Gardener Costs: Compare & Save -

Please note that the price information in this article was based on data from 2011 and may now be outdated. 

National hourly rates for gardening tasks start at just $25 and for a low-skill gardening task such as weeding or mowing, the national hourly budget price is $35 – money well spent if it means more time to relax.

Weekends are for enjoying our homes, not working on them! With our busy lives, the last thing many want to do with precious spare time is mow the lawn, get on our hands and knees to weed or risk a limb to lop down a tree. For others, gardening may be a relaxing, pleasurable activity, but they may not physically be able to get around in the garden. That’s when it could pay to hire a gardener to do those jobs that many of us don’t have time to do, want to do, or can’t do.

Common gardening tasks & costs
There’s plenty of monotonous tasks in the garden which take little skill but involve a lot of time and effort in order to keep your property looking its best. The most commonly requested gardening tasks include mowing, weeding, pruning and tree lopping, but the good news is the more frequently you tend to thesetasks, the less they will cost you.

• Lawnmowing
  The average cost of a lawn job is $65 but, if your lawn is mowed every few weeks, you should pay the budget rate of $45 per job. However, if you are less vigilant and often neglect your garden, expect to pay the premium price – $130 total – to get it back into tip-top condition.
• Garden maintenance
  An average national rate of $40 per hour includes regular garden maintenance such as trimming and pruning, with the average pruning job costing $110.
• Tree lopping
  The premium hourly rate of $45 applies to more gruelling one-off tasks such as tree lopping – the average hourly price for a tree to be lopped is $200.

Gardener rates by state
Victorians are the outright winners when it comes to the cost of hiring a gardener – paying 7.5 per cent less than those in New South Wales and Queensland. Victorians will pay on average $90 total for weeding, $66 total for mowing, $100 for pruning, and $150 for tree lopping.

Hourly rates for Queensland are in line with national figures, while New South Wales’ residents have to spend substantially (12.5 per cent) more.

What are you paying for?
All rates include labour and use of necessary equipment. Expensive fertilisers and weed control products are generally not included in the rate. Of course, prices may increase if your garden is difficult to access or on an awkward (e.g. sloping) site.

What to look for
Make sure you ask your gardener for a written quote detailing all inclusions, references and positive customer testimonials, if they have public liability insurance and a valid ABN. If they are undertaking ongoing work, they should do an inspection to outline regular duties.