Garden landscaping costs: from new lawns to full redesigns

Landscaping costs across the UK range enormously, from a modest few hundred pounds to freshen up a lawn, through to £25,000 or more for a full garden rebuild on a larger plot, so it helps to break a project down into its individual elements rather than pricing the whole job in one go. As a general benchmark, a full garden redesign combining hard landscaping and planting commonly averages out at around £100 per square metre for materials and labour together, dropping to roughly £30 per square metre if you're happy with the existing layout and mainly want new planting. Prices are also consistently higher in London and the South East than elsewhere in the UK, commonly by 20-40% once labour, materials, and waste disposal are factored in.

Laying a new lawn is one of the cheaper ways to transform a garden. Turf itself typically costs £2-£7 per square metre for a standard dwarf ryegrass lawn, rising to £10-£20 per square metre for a finer annual meadowgrass mix, with labour to prepare the ground and lay the turf adding a further £8-£12 per square metre on top. Altogether, a laid lawn commonly works out at around £15-£30 per square metre once materials and labour are combined, so a modest 50m² lawn might cost roughly £700-£1,200 fully installed, while a small area under 10m² could come in as low as £100-£150 for labour alone plus a modest materials cost.

Artificial grass costs more upfront than real turf but needs far less ongoing maintenance. Installed costs typically run to £55-£90 per square metre depending on the pile material — polypropylene sits at the cheaper end, around £55-£60 per square metre installed, while denser nylon products commonly reach £60-£70 or more. The artificial turf itself usually accounts for £10-£25 per square metre of that total, with the remainder covering groundwork, edging, and installation labour, a significant part of the job given the need for a properly prepared and drained base underneath.

Patio costs vary hugely by material. Concrete paving typically costs £55-£85 per square metre installed, clay brick paving £75-£100 per square metre, natural stone and porcelain flagstones anywhere from £45-£200 per square metre depending on the stone, and poured resin surfacing £25-£50 per square metre. Looking at a full patio project rather than the per-metre rate alone, expect a total bill of roughly £1,500-£3,000 outside London for a typical-sized patio, rising to £2,000-£4,200 in London and the South East, with material choice being the single biggest swing factor in the final price.

Timber and composite decking follow a similar pattern of wide variation by material. Softwood decking commonly costs £40-£73 per square metre installed, hardwood £62-£108, and composite decking, which needs less upkeep but costs more upfront, £90-£135 per square metre. Labour alone typically accounts for £22-£55 per square metre of that, with most decking jobs taking one to two days; a modest 25m² deck often lands somewhere between roughly £1,000 and £3,375 depending on the material chosen. Fencing is usually priced per linear metre rather than by area: a standard 6ft close-board fence typically costs around £29-£35 per metre installed, lap panel fencing is cheaper at roughly £22-£25 per metre, and decorative slatted fencing is considerably more at £39-£47 per metre.

Put all these elements together and a full garden redesign spans a very wide price bracket depending on scale. A small refresh, new turf or paving on part of the garden plus some planting and general tidying, commonly costs £2,500-£8,000 outside London and £4,000-£12,000 in the capital. A mid-size redesign involving new hard landscaping across most of the garden typically runs to £8,000-£25,000 outside London, or £12,000-£35,000 in London and the South East, while a full transformation of a larger plot, new patio, decking, fencing and planting together, commonly reaches £25,000-£45,000 or more outside the capital, and £35,000-£55,000 or more within it. For context, a genuinely large 100m² back garden taken through a complete redesign is commonly quoted at around £7,000-£12,000 as a starting point, before extras such as lighting or water features are added.

If you bring in a garden or landscape designer rather than working directly with a landscaping contractor, fees are usually charged separately from the build itself. Designers commonly charge £60-£200 an hour, or £400-£900 for a full day, and a complete design package covering an initial survey, concept drawings, and detailed planting plans typically costs £600-£4,500 depending on the size and complexity of the garden. Many designers offer an initial consultation for £50-£150, often deducted from the final fee if you go ahead with the full design. Separately, the contractors who actually build the garden typically charge £200-£400 a day for a single person, or £320-£700 a day for a two-person team, with rates toward the higher end in London and the South East.

On a hard landscaping project, materials commonly account for 40-60% of the total cost, with labour making up the rest, so it's worth asking any contractor for a breakdown of the two rather than accepting a single lump-sum figure. It's also worth checking whether quotes include VAT: larger, VAT-registered firms will add the standard rate on top, while smaller sole traders below the VAT registration threshold won't charge it at all, which can make like-for-like comparisons misleading unless you check this explicitly. As with any significant home improvement project, getting at least three quotes from different landscapers or designers, based on the same brief and site visit, remains the most reliable way to establish a fair local price before committing to a full redesign.

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