Gardeners

What to put in your job description

• One visit, or regular visits, and how often.
• Roughly how big the garden is, and how a gardener gets to it (side gate, through the house).
• What you want done: mowing, hedges, borders, weeding, a full clear-out.
• Whether there is green waste to take away, and how much.
• Any trees to cut back or take down, and how tall they are.

Don't put your name, phone number or address in the description: every trade who covers your area reads it. Your name, phone, email and address go only to the trades who take the job (3 at most).

Questions to ask before you hire

• Do you take the waste away, and are you a registered waste carrier?
• Is the price per visit or per hour, and what is included?
• Will you look for nesting birds before cutting a hedge? (Damaging an active nest is against the law.)
• For tree work: are you a tree surgeon, and have you asked the council about protected trees?
• Do you have public liability insurance?

Registers and schemes to check

There is no register for gardeners. Before cutting back or felling a tree, ask your council whether it has a Tree Preservation Order or is in a conservation area. Anyone who takes your waste away must be a registered waste carrier: look them up on the Environment Agency's public register on GOV.UK. For tree surgery, the Arboricultural Association lists approved contractors. We don't check this for you yet.

What the job usually involves

• Regular upkeep: mowing, weeding, hedge trimming, borders and leaf clearing.
• One-off clearances of overgrown gardens, with the green waste taken away.
• Planting, turfing and simple landscaping.
• Tree work, which is usually a tree surgeon's job rather than a gardener's.
• Fences, sheds and paving, which some gardeners do and some leave to a handyman or landscaper.

How quotes and visits work

Regular gardening is often charged by the hour or by the visit; clearances and landscaping by the job. Many gardeners can quote from photos for a clearance. Ask whether taking the green waste away is in the price.

Ask for a written quote (a fixed price) rather than an estimate (a guess that can change), and for what it includes. If you agree a job in your home, you usually have 14 days to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations; if you want work to start sooner, you may have to pay for what has been done.

Safety

• Ask your council before cutting back or felling a tree: it may have a Tree Preservation Order or be in a conservation area.
• Nesting birds are protected by law, so hedge cutting during the nesting season needs care.

Insurance and TrustMark

Ask for public liability insurance before work starts. It covers damage or injury caused by the trade to you, your home or someone else. Ask for the insurer's name and the cover's end date; you can ask to see the certificate.

TrustMark is the government-endorsed quality scheme for work in and around the home. Its registered businesses agree to its code of practice, and you can look them up on trustmark.org.uk.

Guides for homeowners

• Fence repair after a storm
• How to compare quotes from local trades

We take jobs from anywhere in the UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Trades choose the postcode districts they cover.

Gardeners by town and city

England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland