Starting a Garden from Scratch - how much should it cost?

Alright

We bought a house a few months ago and we're in the process of doing that up and we've reached the point where we can now look at the garden.

The garden is a mess!
It's a Late 1940's Terraced house in Dublin with a 60ft long south facing back garden and a decent sized Front Garden. The problem is that the house was
unoccupied for over a year before we bought it so the garden was left to grow wild(er).

I started working on the front garden as there was a big thorn bush too close to the front door and the grass is made up of mainly dandilions! The bush is gone and half the garden has been broken up with a spade and fork but that's it! Work and Rain have stalled any further progress.

A gardener was suggested to me, by a friend, and he called over last night so I'm just waiting on a quote from him.

He said that he'd spray the garden (front and back) to kill everything off, add top soil to the front, take out 2 tree stumps, take down 2 tall conifer trees at the back, rotvate and then seed new grass........it sounds like a lot to me?

Any Ideas how much I should expect to pay for a job like this?

Sonnenblumen

A crap garden is very expensive, whereas a nice garden is a good investment. You get'nothing for nothing' and before you start (spending or doing) just make sure you understand the end results!

Simply clearing a site is not necessarily a good start, but overgrown may need to cut back and/or removed. Spraying perhaps especially if heavily infested, but in severe cases a seconf spray might be required.

Does your friend not have a plan, or is this just a 'bulls rush' job to tidy the area?

Alright

He has a plan but it is more to clear the garden and strip it back. No flower beds to start with just grass so when it establishes itself we can then put our own stamp on it.

If there’s any bulls rush to get it cleared it is on my behalf. The old Lady that lived in the house previously was very fond of rocks. She had a good few of them around the edges of the garden but not in any form of a rockery?!?

It is heavily overgrown and it is in an old neighbourhood so the neighbours’ ivy and bushes have encroached into our garden and up our walls too.

I’ve attached a picture of the garden after we had done some clearing work back in January. I was away for 8 weeks and when I came back it was very overgrown. A field of dandelions instead of grass.

If/When he gets back to me with a price I’ll post it without naming the gardener.

Sonnenblumen

You've got your work cut out with that site, do not sew seed wall to wall. Instead leave a margin around perimeter for later planting. It'll be easier to plant area without having to try and kill off new grass at the same time.

Come back for more but what direction is the garden facing? Is it north facing or ?

monke

it needs a bit of work alright but it should not be that expensive,is this guy a gardener or general handy man. you could just strip the site of insted

Alright wrote: »

He has a plan but it is more to clear the garden and strip it back. No flower beds to start with just grass so when it establishes itself we can then put our own stamp on it.

If there’s any bulls rush to get it cleared it is on my behalf. The old Lady that lived in the house previously was very fond of rocks. She had a good few of them around the edges of the garden but not in any form of a rockery?!?

It is heavily overgrown and it is in an old neighbourhood so the neighbours’ ivy and bushes have encroached into our garden and up our walls too.

I’ve attached a picture of the garden after we had done some clearing work back in January. I was away for 8 weeks and when I came back it was very overgrown. A field of dandelions instead of grass.

If/When he gets back to me with a price I’ll post it without naming the gardener.

Alright

So I got the first quote....€1250 :eek:

Wasn't expecting it to be that much to be honest.

To answer another question the back garden is South Facing so the
evergreen trees take away a lot of light.

I'm starting to think I should do the work myself!

I could spray the garden, give it a couple of weeks, rotovate and clear the garden with a few friends?

Anyway I've to get another quote or two first

monke

hi i do landscaaping. just finishing landscasping design. it all depends on the type of weeds and other plants that are over grown in order to spray it. it might just need a good clean out and rotovate. you can pm me for my details if you like.

The Major

You poor bloke that garden looks like a right mess ,if you intend doing it yourself you can kiss goodbye to any freetime in the summer.An ex work colleague setup his own handyman business recently , he would be ideal for clearing the garden out , doing the donkey work so to speak , however I wouldn't recommend him for the actual planting of the garden , he put in a kitchen for a friend of mine last year and made a mess of it.PM me for his details but like I said just get him to quote you for clearing up bit.;)

Sonnenblumen

monke wrote: »

hi i do landscaaping. just finishing landscasping design. it all depends on the type of weeds and other plants that are over grown in order to spray it. it might just need a good clean out and rotovate. you can pm me for my details if you like.

Leaving aside obvious remedial works like spraying & removing weeds etc.

From a design perspective and based on the photo submitted, what design observations can you make and what elements would you highlight as requiring attention and/or potential and should be brought to the attention of the property owner and boards.ie members?

monke

From a design point of view i would highlight the tress and shrubs on the left had side and the back of the garden, they seem to be quite overgrown and could be blocking alot of light out of the garden. another point i would make is the sheds and wall on the right side of the garden are so bland and unnatractive. They need to do something with that to. very unnatractive

Sonnenblumen

monke wrote: »

From a design point of view i would highlight the tress and shrubs on the left had side and the back of the garden, they seem to be quite overgrown and could be blocking alot of light out of the garden. another point i would make is the sheds and wall on the right side of the garden are so bland and unnatractive. They need to do something with that to. very unnatractive

OK that's a good start, two good points. I would also add that the sheds on the RHS especially the apex roof as being very intrusive. As they are on the East side, planting screening would be have minimimum impact on light levels.

The varying depth might be exploited to make the overall 'rectangular' aspect to the site less obvious. It is probably a very shaded garden and more careful examination would be to required to determine the feasibility of the location and size of lawn areas.

Alright

Thanks for all the replies.

Some good very good info!

I plan to plant some nice flowering climbers such as sweet pea to cover the bear grey walls. I would prefer the likes of sweet pea to that of an Ivy.

It was suggested to me that I should call Eircom and ask them to take down the trees for me as they have 6 lines/wires going through the trees.
However, I am not an Eircom customer so I'm not sure if that would have an impact on their decision?
Has anyone ever heard of Eircom taking down trees in a residential area for overgrown trees growing into their lines?

I'll give them a call tomorrow and let you know how I got on.

monke

I dont think eircom will do it unless it is causing a disturbance to the line itself. I do know they do it if a new line is being put in. dont quote me on that though

Lexie_Karas

Just on the eircom note, we were getting our phoneline connected last year and asked the guy about the phone lines that were going through our jungle of a back garden... he said to us that eircom would do nothing about it and that we'd have to clear it ourselves. We did it very carefully! Let us know if you hear differant on the phone... we never did call them to ask officially if there was anything they'd do.