There is a moment most SE London homeowners recognise. You open the back door, look out at the garden you have been meaning to deal with for months - and just close it again.
The weeds are taller than the fence. The shed has disappeared behind a wall of brambles. Something that might be a path is buried somewhere under all of it.
That is exactly what the three gardens in this post looked like before we got to them.
Below you will find three clearance jobs we completed across South East London - in Woolwich SE18, Eltham SE9, and Lewisham SE13. We have shown you the before, the after, and given you an honest breakdown of what each type of job costs. No ballpark figures pulled from thin air. Numbers based on our actual hourly rate and realistic time estimates for what you can see in the photos.
If your garden looks anything like these, keep reading.
What We Mean by "Overgrown"
There is a big difference between a garden that needs a tidy and a garden that needs a clearance.
A tidy is mowing the lawn, trimming the edges, pulling a few weeds. Our garden maintenance service covers that, and it starts from £80 for the first hour.
A clearance is something else entirely. It is when the garden has crossed a line - where weeds have gone woody, ivy has started pulling at the fences, brambles have rooted several feet deep, and no amount of weekend effort with a pair of secateurs is going to make a dent. You need a team with the right equipment, a plan, and somewhere to take all the waste.
Our garden clearance service runs at £85 per hour for a 2-person team, tools included, waste removal available on request. Most photo-based quotes come back within 24 hours.
Now, let's get into the jobs.
Transformation 1: Overgrown Garden Clearance in Woolwich SE18: Before and After (With Cost)
What We Found
Look at the before photo and try to find the ground. You cannot. Every centimetre of this Woolwich SE18 rear garden had been colonised - brambles, bindweed, nettles, and sprawling overgrowth that had crept up and over the shed roof. The double doors at the back were completely buried. The fences on both sides were invisible. The homeowner could not even get down to the bottom of the garden without pushing through chest-high growth.
This kind of situation happens more often than people realise in SE18. A garden gets left during a busy period, maybe after a bereavement, a house move, or simply life getting in the way. One season of neglect becomes two. By year three, you are looking at something that feels genuinely impossible to tackle yourself.
It is not impossible. It just needs the right team.
What We Did and Why It Took the Time It Did
Our crew started at the far end, working towards the house so they always had somewhere to stand. The shed roof had to be cleared first - growth that far up means seeds and debris raining down on everything below as you work. Then it was methodical: cut back in sections, pull the root systems where possible, clear as you go rather than letting cut material pile up and slow you down.
The brambles in particular needed patience. Bramble root systems do not care how hard you pull - they need to be dug out properly or they come back within weeks. Rushing that part is the reason a lot of "cleared" gardens look the same six months later.
The after photo shows exactly what a proper clearance delivers: bare ground, clear fence lines, and a shed you can actually reach.
What a Job Like This Costs
A heavily overgrown rear garden of this size - roughly 40 to 60 square metres with dense mixed growth including brambles, established weeds, and roof-level overgrowth - takes our 2-person team around 8 to 12 hours.
| Job Element | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Clearance labour (2-person team) | £680 to £1,020 |
| Green waste removal (if needed) | £60 to £150 |
| Typical total | £740 to £1,170 |
Once the ground is clear, many Woolwich homeowners use it as a starting point for turf, paving, or a full garden redesign. Our landscaping service starts from £1,200 for a basic refresh and goes up from there depending on what you want to do with the space.
Is your Woolwich garden in a similar state? Send us a few photos and we will get a quote back to you within 24 hours. No commitment, no site visit required for most jobs.
Transformation 2: Garden Rescue in Eltham SE9: Uncovering Hidden Paving and Raised Beds
What We Found
This one in Eltham SE9 was a different kind of challenge. From the before photo, it looks like a completely wild garden - climbing plants smothering everything, ground cover so thick you cannot see the surface. But this garden had bones. Good ones.
Underneath all that growth there was cobbled paving, a raised metal bed, a garden bench, and a border with proper structure. The homeowner knew it was there - they just could not get to any of it. The garden had not been abandoned so much as gradually swallowed.
Jobs like this one require a different approach to a straight clearance. You cannot work fast and rough when there is existing paving that can be cracked, raised beds that can be bent, and plants you actually want to keep somewhere underneath all the chaos.
Because Eltham is our home area - our base is right here on Allenswood Road in SE9 - we have done a lot of these. Mature gardens in the SE9 streets tend to have more going on beneath the surface than they first appear. You can see more of what we do locally on our Eltham gardening services page.
What We Did and Why It Took the Time It Did
The team worked from the top down and outside in - removing the climbing growth from the fences and walls first, then moving to the ground layer. Every section had to be cleared with an eye on what was beneath it. Pulling hard on a root that has threaded through a cobble joint can lift the whole slab.
By the end, the paved patio was fully exposed, the raised bed was intact and usable, and the fencing was visible and in good shape. The homeowner did the finishing touches themselves - planted up the barrel, added the new chair, and had a proper garden again for the first time in years.
That transformation in the after photo? That is mostly clearance work. The planting and styling cost the homeowner almost nothing.
What a Job Like This Costs
Medium garden, mixed overgrowth, hidden features to work around carefully - our 2-person team typically needs 10 to 14 hours for this type of clearance.
| Job Element | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Clearance labour (2-person team) | £850 to £1,190 |
| Green waste removal | £80 to £180 |
| Typical total | £930 to £1,370 |
If you want to take things further after the clearance - new turf, a proper patio, or a replant - our landscaping and design service handles all of it. We have also written a detailed post on garden clearance costs across SE London if you want the full picture before making a decision.
Eltham homeowner with a garden like this? Call us on 07760800457 or send photos through the contact form. We are local and can usually get eyes on the job quickly.
Transformation 3: Small Overgrown Courtyard in Lewisham SE13: Why Size Does Not Mean Quick
What We Found
Here is something we say to clients regularly: a small garden with extreme overgrowth is not necessarily a quick or cheap job. This rear courtyard in Lewisham SE13 is a perfect example of why.
The space itself is not large - maybe 20 to 30 square metres. But look at the before photo. That is not just weeds. That is a dense, multilayered tangle of climbing vines that had scaled every fence panel and wrapped around anything it could find. Grapevine, bindweed, bramble. All of it rooted in, all of it pulling at the fencing, and all of it needing to come out properly or it would just come straight back.
Lewisham SE13 has a lot of Victorian terrace rear courtyards exactly like this - enclosed on three sides, often north or east facing, which means less sun and more moisture. That combination creates a perfect environment for invasive climbing plants to thrive. We cover Lewisham and the surrounding SE13 area regularly, and vine overgrowth is one of the most common calls we get.
What We Did and Why It Took the Time It Did
The access situation on a job like this adds real time. A team working in an enclosed rear courtyard cannot use a wheelbarrow straight to the van. Every armful of cut material goes through the house or through a side gate if there is one - trip after trip. On a heavily overgrown 25 square metre plot, that is a significant number of trips.
The vines themselves had to be detached from the fencing carefully. Ripping them off would have taken fence panels with them. Instead the team worked section by section: cut the stem, let tension release, then peel the growth away from the panels. Slower, but the fencing survived intact.
The result is in the after photo - completely bare ground, clean fence lines, and a courtyard the homeowner can now actually plan around. We wrote a post on low-maintenance garden ideas for Lewisham if you are thinking about what to do with a cleared space like this.
What a Job Like This Costs
Smaller space but dense layered growth and restricted access - typically 6 to 8 hours for a 2-person team.
| Job Element | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Clearance labour (2-person team) | £510 to £680 |
| Green waste removal | £60 to £120 |
| Typical total | £570 to £800 |
Got an overgrown courtyard in Lewisham? Drop us a message with some photos or call 07760800457. We work Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm, and quotes from photos usually come back the same day.
How We Price Clearance Jobs: The Honest Version
Our rate is £85 per hour for a 2-person team. Everything else - how much a job costs - comes down to how many hours it takes, and that depends on four things:
1. What is growing there. Surface weeds clear in a fraction of the time it takes to deal with established bramble root systems or mature ivy. The density and type of growth is the biggest variable in any quote.
2. What is hiding underneath. A garden with paving, raised beds, or existing planting takes longer because the team has to work carefully. A bare earth garden with no features to protect is faster.
3. Access. Van to the gate means waste removal is quick. Everything through the house means every clearance run takes three times as long.
4. Volume of waste. Green waste removal is quoted separately. A heavily overgrown 50 square metre garden can produce a surprising amount of material - that has to go somewhere, and it is worth factoring in from the start.
Most SE London clearance jobs in the 30 to 60 square metre range come out between £500 and £1,200 for the clearance itself, with waste removal adding £60 to £200 on top depending on volume.
See our full breakdown on the prices page.
What Comes Next After a Clearance?
A cleared garden is a blank canvas. Here is what most of our clients do next:
Turf. A fresh lawn goes in quickly on prepared ground. Natural turf costs £15 to £28 per sqm installed, or if you want zero maintenance, artificial grass runs £60 to £90 per sqm. Full details on our turfing page.
Paving or a patio. If the existing surface is rough or uneven, laying a new patio is one of the best returns on a cleared garden. Part of a larger project through our landscaping service.
Pressure washing. If a clearance uncovers old paving that is mossed over and stained, our patio and driveway cleaning service brings it back to life at £4 per sqm (minimum £140).
Ongoing maintenance. Once the garden is back under control, keeping it that way is straightforward. Our garden maintenance service starts from one hour at £80 and can be booked as a regular visit.
Browse our project portfolio to see more completed jobs across SE London.
Questions We Get Asked Before Every Clearance Job
For light overgrowth, DIY is absolutely manageable. For anything with established brambles, deep ivy roots, or climbing plants that have embedded into fencing - professional clearance is almost always faster and cheaper in the long run. Our post on how to clear an overgrown garden covers what is realistic to tackle yourself versus when to call someone.
Some will, yes. A clearance removes the growth above ground and as much root system as possible, but certain plants like bindweed are stubborn. The best way to prevent regrowth is to put something down - turf, membrane and gravel, or paving - fairly quickly after clearance. A garden left as bare earth will start to fill back in within a season.
Based on our three examples above: small dense courtyard £570 to £800, medium garden with features £930 to £1,370, large heavily overgrown rear garden £740 to £1,170. The wide ranges reflect how much variation there is job to job. The best way to get an accurate number is to send us photos.
We cover all SE postcodes and surrounding areas including Bromley, Bexley and Dartford. Full list on our areas we cover page.
Get a Quote - No Obligation, Just Honest Advice
If your garden looks anything like the before photos in this post, we have done this hundreds of times across SE London and we can help.
We are a family-run team based in Eltham SE9. Over 12 years in the business. More than 111 verified five-star Google reviews. Every single garden we take on, we treat the same way we would treat our own.
Call us: 07760800457 - Mon to Sat, 9am to 6pm. Email: office@urbangardeners.co.uk Or use the contact form - send a few photos and we will get back to you the same day with a quote.
No pushy sales calls. No vague estimates. Just a fair price and a team that shows up and does the job properly.
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