lawn
Grass cutting and lawn mowing
£20 to £45 a visit is the typical price for a regular cut outside London, and £30 to £60 inside it. Small lawns of 25 square metres sit at the bottom of that. A first cut on grass left standing since autumn runs £90 to £200, because it is three jobs in one.
What this covers
What it costs. Most gardeners quote a regular cut per visit rather than by the square metre. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Weekly or fortnightly cuts through the growing season
- Edging along borders, paths and walls
- Collecting and taking away the clippings
- First and last cuts of the year
- One-off cuts on grass that has got away
Worth knowing
Where a gardener does the work and takes the garden waste away, the government's code of practice treats the gardener as the producer, so no transfer happens and the disposal cost belongs in the price of the job. Waste you produced yourself and hand over is a transfer, and then you are responsible for checking the carrier is registered.
Waste duty of care: code of practice, section 5.3; Environmental Protection Act 1990, section 34
What is involved
Mowing starts with a walk over the lawn to lift wire, stones and dog mess, any one of which will wreck a blade or fire out sideways at 3,000 rpm. Cutting height comes next, and it is the decision that matters most. Holding 25mm to 40mm through summer keeps roots shaded and drought at bay, while scalping to 15mm in July opens gaps for moss and weed seed. Stripes come from a rear roller, not from the blade, so a hover mower will never lay them down. Edges are strimmed or cut with a half moon after the pass, never before, or clippings bury the line just made.
Frequency drives the price more than area does. Weekly cutting between April and September removes about a third of the leaf each time, which the grass barely notices. Monthly cutting takes off two thirds and leaves yellow stubble standing for a fortnight. Fortnightly from March to October comes to roughly 16 visits, so £35 a time is about £560 across a season. Hourly rates run £20 to £45, and almost every round carries a minimum charge, which is why a tiny front lawn costs nearly as much as a medium one at the back.
Clippings are the other variable. Left on a healthy lawn in dry weather they return nitrogen to the soil and save £10 to £25 a visit. Bagging and carting them off costs money because the gardener has to pay to tip them: clippings from paid work count as commercial waste, not household waste, so they go to a commercial site rather than the council recycling centre.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask what height the mower is set to, and whether that changes between June and October. Edging is often extra at £10 to £30 a visit, so get it stated either way. Do the clippings stay on the lawn or go in the van, and what does removal add? Confirm the minimum charge, because almost every round carries one. Settle what happens to a week missed in August.
Worth reading first:
- Gardener hourly rate in the UK: what to expect to pay
- How long garden jobs take
- Garden jobs by month: what to do in March and all year
Related jobs:
Common questions
How often should grass be cut?
Weekly from late April to early September keeps the sward dense and the mower working easily. Fortnightly is the common compromise, at about 16 visits from March to October. Monthly removes too much leaf at once and leaves the lawn yellow for days afterwards.
Will a gardener take the clippings away?
Some will, and most charge £10 to £25 a visit for it. Clippings from paid work count as commercial waste, so the gardener pays a gate fee to tip them rather than using the council recycling centre. Leaving clippings on a dry, healthy lawn feeds it and costs nothing.