If you want to hire a gardener, landscaper, tree surgeon, or anyone else who can help you with your outdoor spaces, it's important to make sure you're hiring someone reliable and trustworthy. Keep these questions in mind to help you make the right choice.
First and foremost, you need to check whether a professional has the requisite training to provide a good level of service. Verify how they were educated, then ask for proof of their qualifications. Any reputable professional, whether a tree surgeon or gardener, should happily provide evidence.
If they haven't trained formally or they're unwilling to provide evidence of their training, you might consider choosing another garden trade service. This is because they might not have the foundational knowledge needed to offer great service or any specialist knowledge at all.
Remember, many garden trade professionals do not hold formal qualifications, having learned their skills on the job, or via an apprenticeship. While you can't check these professionals' qualifications, you can check whether they belong to any industry bodies or trade associations.
Just because a landscaper or tree surgeon knows what they're doing doesn't mean they have specific experience with your task. Take a moment to ask about their prior experiences, emphasising the work you have in mind. Ideally, they should be able to show proof of relevant experience.
If you choose to hire a professional who is qualified but has not worked on your type of project, you're taking a risk. For a safer bet, it's probably best to find a garden trade professional who has seen and handled your type of request before.
Gardeners, landscapers, and tree surgeons should all have photographic (or video) evidence of their previous work. This evidence demonstrates their quality and style while making clear that they're a credible professional that you might consider hiring.
This can be especially impactful if you're primarily concerned with the aesthetics they can bring to the table. Gardeners, lawn care professionals, tree surgeons, landscape designers, and landscapers are all expected to produce healthy and beautiful outdoor spaces. Whether they manage to do that should be evident in their photographs.
Checking online reviews is an excellent way to tell whether a professional offers high or low-quality services, but you might want to ask your chosen service for references as well. This way, you can find out about the service in more detail. Ideally, you'll want references who had similar requests to your own.
This is a great opportunity to learn about their service quality, customer service attitudes, communication style, and value for money. If professionals are unwilling or unable to provide you with references, they're either inexperienced or might be hiding low-quality work.
When you have a service provider at your property and an accident happens, you need to know that you're protected and covered. When your chosen professional has public liability insurance and employers' liability insurance, you can feel sure that's the case.
If an accident occurs and it causes damage to you or your property, these forms of protection help make things right. Always ask garden trade professionals about their insurance coverage, and if they don't have any, find another service provider instead.
In some cases, garden trade professionals will provide guarantees and warranties for their work, making sure you get the quality you expected before the project started. These guarantees or warranties could cover material quality, installation flaws, and a range of other considerations.
Of course, not all professionals provide these safety nets. Make sure you ask about whether they provide guarantees or warranties, and for coverage specifics. You need to know how long you're covered for, what it includes, and how the dispute process is handled, should something go wrong.
Everyone's interested in how much they need to pay for a service, but you should also discuss payment terms and conditions when taking quotes. Find out how much you'll pay, payment dates, deposit requirements, and cancellation and change terms and conditions.
The last thing you need is unexpected charges after agreeing to hire someone – the more you can find out now, the better. Always ask for the payment terms in a detailed written contract, since this gives you something to hold your professional to if there are disputes later on.
Already in the midst of a disagreement with a gardening service? Read TrustMark's tips for what to do when a project goes wrong today.
Whether you're planning a larger, one-off project or repeated, frequent visits from your professional, you'll need to know about their availability. Try to nail down specific timings for your request, learning when they're available and when they'll complete the work.
If professionals are evasive and give only vague answers, it's a sign they could be prioritising other work over you. When this happens, it's best to move ahead with other service providers. If they do give you a timeline, make sure they give you a written commitment.
For some services, like tree pruning, lawn mowing, and hedge cutting, repeated visits are needed for maintenance and care. Most people need some guidance on how often these service visits should take place since they have no horticultural experience.
If visits are too frequent or infrequent, it causes ill health and poor aesthetics in your outdoor spaces. Try to balance the professional's recommendation against your budget, finding a happy medium between helping your garden and your bank balance.