Gardening for life.

I travel to gardens by bicycle and trailer. This means I don’t need to travel by motor vehicle, reducing my reliance on fossil fuels and contribution to other related pollution. Travelling by bicycle does, however, limit the distance I am able to travel and I am therefore only taking on new clients based in the following postcodes:

E11 (Leytonstone & Wanstead)

E10 (Leyton),

E17 (Walthamstow)

For more information on the types of gardening services that I offer, please check out the ‘gardening services’ tab at the top of the page or click on the following links: Maintenance gardening; Gardening for wildlife; Fruit tree care; Forest garden design & maintenance; Home composting; Sheds, fences & planters.

For life.

Our gardens are spaces that we share with numerous other life-forms, both wild and cultivated. In Greater London, private, domestic gardens make up approximately 23% of landcover. In recent decades, this space has been transforming from green to grey as vegetation is removed and replaced with materials such as paving and concrete that are often impermeable to life and water. Whilst I fully appreciate the need for accessible gardens, this is often done with little sensitivity to the wider impacts of an impermeable city and can result in urban flooding and increasingly fragmented habitats.

The good news is, we can have a massive impact on that 23% of land cover if we tend our gardens in ways that are supportive and sustaining of life. There is an amazing opportunity here.

We can totally realise ecologically rich gardenscapes that are beautiful, useful and provide us with joy and nourishment. Green spaces that are full of life can help us to relax and be at peace in a busy, often stressful city. They can also provide us and our communities with food; food free from the chemical fertilisers and pesticides that blight so much of the affordable food that is available to us today; food that can be shared; food that is healthy, diverse, interesting, sustaining of life.

It is my aim to make my gardening as affordable as possible whilst not compromising on service, sustainability and my own ability to live. A living wage based on a four day week enables me to sustain both my mental and physical health, allowing me to be able to provide my gardening services whilst also providing time and space for me to develop my skills and knowledge through reading and my work in community gardens and growing spaces.

This is very much the ethos behind the Living Gardeners Collective. Living gardens by living people for a living wage.

I currently charge a standard rate of £28 per hour* with a minimum of 2 hours per gardening session. This rate is based on the Living Wage Foundation’s London Living Wage and is adjusted to satisfy a four day working week as well as including time for admin, tool maintenance and general business costs such as insurance, marketing and the occasional purchase or replacement of tools.

Pay it forward. One of the things I would love to be able to do is to offer gardening at a cheaper rate to those who cannot afford my rate. This does, however, rely on those who can afford to pay a little more to subsidise and make a cheaper rate possible. If you are able to pay more please do let me know. I will keep a record of all extra funds that I receive and put this towards work in the gardens of clients who require the subsidy.

*I aim to increase my rate annually in line with increases of the London Living Wage by the Living Wage Foundation. This tends to be announced in the Autumn. I aim to inform clients of the price increase at this time with changes to my hourly charge being implemented from 1st January each year.