The Cost to Landscape a Small Garden in the UK

It’s would be silly to ask someone what’s the cost to landscape a garden or even a small garden because there are many aspects to landscaping that make this question unanswerable.

For a basic garden with 1/3 area for paving, and 2/3 for lawn, start thinking from £100/sq. m. to get a nice space, so for simple 100 sq. m. garden think £10,000 as a sweet spot. If you want to add some more elements to the project, think of £150 as the cost per square meter.

So it really depends on what you want to get done in landscaping. The cost of landscaping a small garden, let’s say 100 m2 could be £2000 or it could be also £15,000 depending on what you want in the garden. Let’s see what makes the cost of landscaping so unpredictable.

Size of the area to landscape

First of all, let’s know what’s a “small garden” is? The definition of “small garden” seems to vary widely. I have a 75 m2 garden which is said as small according to some books or if you try to find it online, but it’s a perfectly sized space for me which may to may not be the case for you.

I recently wrote a post on how small actually is a small garden, where we concluded that a 100 sq. m. can be called a “small garden” which is the size of most gardens nationwide. It is considered a good size for a garden.

I don’t know what’s the size of your garden or what garden size means “small” for you but you’ll need at least £10,000 for a proper job to landscape a 100 m2 space, So considering £10,000 for a 100 sq. m. garden, you can calculate and get a rough idea about how much will it cost if you have larger or small space than 100 sq. m.

Materials/products you want to use

This is the biggest factor that can vastly affect the cost in the landscaping process.

Landscaping can be done as all seeded ground or all expensive paving so, it truly comes down to what you want in your garden and the products or materials that you want to use.

Landscaping involves in two parts – softscaping (all living things such as plants, flowers, trees, grass, and shrubs) & hardscaping (all non-living things such as (patio, fences, stones, gravel, etc.). Both are essential parts of landscaping because obviously, we can’t imagine a garden without plants, trees, and grass, and also without a nice paved area for sitting.

But the softscaping part of landscaping is way cheaper than hardscaping. Hardscaping elements like paving, staircase, driveways, fence end up taking most of the money than softscaping elements like plants, trees, and grass. If you’re on a budget, adjusting them like less hardscaping and more softscaping can save you quite a bit on the overall cost.

Recently I’ve seen an example where the back garden costs £7,000, and the front one which is almost similar in size costs £3,000 because the first in the back garden, there was more hardscaping involved compared to the front one.

Who is your landscaper

Depending on who you choose to give the project to, you could get the job done for a slightly lower or higher cost because not all landscapers have the same skills and speed to complete the project.

Established landscaping companies may charge way higher than a new in the business. Some landscapers do garden designs for free and others may charge for it.

When you plan to get a quote for your garden, some landscapers just consider the price of main things such as patio, fence, and turf while eliminating all smaller things that add up later.

Price varies from region to region

The landscaping cost also varies from place to place. Built-up places like London, for example, or the southeast region is much costlier than the north of the UK.

The cost of the products or materials doesn’t vary that much, you can see a slight difference in their prices in different regions. It’s the labour cost that differs the most.