Quote Originally Posted by SimonH View Post
Lesson for today.
Never compare prices to those back home.

Had the garden landscaped as you know, but the chap I used took me to his preferred supplier of plants ( take that as he probably got a cut of the cost) and then charged me php 6000 labour to put all the plants in.
Today I pop along to a local garden centre to enquire about Bermuda grass and the nice man there says he'll follow me back to have a look. 250 sq/m of turf, old lawn removed and new grass laid which will take 2 men 6 days for a total of 22,000php.
He then said that any additional plants that I wanted, if bought from him (at a cheaper price than the original place) would be planted free of charge.
He will also maintain the garden for 500php a month as opposed to the 1500php which me original gardener was charging.
Ok, I learned my lesson but rather now than later and 1000's more.

What we do Simon is buy it as its sold (Bermuda) by the square foot..P 10.00.. We cut it into 9 pieces and plant it about 6 inches apart and watch it grow together...If your not going to be around for a while,you wont even have to sit there and watch it grow!!
I was watching them do large areas in Manila once//They rip the squares up into a bucket of water into sprigs and plant it like rice,,In 6 months it looks great..
Freds Monday money saving tip.