What starting in lawn care and garden maintenance involves
Lawn care and garden maintenance is the regular work: cutting, edging, hedges and tidying, usually weekly or fortnightly through the growing season. How often a customer comes back: every week or fortnight from spring to autumn, and monthly or paused in winter. The aim is to build a list of people you serve again and again.
Customers come back often, so a regular book of a few hundred gardens can fill a working week. A tight, well-priced round matters more than any single job.
The order to do things in
- Start with a decent mower and strimmer and keep them serviced
- Get public liability insurance that covers the machines and any tree or hedge work
- Work out your visit price using time and rate, and set a minimum
- Win a few streets of fortnightly customers, which is better than lots of one-offs
- Decide how you'll handle green waste: leave it, compost it or take it to the tip
- Set up payments so money arrives without chasing, and agree a fixed monthly price with regular customers so winter doesn't leave you with nothing
Kit to start with
| Item | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| A mower, strimmer and edger | Start with reliable, serviceable machines rather than the cheapest |
| A hedge trimmer and a blower | For hedges and clearing up |
| A van or trailer | To carry the kit and the waste |
| Protective gear: ear defenders, eye protection, boots | Noise and flying debris are daily hazards |
| Sacks, tools and a rake | The small kit you use every visit |
Running costs to expect: fuel and two-stroke oil, strimmer line and blades, mower servicing, sacks and a tip permit or fees, lawn feed, if you do treatments.
Rules to check before you start
- If you apply weedkillers, moss killers or feed-and-weed products with pesticides, check HSE's rules on who needs a certificate of competence
- Green waste you take from customers is waste. Check with the Environment Agency (or SEPA, NRW or NIEA) whether you need to register as a waste carrier
Also read insurance for gardeners before you take your first customer.
Finding your first customers
- Leaflet houses with obviously overgrown lawns and hedges
- Offer an introductory first cut to get a foot in the door, then a regular fortnightly slot
- Work with window cleaners and cleaners, whose customers often ask who does their garden
- Ask older and busy customers' neighbours to recommend you
- Photograph before and after on the first visit and share it locally
More in how to get your first customers.
How many customers you'll need
Using the example sums in how to price lawn care and garden maintenance, about 85 jobs a month earns £2,000 after costs. That's roughly 40 regular customers. Work it out with your own numbers before you promise yourself anything.
Mistakes new gardeners make
- Quoting a one-off price for an overgrown first cut and then not raising the regular price
- Letting winter run the bank balance down because customers pause
- Taking on tree work without the training or insurance
- Not charging for green waste disposal
Run your lawn care and garden maintenance in WorkWise
A repeating diary: Each customer has how often you go and a next visit, so fortnightly gardens repeat across the week without rebuilding it.