[jollyman]

Hi all,

We hired a landscaper €2,200 to rotavate and sew it hopefully before the end of september weather dependant. Its about 3/4 acre of lawn all in, how much should this cost to weedkill and would you not think its in the price of €2,200, he is looking for a sizeable extra cost for weedkilling it.

Regards,
Jolly

[cooler]

Well landscapers are currently charging anything from €1 to €3 per square metre to prepare and sow a lawn (seed). Overall size of lawn, existing soil conditions, access and the country city price diference will also influence price.
3/4 acre is about 3000 square metres. So even if he asks for €800 for weedkilling you are still getting it at €1 per square metre.
Is it €800 he is asking for?

[jollyman]

I thought he was overcharging but your prices seem dearer again, if i knew he was goin to charge i would have done it myself, he is looking for €150 for each of the three times he has done it, which i still think is well over the top.

[Foxylock]

Holy smokes Jollyman

I killed off a half acre for my sis earlier this year. I spent 200 quid on weedkiller and had it done in a couple of hours. The price of my labour was a fry up and a wibbly wobbly wonder

[jollyman]

Is weed killer that dear?

Even so, it is very expensive to be charging €450 only took him a half hour

[Foxylock]

I had quite a bit left over. A litre of roundup concentrate costs about 35 quid depending on where you purchase. Quite a few chancers around nowadays

[Michael196]

weedkill only should cost minimally.

except for an area of 3/4 acre its more about time, to intrically cover every inch

I would suggest to have it included in the overall cost with no additional charge. u can always suggest to go elsewhere

[cooler]

Just a guess, but I reckon your landscaper gave you a price initially without weighing up the job sufficently. He then realised his error and thought Christ I better try and factor in a bit more to complete this job. Hence the extra charges for spraying.
Wrong on his part if he did this, but if he did not factor in more charges would it result in a poor finish as he cut corners to try and make a profit from the job.

So jollyman you have a choice to make, do you tell him to stuff his extra charge and complete the job for his initial quote. Possible outcomes 1. he tells you to stuff your job, 2. he does the job to perfection, 3. he does the job begrudingly, and you watch him like a hawk to prevent corners being cut.

[jollyman]

Ok full story landscaper is a friend of my girlfriend thought he would give us a good price, he initially came and walked it and we agreed on €2,200. I thought this was a reasonable enough price and agreed wth him, he sprayed it twice on weekends when we were away, the third time we asked him to spray it as it was going out of control. So in my opionion first and secon spray should be part of his initial price, third one is possibly an extra, i met him there the day of the third spray, he said his price was now €2,500 and €150 for each spray, the total becoming €2,950 increase of €750 from initial price, we were only going starting the lawn last weekend, and he asked me to get in a tracks machine to level the place and rake it from stones, this really annoyed me, so today i sent him a bank draft for €450 and told him to get lost! I have another local landscaper priced it at €1600 to level it, rotivate it stone it and seed it.

[Foxylock]

I come across this a lot in the trades the " I 'll do ya a good deal coz I know ya " . No such thing as friends when it comes to pricing a job and the price of labour should be going down these days not up ( I know mine is !! ). Another old trick is to give a reasonable price to get ones foot in the door and then bump it up by piling on the "extras " This carry on sickens me and gives the decent guys a bad name, creating suspicion and mistrust along the way. You did well to give this joker the road and I hope the rest of your job is stress free and enjoyable. Look forward to next year when you will be basking in the smell of freshly cut grass. All the best

[jollyman]

Thanks for the help and feedback guys, much appreciated.

[jollyman]

Hi all,

Was wondering how much seed ill need, i read other posts here says 1 ounce to a square yard, i have 3/4 acre which works out as 3,630 square yards. There is 35 ounces in a kg, one ounce per square yard is 3,630 ounces so does this mean 103kg of seed? Thats a lot of seed??

Also when should we fertilise it,my uncle said he put down 7:14:7 and his grass looks great,

[James Kilkelly]

Is it yourself that's seeding it now jollyman, not the landscaper?

If it is yourself you will need to spread approx 45 grammes of seed per square metre, which can be broadcast by hand or use a wheeled spreader.

A 25kg bag of lawn seed covers approx 550 sq metres at a rate of 45g to the square metre.

Broadcast by hand or use a wheeled spreader you yourself will need approx 135kg.

Firstly, give the grass seed you've bought a good mix with your hands, bringing the seed on the bottom of the bag/carton to the top and then mixing it throughout all the other seed. You carry this out because lawn seed mixture is made up of 3,4,5, or more types of grass seeds mixed together, you don't want to sow all the smaller seeds in one section of the lawn and the larger seeds in another. Divide the grass seed into 2 lots and spread half the seed whilst walking up and down the proposed lawn, with the other half being spread whilst walking left and right across the lawn.

If it is the landscaper seeding then he may be using a direct seeding/seed stitching machine so the quantity of seed required may be lowered.

On the issue of fertilising.....
A general purpose spring/summer lawn feed (without weed or moss killers) can be applied to the new lawn after its third cut. Feeding any earlier or applying a weed/mosskiller in this stage ( weed/mosskiller anytime during first six months) will more than likely scorch the young grass plants.

This sticky I wrote at the top of the lawn section How to sow a lawn from grass seed in Ireland-Lawn Hints/Tips should be required reading for someone in your situation.
Ounces, kgs, and square yards combined can be confusing, so I try to keep everything metric..... grammes, kgs, and square metres.




Roundup weedkiller

[jollyman]

Hi James,

We are thinking of attemping it ourselves now yes, had the tracks machine there the weekend levelling the place, so looks good now, raked all the dead weeds off and picked the bigger stones.
Our uncle has an old dexta tractorand a rotavator, so will get him in there tomorrow if the rain stays away i will hire a seed spreader and a water filled roller and work away from there, is €70 for 25kg bag, as good a price as i will get? I have read our sticky and its very informative, is there any potential disasters out there for us, doing this ourselves?

[James Kilkelly]