Starting a gardening business?

TBagpuss

http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/ might be useful to you.
I'd suggest that you do make a business plan and ensure tat, from the very start, you have a separate bank account and kep good records of your income and costs, so that you can prepare accounts when you ned to and so you can keep track of how the business is doing.

fewgroats

Pennywise wrote: »

When NLW is £7.20 ph, anyone self employed should be charging at least double that to cover their downtime costs (travel, bad weather, buying supplies etc), their costs (repairs and maintenance, vehicle costs, etc), their overheads (bank charges, office supplies, insurance, accountancy etc), and to save towards insurances or time off (there's no sick pay or paid holidays etc for self employed). I'd say £15 per hour is the bare minimum. otherwise you'd be better off stacking shelves for someone else!

You may be better off stacking shelves, Pennywise, but if you're long term unemployed can you even get the interview?

fishybusiness

When NLW is £7.20 ph, anyone self employed should be charging at least double that to cover their downtime costs (travel, bad weather, buying supplies etc), their costs (repairs and maintenance, vehicle costs, etc), their overheads (bank charges, office supplies, insurance, accountancy etc), and to save towards insurances or time off (there's no sick pay or paid holidays etc for self employed). I'd say £15 per hour is the bare minimum. otherwise you'd be better off stacking shelves for someone else!

Better off in what way?

£7.20 an hour plus I would have to get to work, that costs money too. Take off travelling to work costs and real wage is less than NLW already.

Better working environment? Na, don't think so, working outside is wonderful, even when it is raining.

Better off being told what to do by a boss, na not that one either. I'm my boss, live by my business reasoning, learn by my mistakes.

Better off working hours wise, well maybe, I do have to go look at jobs sometimes on a weekend, or write a quote on a evening, or catch up on bookwork. Perhaps a downside, but I don't really mind.

Better off physically? Nope, don't have to do much exercise outside of work, perhaps just some aerobic stuff to be correct - I don't do that right now but gardening really does tones ones muscles.

The £15 per hour is really a bottom rate, and as I am learning, I am finding some work attracts a premium. The £15 per hour target is for general weekly mowing, weeding and tidying, although quoted for the full job. Hedge cutting, conifer topping, any hard work with machinery involved is priced higher, just I haven't had much of it yet. A 2 day seasonal clear up last week with laurel hedging to clip, 2 trees to prune etc gave me £150 per day, about 6 hours per day so that was a good one.

fishybusiness

I'd suggest that you do make a business plan and ensure tat, from the very start, you have a separate bank account and kep good records of your income and costs, so that you can prepare accounts when you ned to and so you can keep track of how the business is doing.

Definitely. Business Plan seems such a waste of time doesn't it, a paperwork exercise. I had some downtime and started to play around with one, about 3 months before I started advertising and I'll be honest, it really made me think. I also took a 12 month cashflow Excel template from the web and made it my own. Helped me see where I would struggle for money. I'm filling it in as I go so I can learn where I am going wrong.

Also, someone mentioned the work being seasonal, you'll likely be quiet December through March. It's worth thinking about other work, gardeners have told me they advertise for tree work, or shed and fence maintenance during winter - just some ideas.

Fruittea

Good luck with your plans. I must agree with others that you need to be really clear what you can do. My Mum's gardener pulls all the plants up! Partners a gardener who charges £12 an hour usually in 2/3 hour blocks for the same people (it depends where you are I the country). It's all word of mouth once you get started.
Try to stick in the same area to keep travelling costs down. If you're just mowing then learn how to prune as well (plenty of really advice on Youtube) most people are clueless about pruning and most pruning jobs are done in the winter time when shrubs/tress are dormant.
Take a good look at the gardens in the summer and advise people what needs to be done. It will take you through to December - take Jan and Feb off or fix /erect sheds.
Great lifestyle though.

Savvy_Sue

TBagpuss wrote: »

-be prepared to be flexible, at least to start with. I would anticipate that the main groups who might want this kind of service are older people who can no longer do the work themselves, and people who are working and don't want to spend the tim. The latter group are likely to want initial meetings / quotes outside normal office hours slo be prepared to go out at evenings or weekends to start with to give quotes and get work in.

That is exactly the two kinds of client my gardener says she has. And there can be a problem with the older ones who can no longer do the work: some of them comment that the garden does not look quite as good as it used to, but as my gardener said to me, a few years ago the client would have done X and Y while the gardener did various other things, and if the client is now only doing a little bit of pottering and expecting the gardener to do the rest in the same number of hours as a few years ago, it's not going to happen!

fishybusiness wrote: »

Definitely. Business Plan seems such a waste of time doesn't it, a paperwork exercise. I had some downtime and started to play around with one, about 3 months before I started advertising and I'll be honest, it really made me think. I also took a 12 month cashflow Excel template from the web and made it my own. Helped me see where I would struggle for money. I'm filling it in as I go so I can learn where I am going wrong.

I think this is good advice: if you play around with Excel, you can see what happens when you have an hourly rate of £x, and work for y hours, and you suddenly realise that if you only charge £10 then you're going to have to work far too many hours ...

fishybusiness wrote: »

Also, someone mentioned the work being seasonal, you'll likely be quiet December through March. It's worth thinking about other work, gardeners have told me they advertise for tree work, or shed and fence maintenance during winter - just some ideas.

Agree, mine rarely works between December and March: she made an exception for us in her first 'season' with us because we were starting from a high level of neglect, so she was mulching like mad!

But this relates back to the advice to be clear about what you're offering. Before we moved, we had a chap who wanted to do more than cut our grass, but all we really wanted him to do was cut the grass! Our current lady is under instructions to do what it takes to get the garden looking presentable! Hence the two hours work (and she does work hard, in pretty much all weathers!) But she was clear that she couldn't cut grass unless we had a lawn mower.

Another piece of advice is to network with others so you can recommend each other. We found our gardener because we asked the chap who was re-building the garden wall, but he didn't know anyone local. He said he'd ask a tree surgeon he knew, which reminded me that we know a tree surgeon - and hey presto!