Anyone who has done landscaping knows that the right tools are an essential part of completing the job correctly. It’s particularly important when you’re looking at larger projects and designs that require heavy-duty digging and moving heavy items.
Read more for some further information on the ways in which equipment hired for landscaping projects can provide a cost-effective and practical solution.
Making a Landscaping Plan
Before you begin planning for gardening hire, you’ll need a landscaping plan. As a professional, you can sit down and design the area for your client, determining which features will be needed. Look at where you will place aggregates, soil, and sod. You’ll also want to come up with a list of all the different materials and tools you’ll need.
If you have a large job that requires extra work and tools or specialized machinery, consider hiring the necessary machines. These can be quite cost-efficient when hired and make it easier to manage your landscaping task. You can build the cost into the price of the landscaping project.
When to Consider Gardening Hire
There are two main reasons to consider gardening hires. First, if you have a very large project ahead of you, you’ll need some help if you want to actually finish in a timely fashion. For example, digging a small fountain pond by hand is doable, but a koi pond will require more equipment.
The second reason is to ensure you do the job well and to provide the best outcome possible. These are two situations where you’ll find that a gardening hire is essential.
Hiring vs. buying is one of the biggest conversations people have about this topic. If you are a professional landscaper, you know that there are some tools that are indispensable. You likely have a good collection of them already, including shovels and spades, pickaxes, sledgehammers, and more.
When it comes to machinery, every landscaper has their favourites. You probably have a lawnmower and assorted other options to help you clear up the dead branches, cut grass, trim hedges, and more. These are all things that you use at nearly every single property and they’re worth buying to have on hand. You’ll want to own the tools that you use frequently, particularly those that are multi-purpose.
Hiring machinery is best for when you have a task that needs a more specialised piece of equipment, such as a mini digger, that will only be used once. There is little reason to invest the money in a large piece of equipment that will only be used one time.
Situations where this may occur include:
- Digging a pond
- Digging a trench
- Transplanting a tree
Types of Plant Hire for Landscaping
What sorts of plant hire should you consider for landscaping? Again, this all ties back to your original landscaping plan, which will determine which tasks need to be done. However, certain machines are more popular than others.
Riding Lawn Mower
A regular lawn mower is more than enough for most landscapers, but if you’re planning to mow a very large area, you’ll need to look at something bigger and better. Most landscapers don’t use riding mowers, due to the difficulty of transporting them. However, if they can be delivered to your location, you can use them and have the plan hire company pick them up again.
Rollers
Rollers come in a range of sizes, but they all do the same job, tamp down the soil. If you’re planning on laying a driveway or a path, you will find that a roller makes the job of levelling and flattening easier, as well as compacting the ground. While not exactly essential, a roller hire will rapidly cut time off the task at hand.
Dumpers
Moving soil around is part of the landscaping job and you’ll find that you need to move gravel, wood chips or mulch, and sand as well as soil. This can be done with a wheelbarrow and shovel, but that is quite tedious. As you take on bigger and bigger jobs, you’ll want to make certain you have access to dumpers so you can easily get materials from one area to another. No one wants to wheel load after load of sand across an entire golf course, for example.
Fortunately, you can hire dumpers, as they tend to be rather pricy to purchase flat out. On jobs where you do need them, however, they’re invaluable.
Trimmer
A trimmer is designed to cut the edges of grass and small shrubs as needed. It works with a string that whirls around at high speed and slices through any minor plants. It’s excellent for edging the lawn and trimming overgrown areas, so you’ll certainly use it sometimes. There are both gas and electric trimmers available, so you will have to make a choice as to what you prefer.
Wood Chipper
Another tool that you likely wouldn’t have in your own inventory is the wood chipper. This is a loud, yet a very efficient machine that allows you to turn a pile of brush and scrap wood into wood chips, which can be used in the landscaping project. If you’ve been clearing out debris and eliminating dead branches from trees, the wood chipper can be quite useful.
Trying to remove a large number of tree branches can be rather difficult and it simply makes more sense to blend them up on-site and then reuse them as mulch.
Cement Mixer
You’ll be laying a lot of cement for your landscaping jobs, which means you will likely want to invest in this tool sooner rather than later. The cement mixer replaces mixing by hand and speeds the process up while giving you much better results with barrow mix.
Mini Digger
If you’re making a trench or a large pond, the last thing you want to do is dig it all out by hand. There are many ways to get a hole, but the simplest method is to hire a mini digger. This machine can be used to make short work of digging up holes, trenches and more. It’s small enough to fit into even fairly tight gardens and it can be used to create more abstract shapes such as a stream or pond.
These are just a few of the many tools and machines that you’ll want to consider hiring or purchasing, depending on the need.
Should You Purchase the Machinery?
Sometimes, you’ll need a piece of machinery that may not be in your toolbox. At this point, you need to determine if it’s worth purchasing the item or if you should just hire it as needed. The main reasoning behind this will be the overall cost and convenience.
Purchasing tools and machinery can be expensive, particularly if you are dealing with large machines like diggers. Most landscapers don’t have the money to purchase everything they could possibly use, so you have to prioritise.
The first tools and machines to purchase should be ones that you’ll use on a regular basis, such as pruning shears, a lawnmower, and similar items. The more speciality machines will need to be picked up at a later time or simply hired.
Each time you need a larger machine, such as a mini digger or a cement mixer, take note of what you need it for and how often you use it. You can hire the tool for a week and use it on multiple jobs and if you do this once or twice a year, it’s likely not worth purchasing it. However, if you find yourself hiring the machine every month or so, it may be time to start looking at buying it.
Contact Us
If you’re in need of landscaping equipment hire, Rocket Rentals has what you need. We can provide you with a wide range of landscaping equipment, including a mini digger hire, cement mixer hire, or roller hire. Get in today by giving us a call on 01453 51 94 51 or emailing us at hire@rockettoolhire.co.uk and one of our team will get back to you.