Gardener Costs

[marios]

For those that rent out your property what do you pay your gardener to maintain your garden,including setting irrigation and all the chemicals I am paying about 280 euros a month which I feel is too much,this is for approx 300 sq meters of garden with borders and nothing special.

[spanish_lad]

how many hours marios ? no way they are going in every day ? its normally 10€ an hour ?

do you want me to get someone to give you a quote ?

[marios]

If you could SL,we are near duquesa

[spanish_lad]

not sure if the guy i know will go that far, he works mainly around marbella etc, but i will ask him.

[Beachcomber]

I would venture to say that it is not what you are paying that's important but whether you are satisfied with the way he is doing the job.

[marios]

Well I have not been over since june so not sure but the euro to pound is making it very expensive so either he drops his costs or I look elsewere.

[Jool]

Sounds excessive to me, we are not in Marbella but pay less than 100 euros per month and they come once every week for whatever time is needed.......sometimes its half an hour other times it can be 4 hours or more.......over the year it averages out, they also supply all manure, insecticides etc..........and we have over 1000m2

[mikeyj]

Hola Marios,

We are gardeners, though not in your area, what chemicals are you paying out for?. The going rate for maintenance is around 10 euros and up per hour, our biggest clients ask for around 5 hrs per week for purely maintenance, so on a 5 week month they may expect to pay 250 euros per month, it depends on the hours you have agreed.

Weedkillers and feeds are not particularly cheap, 5 litres of a good weedkiller costs around 50 euros in the chaps defence, so it may be worth your while to ask for a breakdown of his/their chemicals.

[adam08]

If you want a good job, then pay for it! Pay a man what he's worth. 20Euros an hour for a good gardener is fair to me. Machines, social security, petrol, traveling, it all adds up.

[marios]

I feel I need to resurrect this thread as I miss heard my gardener its 180 month never the less he was still taking the mickey and I was not happy with what work he was doing (his workers)or should I say not doing,every time I returned what I had asked him to do was rarely done.

[katy]

There is a villa close to where I live. The owners are from Bahrain and only spend 6 weeks there in summer. Their gardener only seems to do any work a couple of weeks before they arrive but I bet they are charged for monthly. Have noticed it before with other absent owners. Only solution is to have a friendly neighbour to keep an aye on things.

[marios]

Yes the trouble is no one else lives permanently close by.

[Retro P]

Whatever you do, DONT employ a brit, their preferred method of executing a normal working day seems to consist of morning coffee and soberano, long lunch and early finish, I'm not talking here about people who work from home, but the "tradesmen". builders, gardeners, painters etc, I'm sure there are some honest ones sadly I haven't met one yet!!

[maddy]

here we go again...a generalisation,a sweeping statement from someone who doesn´t even live here to "see" how some english work! Of course you havent met one yet...your not here long enough to see how they work.And dont forget there are many english in marbella who may be lazy worksers but andalucia is a lot bigger tham that and there are many good workers out there.before we moved out permanently i emplyed an english couple to look after my house and garden and paid €9an hr and a set price for any larger jobs to which i was very satisfied.with a set price it doesnt matter how long they breakfast lunch and dinner as long as the work is done.

[Beachcomber]

...morning coffee and soberano, long lunch and early finish ...

...with the rest of the time spent talking on their mobile.

Happily I have found one 'Brit' (how I loathe that word) who is a good worker charging reasonable rates and even registered for tax and social security.

[marios]

A brit couldn't be any worse that the spanish one I have just had.

[spanish_lad]

Whatever you do, DONT employ a brit, their preferred method of executing a normal working day seems to consist of morning coffee and soberano, long lunch and early finish, I'm not talking here about people who work from home, but the "tradesmen". builders, gardeners, painters etc, I'm sure there are some honest ones sadly I haven't met one yet!!

i wish i worked for one of those companies!! when i was helping out the gardener we were leaving alhaurin at 06,30, no brekfast, straight on the first job at 7am, no breaks till lunch at 13,00, then carry on, and i was lucky to be home before 7pm we were doing 12 - 14 gardens and pools a day.

then i worked for the grass guy in spain and scicaly - we were up at 6am, on site by half 6 and stopped for lunch at 13,00 (20 min) then worked thru to 6pm at least, some days not getting back to the hotel till at least 8 or 9pm, eating, then bed.

and i worked for them for less than 3€ an hour.

alot of the brit workers are useless. but dont tar us all with the same brush.

[Retro P]

Sorry Spanish lad, It WAS a generalisation of course and reading your many posts I'm sure you are a hard working and diligent guy, I was of course referring to the large number of "Brits" who do fit my categorisation.

[chrissiehope]

Can I just resurrect this thread ?

We don't live in Spain permanently, and need someone to come in maybe a couple of times a week, maybe vacuum the pool once a week, and water if there hasn't been any rain. We have had a 'neighbour' suggested to us, who we think we will give a try, but we don't have a clue how much to pay

We have a 4m x 8m pool, with a timer on the pump (so it doesn't need switching on every day), and a rigid cover (so it doesn't get leaves & dust etc).
Our 'garden' (small bed along one long edge of the terrace; small rockery; small bed around olive tree; 3 oleanders !) has fairly hardy plants like rosemary & lavender, so doesn't need much watering esp at this time of year.
The rest of our land is sort of divided - there is a 'flood defence' wall up to which we consider our living space, and beyond that a drainage ditch and then a fence. This is all bare soil with olive trees, but does get very 'weedy', esp in spring.
We don't bother with manure, fertiliser etc, and we had weedkiller put down last year which we suspect killed off our 2 new olive trees so we're not in a hurry to use that again !

Would 2-3 hours twice a week be about right ? Obviously, as the weather warms up again next year this will have to increase to allow for more watering, weeding etc.

All input gratefully received