How to check a landscaper before work starts

Landscaping is an unlicensed trade where jobs run to five figures and much of the money is spent before the garden looks like anything. The checks below are the ones that exist, and they happen before the deposit.

The entity check

Find the exact name from the quote at Companies House: active, some trading history, and matching the name you are asked to pay. A long-trading company is not a guarantee of good paving, but a brand that matches no company record is carrying all of your risk on a handshake.

The membership check, for what it is worth

The British Association of Landscape Industries and the Association of Professional Landscapers are voluntary bodies with public member searches and vetting of their own. Membership is a real signal, vetted firms with standards to lose, and it is still not regulation. Check the claim on the body’s own search rather than trusting a logo, because logos outlive memberships.

The evidence check

Ask for two or three completed gardens, with addresses and the customers’ permission to look or speak. A portfolio photo proves someone built that garden once; a visitable job with a reachable customer proves this firm built it and the customer still takes their calls. For hard landscaping, ask how long ago, since walls and patios tell the truth after two winters.

The paperwork check

Public liability insurance in writing, with the amount. A written specification of what is being built, with materials named. Staged payments tied to stages. A firm that resists writing things down before the job will not get more communicative after the deposit clears.

The one-sentence test

Ask what happens if something under the ground changes the job. The professional answer names a process, survey, agreed variation, written price change. The answer to walk away from is a shrug and a promise that it will be fine. Gardens are built on what you cannot see; so is this trade’s paperwork.

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If your business is named in this research and you think we have a fact wrong, email hello@whito.co.uk. We check it against the register, correct it within five working days if we are wrong, and publish your statement alongside if you want us to. Full route: corrections, right of reply and removals.

Questions

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Treat it as a claim to check. On 3 October 2026, 36 answers from ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode in 12

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