Take a look behind the scenes.

Knowing What You’re Letting Yourself In For

The Gardening Round

Starting a gardening round is one of the easiest things to do. It involves little in the way of capital and can be tailored to fit around your lifestyle, which makes it ideal for anyone wanting to generate an additional part-time income. It’s relatively simple to set up, easy to run and the start-up costs are fairly low, if non-existent, but for one necessary expenditure – public liability insurance. There are no high overheads to contend with every month. And if you like security and dislike having to continually sell yourself and your business, then this could be for you.

What’s Involved?

Setting up your gardening round involves finding enough clients to fill all the available space in your diary, visiting your clients on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly cycle depending on their requirements. When your diary is full you will no longer have to invest time and money in attracting new clients.

Sales Forecasts

Predicting your earnings is relatively straightforward as you will know how many hours you are going to garden every week and at what hourly rates less your expenses.

For example, if you intend to work 20 hours per week charging £8 per hour, then your gross income will be 20 x 8 = £160. From this you will need to deduct your expenses, but at least your overall income is relatively predictable.

Ideal For Part-Timers

Gardening rounds are ideal if you want to work part-time, fitting your business around your present commitments. While it’s a sure way of earning additional income, it does have certain disadvantages. Your business depends on your continued reliability, i.e. turning up every week, fortnight or month when you say you will. Fail to do this and your reputation will go before you and your round fall to your competitors. Certainty comes at a price. So if you’re not going to be able to commit yourselves to regular visits then obviously this business isn’t for you.

Seasonal Nature

The main drawback with this as a business is that it tends to be seasonal. That of course may suit you. But if like me you want to work full-time in your business, then this may not be the business for you.

The main advantages of running a traditional gardening round are:

• Relatively low start-up costs.
• Easy to plan and predict your earnings.
• You don’t have to always use your own tools.
• Can be profitable if your prices are set correctly.
• There’s less selling to do.
• You get to know your clients very well.
• Ideal for part-timers who want to earn additional income or full-time gardeners who want a regular round without having to constantly advertise and look for new clients.

 

The main disadvantages are:

• What you earn depends entirely on how many hours you garden.
• Can be very hard work where clients employ you to do the heavy tasks like weeding and such like.
• Earnings can be greatly reduced during periods of bad weather.
• Seasonal business – spring to autumn.
• Running a round can be more like having a job than managing a business.
• Most clients expect you to remove garden debris from site, such as lawn clippings, pruning remains, weeds etc. Costs involved in doing this can be prohibitive.

Working Out The Costs Of Providing Your Service

The Costs

While this is a relatively straightforward business to run, your earnings will depend on keeping your costs as low as possible. If you’re to succeed it’s vital that you get your pricing right.

Too low and you’ll end up working for nothing. Too high and you won’t get any customers.

Here are the main costs that you are likely to incur when providing this service:

• purchasing tools
• servicing and repair costs
• fuel costs
• dumping fees
• insurance
• your time
• tax.