Garden Landscaping Cost in Leicester (2026 Guide)

Patios: the most-asked-about job in every Leicester garden

A straightforward concrete block paving patio in Leicester runs roughly £70-£100 per square metre supplied and laid, so a typical 20 square metre patio lands somewhere around £1,400-£2,000. Move up to Indian sandstone or porcelain paving and you're looking at £100-£160 per square metre once you include the sub-base, edging and jointing, meaning that same 20 square metre patio could be £2,000-£3,200. The jump isn't really about the slabs themselves — porcelain is only marginally dearer per pack — it's the extra care needed for cutting, levelling and pointing a premium finish properly.

Groundwork is where quotes diverge the most. Leicester and the surrounding villages sit on heavy clay, so a patio laid without proper excavation, membrane and at least 100mm of compacted sub-base will heave and crack within a couple of winters. Expect a decent tradesperson to spend a full day just on prep for anything over 15 square metres, and if there's an old concrete path or slab to break out and cart away, add £200-£400 to the job for disposal alone.

Access matters more in Leicester's older housing stock than people expect. Terraces in Highfields, Clarendon Park or Belgrave often have no side entry, meaning every bag of sand and every slab gets barrowed through the house or over a wall — that can add 10-20% to labour time. If you're getting quotes, always ask whether the price assumes wheelbarrow access or a direct tip-off from the drive, because that single detail explains a lot of the spread you'll see between quotes.

Decking, turf and planting

Timber decking in pressure-treated softwood typically costs £90-£130 per square metre installed, while composite boards (which don't rot, warp or need re-staining every couple of years) push that to £150-£220 per square metre. A modest 12 square metre deck off the back of a semi in somewhere like Oadby or Wigston might come in around £1,300-£1,800 in softwood, or £2,000-£2,800 in composite — the composite premium usually pays for itself within 8-10 years if you were going to stain the timber every other summer anyway.

Turf is the cheap-looking job that actually needs the same groundwork as everything else. Turf alone costs roughly £4-£8 per square metre supplied, but proper preparation — rotavating, levelling, adding topsoil where the builder's rubble sits an inch under the surface (common on Leicester new-builds) — brings a full lay-and-prep job to £12-£20 per square metre. Artificial grass sits higher again, typically £35-£55 per square metre installed once you include the compacted base it genuinely needs to drain properly and not go slimy in a wet Leicestershire winter.

Planting and borders are usually priced by the day rather than the metre because so much depends on what you're actually asking for. A day of a gardener or landscaper reshaping borders, adding shrubs and mulching typically runs £180-£280 for labour, plus whatever you spend on plants — a reasonable starter planting scheme for a border might be another £150-£400 depending on size and whether you want instant impact or are happy to wait a season or two for things to fill out.

Fencing and boundaries

Standard featheredge or overlap timber fencing in Leicester costs around £50-£75 per metre run installed, including concrete posts and gravel boards, for a typical 1.8m garden fence. Better quality featheredge with pressure-treated posts and a longer expected lifespan (12-15 years rather than 6-8) sits at £70-£100 per metre. If you're replacing a full rear boundary on an average semi plot — say 15-20 metres including a couple of corners — budget £900-£2,000 depending on spec and whether the old fence and posts need digging out first.

Concrete post removal is the hidden cost nobody budgets for. Old concrete posts set in Leicester clay are notoriously stubborn, and a fencer will often need to dig a metre down or break the post out entirely — this can add £15-£25 per post to a quote, which on a 20 metre run with posts every 2.5m is another £120-£200 you weren't expecting. Always ask upfront whether removal and disposal of the old fence is included, because some quotes assume you'll sort that yourself.

Close-board or bespoke fencing (slatted, horizontal, or anything designed to also screen a patio for privacy) runs higher again, typically £90-£140 per metre once you factor in the extra timber and joinery time. It's worth the spend if the fence is doing double duty as a privacy screen for decking or a patio seating area, but for a straightforward boundary replacement, standard featheredge does the job for a lot less.

Full garden redesigns and getting quotes right

A full redesign — patio, new turf or artificial grass, borders, fencing and maybe a shed base or pergola — for an average Leicester rear garden (roughly 60-100 square metres) typically lands somewhere between £6,000 and £15,000, with most jobs of this size clustering around £8,000-£11,000 once you include a skip, waste disposal and a design/planning element. Gardens needing serious drainage work because of the clay, or a significant level change requiring retaining walls, can push well past that — retaining walls alone add £150-£250 per linear metre depending on height and whether they're block, sleeper or brick.

Always ask what's excluded before you compare quotes, because the headline figure rarely tells the whole story. Skip hire (£250-£400 for a large job), a soakaway or drainage run if your garden holds water after rain, and any electrics for outdoor lighting or a power point are the three things most commonly quoted separately and most commonly forgotten when people are comparing three landscapers' prices side by side.

For a job this size it's worth getting at least three quotes and checking who's actually doing the digging versus subcontracting it out, since that's often where quality and price both move. Rank My Builder lets you post the job once and get up to five quotes from verified local trades for free, with credential badges checked against the public register — handy for landscaping specifically, since there's no single regulator for the trade and reputation is mostly word of mouth until you start comparing real quotes side by side.

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