Urban Gardeners Review
An honest look at Urban Gardeners, what they offer across SE London, and how they compare to Urban Bloom Gardening.
An honest look at Urban Gardeners, what they offer across SE London, and how they compare to Urban Bloom Gardening.
Last updated: May 2026
If you have searched for a gardener in South East London, you may have come across two businesses with very similar names: Urban Gardeners and Urban Bloom Gardening. They are completely separate companies with different models, pricing structures, and service ranges. The name similarity causes genuine confusion, and this page exists to clear it up.
Urban Gardeners (urbangardeners.co.uk) is an established SE London gardening company with over 12 years of experience. They cover a broad stretch of South East London and Bromley, and they offer services that go well beyond regular maintenance, including hard landscaping, fencing, and clearance. Urban Bloom Gardening is a solo gardener service run by Josh Hellicar since 2021, focused on eco-friendly garden maintenance, lawn care, and planting across 18 specific SE London areas.
This comparison looks at both honestly so you can decide which is the better fit for your garden and your situation.
Urban Gardeners vs Urban Bloom Gardening on the things that matter
| Feature | Urban Gardeners | Urban Bloom Gardening |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | £80 first hour, £60/hr after. Larger jobs quoted individually. No upfront fixed prices online. | ✓ Fixed price shown upfront. £165 for 3 hrs maintenance, £299 for 4 hrs clearance, £249+ for lawn care. |
| Booking | ✗ Contact form enquiry. No instant booking or live calendar. | ✓ Genuine instant online booking. Real-time calendar, book in 60 seconds, no account needed. |
| Who Does the Work | A team of multiple gardeners. Not a named individual gardener - different people may attend different visits. | ✓ Josh Hellicar every visit. Same person, same approach, building knowledge of your garden over time. |
| Services Offered | ✓ Broad range including hard landscaping, fencing, clearance, lawn care, and garden maintenance. | Garden maintenance, clearance, lawn care, planting design, wildlife gardens, hedge trimming. Does not do hard landscaping or fencing. |
| Eco Credentials | ✗ Not promoted as a key part of their offering. | ✓ Award-winning eco approach. Mainly battery powered tools, never uses chemicals, wildlife habitats built from garden waste. |
| After the Visit | Standard completion. No follow-up plan included. | ✓ Handwritten next-session plan left with you after every visit, plus before and after photos. |
| Coverage | ✓ SE2–SE28 and BR1–BR8. Broad SE London and Bromley coverage. | 18 specific areas across SE London. Specialist postcode coverage. |
Urban Gardeners charge £80 for the first hour and £60 per hour for every hour after that. For larger jobs, they work from individual quotes. This is a transparent enough structure once you know it, but the actual cost of your specific garden is not available until you contact them and go through an enquiry process.
For a three-hour maintenance visit, you are looking at approximately £200 under their hourly model (£80 plus two hours at £60). The final bill depends on how long the job takes, which introduces some uncertainty compared to a fixed-price approach.
Urban Bloom Gardening publishes fixed prices directly on the website. A three-hour garden maintenance session costs £165. A four-hour garden clearance costs £299. Lawn care and restoration starts at £249. You know the full cost before you book, with no callbacks or quote requests required.
Urban Gardeners book through a contact form on their website. You submit your details and wait to hear back to arrange a date and discuss the job. For larger or more complex projects, this is a sensible process - it gives both sides a chance to establish scope before anything is agreed.
For straightforward garden maintenance or clearance bookings, a contact form adds a step that many people would rather skip. If you are comparing gardeners and want to quickly check availability and lock in a date, waiting for a callback slows things down.
Urban Bloom Gardening offers genuine instant online booking. Open the booking page, see live calendar availability, pick your slot, and confirm. No account. No wait. No back-and-forth. The whole process takes under a minute and you receive immediate confirmation.
Urban Gardeners operate as a company with a team of gardeners. This is a genuine strength for certain types of work, particularly larger projects that benefit from more hands on site, or areas where broad availability matters more than consistency of individual gardener. Over 12 years in the SE London market, they have built up experience across a wide range of garden types and conditions.
The trade-off with a team model is that you may not get the same person each time. For regular maintenance, that matters. A gardener who visits your garden repeatedly builds up knowledge that is hard to transfer: which corners need watching, how your lawn responds to different conditions, which plants are about to do something interesting. Starting that knowledge-building process again with a different person each visit costs something even if it is hard to put a precise figure on it.
Urban Bloom Gardening is run by Josh Hellicar. Josh is the person who comes to your garden every single visit. He plans each session with you via WhatsApp beforehand, takes before and after photos on the day, and leaves a handwritten plan for the next session. Your garden accumulates a history with the same person rather than being approached fresh each time.
Urban Gardeners offer a genuinely wide range of services. Alongside regular garden maintenance and lawn care, they cover hard landscaping, fencing installation, and full garden clearance. If you want one company to handle a garden renovation that includes both structural work and ongoing maintenance, that breadth is a real advantage. Not every gardener or garden care company offers hard landscaping alongside horticultural work, and Urban Gardeners' 12-plus years of experience across SE London reflects a track record in delivering these projects.
Urban Bloom Gardening is focused specifically on plant-based garden work. The full service list covers garden maintenance, garden clearance, lawn care and restoration, planting design, wildlife garden design, hedge trimming, soil improvement, and plant propagation and care. Hard landscaping and fencing are not services Urban Bloom offers. If your project requires both structural work and gardening, that is an important distinction to be clear on before booking.
Urban Gardeners do not promote eco credentials as a defining part of what they offer. Their focus is on the quality and breadth of their service rather than environmental practices. For many customers this is not a deciding factor, particularly if the job involves hard landscaping or clearance where eco considerations are less central.
Urban Bloom Gardening has a specific and verifiable environmental approach that runs through every visit. Josh mainly uses battery powered tools, producing no exhaust emissions and significantly less noise than petrol alternatives. No chemicals are ever used in any garden, under any circumstances. Garden waste is used to create wildlife habitats wherever possible - log piles, leaf mould bays, and native plant features that support bees, birds, and hedgehogs. This approach has been independently recognised as award-winning.
If you care about what goes into your soil, what leaves your garden, and what effect your gardener has on local wildlife, the difference between vague assurances and a specific verifiable commitment matters.
Urban Gardeners is a well-established company with real strengths in particular areas. There are clear situations where they are the better fit for the job.
If any of those fit your situation, Urban Gardeners is a reasonable and well-established option. Visit urbangardeners.co.uk to submit an enquiry and discuss your garden.
Urban Bloom Gardening is the right fit if any of the following matter to you.
If that sounds like what you are looking for, you can book online now in under 60 seconds. Fixed pricing, real-time availability, instant confirmation.
Urban Gardeners (urbangardeners.co.uk) is an established SE London gardening company with a team of multiple gardeners, covering SE2 through SE28 and BR1 through BR8. They offer a broad range of services including hard landscaping, fencing, and clearance alongside garden maintenance. Urban Bloom Gardening is a solo gardener service run by Josh Hellicar, covering 18 specific SE London areas with fixed transparent pricing, instant online booking, and a strong focus on eco-friendly practices. The two businesses share a similar name but are completely separate companies.
Urban Gardeners charge £80 for the first hour and £60 per hour after that. Larger jobs are typically quoted individually via their enquiry process. Pricing is not available upfront online - you need to contact them via their website form to get a figure for your specific garden and project.
No. Urban Gardeners use a contact form on their website. You submit an enquiry and wait to hear back before a visit is confirmed. There is no instant booking system or real-time calendar. Urban Bloom Gardening offers genuine instant online booking - you can see live availability and confirm a visit in under 60 seconds with no account required.
Urban Bloom Gardening has a specific and verifiable eco approach: mainly battery powered tools, no chemicals ever used in any garden, and garden waste repurposed to build wildlife habitats. This approach is award-winning. Urban Gardeners do not promote eco credentials as a core part of their offering. If environmental practices matter to you, Urban Bloom Gardening is the clearer choice.
Urban Gardeners cover SE2 through SE28 and BR1 through BR8, which is a broad coverage of South East London and the Bromley borough. Urban Bloom Gardening covers 18 specific areas across SE London. Check the locations page to see if your postcode is included, or contact either company directly to confirm coverage before booking.
Fixed pricing, instant confirmation, the same named gardener every visit. Book in 60 seconds.