have too many overhanging tree branches in your garden. They can be high maintenance, depending on what you put in them.

See our guide to garden pond prices here.

Patios

patio cost

We prefer patios to decking as they aren't so slippery, require less maintenance and won't ever rot.

If your project involves laying a new patio, be sure to check our research into patio prices which was updated in 2021.

Explore our guide here.

So How Much Does a Typical Landscape Gardening Project Cost?

There's no such thing as a typical landscaping garden project as every garden is different but we can look at what gardeners and businesses charge.

Almost every landscape gardening project will involve the following:

Drawings and plans by a designer or even a landscape architect.
The wages of the employees doing the work.
The profit and overheads of the business you choose.
Materials.
Waste disposal inc skip hire or trips to a waste disposal yard.
VAT.

Drawings, Plans and Architectural Services

This is perhaps the biggest variable of any landscape gardening project. A small garden that only needs a basic drawing without the services of a specialist designer is going to be much cheaper than a complex project that involves an architect.

We know from experience that architects in the construction industry charge between 9% and 13% of the entire project cost. We would expect landscape architects to charge a similar fee, perhaps a little higher for small projects.

Cost for a small/medium project: From £250 – £2500.

Employee Wages

The wages of landscape gardeners will depend on where they're based in the UK and their experience.

Our research into tradesperson's wages revealed that the average wage for a landscape gardener is between £110 and £180 per day. They rarely work alone and a team comprising two people is the most common arrangement. A trainee or "labourer" will earn anything from minimum wage to £100 per day.

Cost for a team of two: From £250 to £300 per day.

Profits and Overheads

Vans, tools, insurance, websites, advertising, backroom staff, sales staff, sick pay, holiday pay, employers pension and National Insurance contributions etc + the general running costs of a business can run into tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds each year.

But what would a typical, average-sized landscape company be looking to charge you per day to cover this?

Bit of a guess here as they're all different: £250 – £350 per day per team of two.

Materials

This is not a cost we can estimate without knowing more details of the project.

Waste Disposal

Disposing of waste in the UK is not cheap and costs over £100 per ton. Skips are popular but you can only put so much weight in a skip.

See the going rate for skip hire here.

VAT

This is added to the cost of the project and is collected by the landscape gardener and passed over to the taxman every three months.

Not every business charges VAT and this page explains how to legally avoid VAT.

Cost For a Small Landscape Gardening Project + Per Square Metre Pricing

For a very small landscape gardening project lasting approximately a week, you'll be looking at around £6000 + materials with VAT on top.

Per metre pricing for a project involving both plants and hard landscaping comes in at around £100 per square metre.

For soft landscaping, that's planting to you and me, prices start at around £30 per square metre.

How Does Our Cost Guide Compare to Other Published Price Lists?

JHPS Gardens are based in Staffordshire and cover the surrounding areas. Their most expensive landscape gardening project was £70,000, the cheapest was £5000 and the average came in at £15,000. Explore their price guide here (last checked September 2021).

Design For Me is a web-based service that helps you get in touch with designers and architects. They suggest a price of around £100 per square metre for a landscaped garden, excluding design/architect fees. The price drops to £30 per square metre if you only want planting services and no hard landscaping [reviewed 2021]. Explore the Design For Me price guide here.

Garden Design Manchester suggests a starting price of £10,000 for a typical 100 square metre landscaped garden. They also have additional price examples on their website that you can find here.

Although slightly outdated, this article by landscape architect Richard Sneesby suggests a budget of between £5000 and £10,000 will get you 7 to 8 days of labour and about £1500 worth of materials. Explore his insights here.

Conclusion

It's very difficult to provide a cost guide for something as general and wide-ranging as "landscape gardening".

There are too many variables to take into account and everyone has different tastes and expectations.

Our suggestions are a good place to start but in reality, they aren't a substitute for a written quote from a specialist based in your area.

If you would like a fixed quote for a landscape gardening project, hit the button below to see how we can help you:

Get a Quote Online

This guide was written by and was last updated in April 2021.

Don't forget; we have price guides for hundreds of home improvement projects.

Explore our full list of detailed price guides here.

Author - Danny Woodley