The landscape gardener defined?

When looking for a suitable company or contractor to carry out work in your garden it can be quite confusing as to who actually does what. Here we will try to clarify the different areas.

A landscape gardener will usually be prepared to design and construct your garden. In terms of the design, this will be adequate so far as illustration goes without going to the comprehensive level of accuracy and detail associated with that of a landscape architect or garden designer. Any one of these three professional approaches can result in a truly rewarding garden, it really comes down to the individual, that being how meticulously planned and laid out you feel the design needs to be. One should bare in mind that although top quality plans can look impressive, this would need to be allowed for in the cost. It depends on your garden and your budget. Not forgetting that many changes can take place between the time of design and the reality of construction. Other garden related services that you may see advertised include landscaping contractors, landscapers, garden or gardening services, gardners, and variants of these. Essentially, the term landscaping contractor or landscaper suggests someone who works with changing the face of the landscape, therefore hard or soft landscaping (groundwork), this often includes planting and water features, but usually excludes the building of taller garden structures. Gardening services tends to mean maintenance, this could include cutting grass, weeding, pruning, soil improvement, light planting and any other garden jobs required. Gardner means the same as gardener, it is simply a short version or some would say spelling error.

When it comes to pricing a garden service, we have found that once a working relationship has been established, it would normally be acceptable to work with either a per hour rate or a set price. During the early days of any company / client relationship we would always recommend agreeing the exact work to be carried out with a set down price, only varying if the client changes the workload / conditions or if there are any extreme unforeseen circumstances relating to the task at hand. A Landscape gardener will usually cover every aspect of the types of work described in this paragraph, without specialising or concentrating in just a particular area. Hopefully this editorial gives some clarity to the different terms associated and used with the contractors that you may instruct to undertake work in or for your garden.

If you are based in the South East of England, by all means contact us for a quote relating to your garden project. Follow the links below to view the rest of our site which contains the relevant details. If you are just passing we hope that this information has been of some use to you and wish you every success with your garden.

Rob McGee & Son