Is it worth spending money on the garden?

Contessa

I've had some work done on the house. Now I'm wondering if I should do the garden up as well. I don't like gardening and now find my garden is too much for me to maintain. It could be lovely and there is a very nice outlook so I'm thinking that this should make the house more attractive to buyers. Thanks for any experience or opinions.

tyllwyd

What state is the garden in - is it a total jungle, a building site, a bit of lawn and not much else ...?

What are you thinking of - mowing the lawn and planting a few shrubs, building a patio, having the whole thing landscaped?

joerugby

You will need a gardener to keep it tidy after it's "done up". In our area it costs around £50 per month to maintain a medium sized garden.

shegar

Contessa wrote: »

I've had some work done on the house. Now I'm wondering if I should do the garden up as well. I don't like gardening and now find my garden is too much for me to maintain. It could be lovely and there is a very nice outlook so I'm thinking that this should make the house more attractive to buyers. Thanks for any experience or opinions.

It depend on what you mean by "do it up"...I wouldnt pay for anyone to come in and lay a lawn, patio slabs, dig a pond ,plant trees/shrubs etc etc..........or even landscape it ........

If I was selling id make sure it is well swept, grass cut, hedge cut,borders tidy,paint the fences,dump anything laying around, probaly no more than a days work at the most.........as long as its presentable to sell...........but thats my opinion, others would probaly say different.........

huxley

A tidy garden really does make a difference. In the area I live you are looking at about £15 an hour for a garden, but depending on the size of garden and the work needed quite a bit can be achieved in that time.

Contessa

tyllwyd wrote: »

What state is the garden in - is it a total jungle, a building site, a bit of lawn and not much else ...?

What are you thinking of - mowing the lawn and planting a few shrubs, building a patio, having the whole thing landscaped?

No, it's not a jungle, just unkempt. There's a largish (for the area) lawn, an overgrown border and a largish patio-everything needs a good tidy up.

Contessa

Thanks, Joe and Huxley,
Those figures give me some idea of cost involved. I wouldn't want to pay the expense of getting a landscape gardener in to do it, but it may be worth finding an ordinary gardener.

Foggster

I bought a house with a concrete jungle and a jumble of sheds.

Last summer, I hired a skip and I flattened the lot! I then lay a new patio - ebay bargain - lay a new lawn and bought a large shed. No borders, bedding etc. It is very easily maintained. Sweep and a mow every now and then. I now have the much advertised "entertainment area", ample storage and lawn. I will throw a few planted up pots in the spring/summer but other than that I have a tidy garden with very little else to worry about. I had the house valued recently and the EA did comment on "nice area - low maintenance".

tyllwyd

I'd agree that it doesn't sound as if you need to do anything too drastic, but it seems a shame not to present the garden to its best advantage at least by mowing the lawn and cleaning the patio. I'd ask around your neighbours - you might find that someone knows someone who could come & do a couple of mornings work to help you.

daisymay2008

when we were viewing houses, the state of the garden did not and would not factor in our decision to make an offer, only size mattered....i certainly wouldn't offer lower on a house due to the garden being a jungle, but would offer lower if internal work needed to be done

Davesnave

daisymay2008 wrote: »

when we were viewing houses, the state of the garden did not and would not factor in our decision to make an offer, only size mattered....i certainly wouldn't offer lower on a house due to the garden being a jungle, but would offer lower if internal work needed to be done

Pity we didn't try to sell to you in 2008, then!

We were going to leave part of our garden as a 'blank slate.' Being gardeners, we thought people would like to put their stamp on it. The basic structure of trees & shrubs was in place & there were just two completely clean, bare areas.

Two or three negative comments later, we sourced a free lawn, laid a bit of patio, tarted-up the pond, made a veg area, put a lot of extra annuals in and, in June, opened it as part of a local Open Garden charity event.

Did that get us a buyer? No, but people who'd seen it earlier went SSTC and returned with an offer we could accept.

Today, that garden is full of weeds! Hasn't been touched.:rotfl:

The moral is that it helps to have a garden that's non-threatening; i.e. recognisable lawn, patio etc, and no jungle of weeds, but beyond that it's probably not worth spending money.