This simple guide will help anyone who is looking to start a career as a domestic maintenance gardener. To be successful you need to be one of the best! Although there is no minimum criteria required to start a garden maintenance business you should seek some training so that you can stand out from well meaning amateur labourers. For this reason, members of The Gardeners Guild must have at least one horticultural qualification. This guide will help you make your gardening business profitable and appealing to your customers.

There many benefits to a career in garden maintenance:

- Regular, reliable work - whatever you earn this month you will likely earn again next month.
- Developing a good relationship with your customers – seeing some of them every week.
- Healthy, enjoyable, challenging, outdoor work.
- Flexible working hours.
- Potential to earn a good wage.
- Practically recession proof – a maintenance gardener’s customers are typically retired and have fixed incomes.

3.  Disadvantages of a career in garden maintenance

4.  Get qualified

Don't get confused with a general labourer - get qualified and be proud to be a professional maintenance gardener.

As mentioned before there is no minimum standard required to work in garden maintenance. However, you need to be competent. Most of your customers will hire you because they can’t physically keep up with the garden maintenance themselves and not because they don’t know how. A customer will quickly notice if you don’t know what you are doing and won't value your labour.

If you want to be successful you need to be the best – qualifications will help you. The more qualified you are the easier it will be to justify your fees.

Do your circumstances allow you to do a full-time course? If so, contact your local college and see what’s on offer. If not, it is possible to do an RHS correspondence course and some colleges will do day/part time courses on various topics.

You can also seek training for use of particular equipment such as pesticides or chain saws. A NPTC license can be gained in 2 days and City and Guilds offer part-time courses (also available on a correspondence basis). (Visit our Training and Skills page). Training isn't expensive (often starting at £125) - and once you have the qualification you have it for life. A qualification can cost less than the price of a good lawn mower! Any nationally recognised horticultural qualification is acceptable for membership of The Gardeners Guild

Though no one likes doing it - there are many benefits to paying tax and having an accountant:

- It shows you are professional and dedicated to gardening as your career.
- Your accountant will prepare an accounts report – essential if you ever want to get a loan / mortgage.
- An accounts history will help if you ever want to sell your business.
- Your accountant will ensure that you make best use of any tax deductable expenses – even some you may not know about.
- Your accountant will want you to pay all your earnings into your business account. This is a good idea as your bank will often grant an overdraft equal to the amount paid into the account each month. This will help with your cash flow during the winter.
- You don’t get in trouble with the Inland Revenue. If you don’t keep good accounts they can decide how much they think you earned and tax you accordingly – even if you earned less! It will be up to you to prove them wrong.

You will need to call the Inland Revenue and notify them that you are self employed.

Insurance is also essential. Accidental damage to property is all too easy and common. The cost of repairing damage will often exceed the amount you were earning. For example, replacing the glass in a conservatory door broken by a stone flung by the grass strimmer can cost over £200 to replace but you may only earn £10 to cut the grass. The customer is entitled to recover those costs from you whether you have insurance or not. Insurance protects you as the tradesman from being presented with a repair bill you cant afford to pay and gives the customer confidence that any damage will be repaired if and when accidents happen.

You will need to contact an independent insurance broker to arrange this cover. Insurance starts from around £20pm.

Customers requiring help with their garden maintenance are typically people who are retired or are busy professionals. Garden maintenance is also required for gardens around flats and communal areas on many new housing estates. Sometimes these are managed by an independent property management company. However, to keep costs low the residents may form their own management company and look for local tradesmen.

Large, national maintenance contractors often have a minimum charge of £50 per visit which is too high for these small gardens - but ideal for a small, professional, local garden maintenance business. For the same reason, there will be many opportunities for small commercial contracts.

The work you receive will often be through people you know - do you know anyone who lives in flats or works for a local business? 

The government is also looking to give small contracts ('small' being under £100,000!) to local traders. 

A local gardener can offer a friendly, personal service. Look after your customers and they will look after you.

Every gardener is different but all trade on their reputation.

In addition to your gardening knowledge give some consideration to how you are perceived by potential customers. For example:

Insurance – this can cost as little as £20pm but tells your customers that you have their interests in mind. For this you will need to visit an insurance broker who will help you find the best deal.

Van Logo – This shows consideration for your customer and their neighbours. Neighbours pay attention to what’s happening in the street. A van with a clear logo will put their mind at ease as to who you are and why you are there.

Staff Uniform – This doesn’t have to be much – even just a T-Shirt with your logo. These cost around £12 each but look professional and give neighbours peace of mind when they see you in the garden. Staff uniforms and van logos advertise your business and make you more approachable – a good source of new business.

Easy to Contact – a good gardener will be easy to contact – a well known community figure. Ensure that your customers know your phone number and feel confident that they can contact you if they need you. A website will further help.

Licenses – Chain saw license, use of pesticides and waste carriers license all indicate that you take the law, environment and safety seriously. They show that you are dedicated to garden maintenance as a career and that you are worth your fees.

Clear Pricing Policy – If people understand your prices they are more likely to ask you to do work and recommend you.

Every gardener is different and the type of service you offer will vary according to where you live. However, here are some tips:

Timing is everything – as a gardener you are at the mercy of the seasons. Use this to your advantage:

Winter: Landscaping, hard pruning, fencing etc
Spring: Planting, weeding, feeding, fence painting
Summer: Lawns, hedge trimming,
Autumn: Pruning, leaf clearance, lawn treatment (aeration, scarifying etc), planting

Educate your customers and encourage them to delay work until the appropriate time.

Manicure or Maintenance? – Be clear about the kind of service you offer. Some customers just want their garden kept under control (maintenance) – others will want a perfect (manicured) garden. A garden 'manicure' service is often charged by the hour whereas many garden maintenance customers will prefer a fixed price. 

Minimum call-out charge – This is important as much of your time could be wasted with unpaid travel time between jobs. A minimum call out charge ensures that your customers only call you if they have enough work to make it worth your travelling to them. If they don’t have much for you to do – you still get paid.

Don’t be fooled – a big garden does not necessarily give you more work than a small garden. A customer with a large garden may argue that you should charge them less because they give you more work. However, a big garden can be a very simple garden while a small garden can be well stocked and need more time and attention. In fact, because of your minimum call out charge, smaller gardens can be more profitable. A big garden is only beneficial if you are guaranteed a certain number of hours work.

Lawn care – Lawn cutting is profitable for many reasons:
- You can charge a fixed price for each lawn rather than an hourly rate. Because your professional tools help you work more efficiently, the faster you work the more you earn - easily £20 to £40 an hour.

- Your lawn customers will likely offer you pruning and planting work in the autumn / winter. In contrast, manicured (but not necessarily well stocked) gardens will likely have less work in the winter because you have been maintaining them all year. 

Vary your work – Even if you focus on lawn cutting you will still be offered other gardening work. Keep some days set aside for regular work and leave some days open for ad-hoc jobs. This gives you flexibility so that if poor weather stops you cutting lawns you can rearrange to do a pruning job instead. Some maintenance gardeners leave one day a week free and fill up the other days first. This day is available for extra work, can be used to make up for days lost due to poor weather or as an ‘admin’ day to visit new customers, see your accountant, clean the van etc.

Cash flow – Save some money to help you through the winter. How much do you need to earn? Set yourself a minimum daily/weekly income and calculate how many hours/customers you will need to achieve this. Be careful not to over commit yourself as there are only so many hours in the day and you cannot guarantee the weather will be on your side or that you will be healthy.

Think of your business as a shop – Labour is your most basic service. However, as a gardener you can offer additional services such as waste removal (if you have a waste carriers license), weed killer, collect and deliver plants etc from local garden centres, lawn treatments or even charge for advice alone. These are extra services in addition to your basic hourly rate for labour. Having a clear pricing policy will give people the option to ‘buy’ these extra services from you as and when they need it.

Get paid on time - Encourage customers to either be in when you call or pay by standing order (direct debit is usually only available to organisations with a turnover of £100K pa).

Alternatively, you may use a PDQ machine. These are now completely mobile. The benefits include being able to take payment over the phone, payments go direct to your bank, receipt printed automatically for your customer, makes it easy for you to do your accounts.

These machines cost from £15 pm plus a small fee for each transaction (around 50p) which most retailers pass on to the customer. The customer benefits from this service as they needn't keep any cash in the house, have an instant receipt and can pay from an account that's convenient for them.

For more information do an internet search for 'PDQ machines'.

Safety – Eye/face protection, helmets, steel toe-capped boots, long sleeves, tough trousers, gloves, first aid kit. You will use all of these regularly and its well worth buying top quality safety equipment. You should also think about treatment for insect bites - Mosquitoes are most well known but spiders will bite if they fall down your top! Horse Flies are among the worst as they look like house flies but actually suck blood - sometimes biting off a lump of skin to eat later! They are common in long grass towards the end of the summer.

TIP: Hiking clothing is designed to be light-weight, durable and breathable. They are also designed to cope with brambles, fit over boots and often have an elasticated waste - ideal when you are constantly bending and lifting! Standard hiking clothing can be cheaper than work wear from trade suppliers.

Tools – Having your own tools shows that you have invested in and are dedicated to a career in garden maintenance. You can easily spend £3000 + on basic maintenance tools. Think about what you are likely to really need. For example, a mower, strimmer and hedge trimmer are essential but a chainsaw, chipper and stump grinder will be rarely used unless you really advertise those services.

Visit independent garden tool specialists:
- They will give you good advice
- They will stock spare parts for the equipment they sell
- They can tell you what other gardeners are buying
- Manufacturers often make two versions of their tools – a cheap version for the large DIY stores and a trade version for the independent stores. Although slightly more expensive they give much greater value for money.

Avoid tools that are a green colour – they are too easy to lose in a customer’s garden! Mostly this applies to hand tools as they are small and easy to lose.

Your van – Your van is probably your most expensive tool but one of the most useful with many different applications. Your van is also one of the best adverts you can have. Try to get a van with a divider between the cab and rear storage – otherwise your cab will be filled with flies, spiders and creepy crawlies by the next morning! Your van is also a source of income – even when not gardening you can use it to transport goods or remove waste etc. Gardeners who use their cars are missing useful extra revenue.