Landscape gardener in Nieuwegein for garden design and paving

Garden work is the only work I do where the ground underneath is an unknown. Indoors I know what I am dealing with once the strip-out is done. In a garden I only know that when the first spade goes in, and that is where most of the difference between two quotes comes from. One has counted the groundwork and the waste removal, the other assumes it will not be too bad.

Below is what a fence, paving and trees really come down to. And what seven years of agronomy adds to that in practice, because that is the reason I dig a hole before I pick a plant.

Putting up a fence: it is all in the posts

Almost everyone picks the panels first. Colour, wood or composite, closed or with a gap between the boards. Understandable, because that is what you see. But a fence that leans after a few years leans because of the posts and because of the ground around them. The panels are rarely the problem.

What happens below ground

A post has to sit deep enough to take the wind load of the panel next to it. A fence is a sail: the more closed and the higher it is, the more force lands on every post in a good westerly storm. In loose or wet ground that post has to go deeper, or it needs concrete around it.

The first thing I check in the garden is what is sitting in the boundary line. Old footings from a previous fence, rubble, a cable or the edge of a patio. That decides whether I can get through with the auger or whether every hole becomes hand work, and that makes more difference to the hours than the choice between two kinds of board.

The boundary itself is a conversation you would rather have beforehand than afterwards. If the fence sits exactly on the line it is a shared boundary and you need your neighbours in on it. Put it just inside your own ground and you decide on your own, but you are left with a strip you will never keep clear again. There is also a height above which you need a permit, and that limit is different for a front garden than for a back garden. Check that with the council before you order material.

Wood, concrete posts or composite

Wood is the cheapest to buy and the most expensive in attention. Softwood lasts a number of seasons as long as it is not standing in water, hardwood goes considerably longer. The weak spot is always in the same place, where the wood meets the ground. That is why I prefer not to set wooden posts in the ground but on concrete pads or in steel post holders, so the end grain stays dry.

Concrete posts with wooden panels are the compromise you see most in the Netherlands. Not everyone finds them good looking, but structurally it is settled: the post does not rot, and a worn panel can be swapped out on its own later.

I put up composite fences as well. Composite is wood fibre mixed with plastic, it needs no paint and it does not grey out. Two things I will say honestly about it. It is a good deal heavier than wood, so the posts and the footings have to be sized for that. And it expands in the sun: a composite fence pushed tight together in spring is jammed and bowing by summer. Most systems are also tied to one brand, so the panels, the posts and the capping rails all come from the same range. Buying more in a few years is then not a given.

Fence supplied and fitted, or fitting only

Both work. If you want a fence supplied and fitted, I order the material with it and you get one price for the lot: posts, panels, groundwork, fitting and taking away whatever was there. If the material is already lying there or you have ordered it yourself, I only fit it and I charge the hours. That second option is not automatically as cheap as you think, because material that has sat outside through a winter is often warped, and that doubles the trimming and cutting.

What a garden like that looks like when it is finished, with a new fence, a shed in the corner and a tiled path to the back, you can see at the back garden with a fence, a shed and a path. If a store, a gate or a canopy comes with it, that falls under carpentry and fitting, but in practice it is the same day and the same man.

Paving, patios and paths

Paving is the item people most often compare by the square metre, and that is exactly where it goes wrong. The stones are the smallest part of the work. The work sits underneath them.

Under a patio or a path belongs an excavated bed, a compacted base and a layer of sharp sand that gets vibrated in. Cut back on that and it does not sink straight away, but it sinks predictably: first at the gully, then along the wall of the house, and after a wet winter everywhere the water stands. So I always lay a fall away from the house, even though a patio that is dead level looks calmer to the eye.

What really sets the price per square metre is not the stone but the shape of your garden. A rectangular patio of plain slabs is simple and quick. As soon as curved edges, a gully, a tree pit or a path in a bond pattern come into it, the cutting takes over, and cutting is hours. Access counts just as heavily: can the sand go through a gate in a wheelbarrow, or does everything have to come through the house to the back.

A garden where all of that comes together, with brick paths, a patio in a curved bond and new borders alongside, is at the paving with paths and borders around the house.

Trees: pruning, removing and felling

Trees are a big part of my garden work, and it is also the work where most goes wrong when somebody tries it themselves. A tree does not fall where you push it, it falls where its centre of gravity is.

If there is room around it, a tree can come down in one go. In an average back garden that room is not there, so it comes down in sections: the branches first, then the trunk in pieces from the top down, with a rope or a winch to steer it. That is slower and it costs more hours, but the fence and the neighbours’ roof stay in one piece. What that looks like in practice you can see at the tree taken out at the waterside and at a conifer out of a tight back garden.

Always ask about the stump as well. Felling and removing are not the same thing: with felling the stump stays in the ground, with removing it comes out too. If you want to pave or replant that spot, the stump has to go, and that is a separate job with a stump grinder or with the digger.

If you want a tree felled in Nieuwegein or in one of the neighbouring councils, the first question is not what it costs but whether it is allowed. Councils each have their own rules on which trees need a permit, and some trees are separately on a protected list. I will tell you what to check, but the application goes in the owner’s name. Nesting season is the second question: if there is a nest in the crown, the work waits, even if that is inconvenient.

Pruning is a different trade from removing. With topiary and with older conifers there are species you cannot cut back into the old wood, because nothing comes back out of it. Push that one step too far once and you look at a bare flank for years. What I mean by that work you can see at topiary and tree care in a front garden.

The soil, and why a border does well one year and not the next

This is where my background comes in. Seven years of agronomy mostly means I do not judge a garden by what is standing above ground.

I dig a hole. What comes out tells you the most. Clay sticks to the spade and holds water, sand runs through your fingers and dries out in a warm summer, peat sinks and smells different. In a new-build garden I often find imported sand with building rubble as well, with the original soil underneath it driven flat by machines. A border that looks lovely there in the first season and then falls away is not falling away because of the plants, but because the roots hit that compacted layer and the water sits on top of it.

That is also the answer to why the same planting bed does fine next door. Sun, shade, water and soil can differ within a few paces. So I would rather pick a species that suits your corner than one out of a garden book, and where it really will not work I improve the soil first or put in drainage.

What a landscape gardener costs per hour, per day or per job

I do not put figures on this site, because a rate without your garden next to it tells you nothing. What it depends on I can explain.

There are three ways to settle garden work. Per hour is fairest on small and unpredictable work: pruning, doing up a border, a list of odds and ends. Per day works better as soon as I need machines or a skip, because I hire those by the day and not by the hour, and then half a day is rarely half the price. And on installation work, so paving or a fence, I would rather work for a fixed price: one price for the whole job, so the risk of a nasty surprise in the ground sits with me and not with you.

What comes back in all three cases: how much soil has to be moved and taken away, and how much trimming and cutting the shape of your garden creates. Waste removal is the item that gets forgotten most often and it is rarely small on garden work. A quote that is missing that item is not a cheap quote but an incomplete one.

How it goes

Send me a few photos of the garden, preferably one from an upstairs window as well, because from there I see the shape and the levels better than from the ground. I usually reply the same day, come and look, measure up and dig that hole. Only then do you know where you stand.

I work on my own, out of Nieuwegein. That means I am in one garden at a time and that my diary is tight in spring. It also means the same man lays your paving and picks your planting. Outside Nieuwegein I drive into the region every day, among other things for garden and building work in Utrecht. If there is a list indoors as well, I pick that up under odd jobs and maintenance.