FAQs - Rent-A-Garden

How do pot plants help sell my property?

In today's competitive market, visual presentation of the exterior of your property, including initial street appeal, is paramount. You must make buyers want to come inside!. Plants provide instant greenery and shape to bare areas such as empty garden beds, fences and front verandahs, and softness to harsh lines of key assets such as courtyards and pool areas. Fragrance is an added bonus in Spring time, especially for female buyers. A small investment can much such a huge difference in creating more buyer appeal for your property, and hence more inspections. More buyers makes for a higher selling price, and sometimes faster, pre-auction sale.

Why use Rent-A-Garden?

For Property sale styling -
We are exterior stylists, with over 20 years experience in transforming Sydney property's courtyards, terraces, pool areas and entrances to make them super-attractive for selling. We know what works! We are the only company in Sydney to offer this complete exterior makeover service to real estate agents, stylist and property vendors. Sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes to look at your property and to provide honest advice, to save you time and money. Well, you have just found them!

For Special Events -
The answer is simple! Over 20 years we have grown the largest range of the most beautiful plants, trees & hedges for hire in Sydney. Combine this with expert advice and creative vision from our experienced sales team, and our efficient and friendly delivery crew, your wedding, festival, activation, party or conference will instantly come to life. You will be the talk of the town!

How long will the rental period be?

Property sale styling -
Our minimum rental period is 4-6weeks*. This is to accommodate the recommended 4-week pre-auction and allow for photographers to film the home and garden at its best BEFORE the first inspection.

*4-6 weeks - the min. rental period is 4 weeks (so if you sell during this period you will need to contact us to arrange to collect our plants asap). No refund is provided for any unused portion of the 4 weeks. If you haven't sold after 4 weeks then we will provide up to 2 weeks extra rental at no extra charge (total of 6 weeks for whole contract)

You can choose to extend on a weekly basis thereafter at a pro rata cost based on the 4 week rental rates.

Event plant hire -
We have a series of time frames for rentals:
1- 4 days is our minimum
5 - 7days
8 - 14 days
15 - 21 days
Anything longer than this is charged at our Property Styling rates (min 4 weeks)

Do we have to accept the plants after installation?

Property Styling plant rental - We understand its sometimes hard to visualise how all our plants are going to look once setup at your property, especially when combined with stylist's furniture too. Our installed plants are suggestions and demonstrations only, and all are optional at the time of installation. As long as you, or someone you give authority to, are there at the time of installation, you can decide which plants you wish to keep at that point, and only pay rental for plants you accept. We will adjust your invoice to reflect and then request payment. Read more about How to Rent-A-Garden.

Event plant hire - If any plants are not required at the time of delivery/installation, then we regret there is no refund offered.

What can we expect to pay for your services?

Property styling - 4-6weeks* plant rental (including delivery, install & collection - metro Sydney)
Every property is different...but as a general guide installations range from between $800 to $1500inc GST. The cost for larger and more expensive homes sometimes needs upwards of $2000-3000. This may include a combination of plant rental, permanent planting of new shrubs or annuals and garden clean-up services (weeding, trimming, pressure water cleaning), and delivery.
All items are separated in our quotes so you can tailor to your budget.

Either way it represents a small investment to increase the likelihood of selling your property faster, and/or at the price you want - or more!

Event plant hire: We have minimum charge of $500 inc GST (including delivery)
As you can imagine every special event we quote is unique, so see below for a quick guide to individual costs for single plants & hedges (inc. decorative pot - black or terracotta colour), and then talk to us further so we can provide a more detailed quote.
Single plants (30cm-2mH) from $30-$80+GST (1-4 day hire period, ex delivery*)
Hedges (1-2mH) from $50-$100+GST (1-4 day hire period, ex delivery*)

*See our FAQ re Delivery for details on the factors in calculating a delivery charge

These prices above are just guidelines to help you get started. We have such a huge range of beautiful plants so please get in touch so we can advise & inspire you, and provide a detailed quote to make your property extra stylish & your event simply stunning!

What are the costs for delivery and installation?

For property styling installs we deliver Monday to Friday, generally between 10am and 3pm. For event installs we can deliver & collect anytime.

Our quotes show an itemised cost for delivery and installation. This includes delivery, plant placement & collection at the contract end. A general cost guide is $180-$580+GST. This cost varies depending on your location in Sydney and the level of ease/difficulty with which we can install. Please advise us of any steep driveways, long wheel-in's (30m+), lifts/inclinators, stairs, low ceilings or extra narrow internal stairs, difficult route to plant setup, difficult truck parking (busy street, no onsite parking etc).

If you have your own suitable, enclosed transport (no utes), you may be able to arrange to collect the plants yourself and return them when finished. This is not applicable to all types of plants so please get in touch with one of team to discuss further. We would require your vehicle registration & drivers licence details prior to collection.

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I am not a gardener, how often do I need to water the plants?

Our plants have different requirements depending on their species, their position at your property, and also the time of year they are installed. We will provide you with specific instructions at time of confirmation.

General guidelines are:
Indoor - large plants - 2L every 2 weeks or as directed.

Outdoor plants - A good soak every two days (Summer). Note: Some plants require daily watering in summer. This is especially important in hot or windy weather.

If you would prefer the most hardy options for plants let us know and we can advise.

We ask you to contact us asap anytime if you have any questions or concerns regarding their health, whist rented to you. You can send some photos, video & simply ask to facetime with one of our team, so we can advise you asap how to proceed from then.

We want our plants at your property or event to look amazing the whole time, so we are only too happy to hear from you if you have any questions.

We are not living at the property. Can you arrange to have the plants watered?

Yes. We provide a watering service for absent owners. Ideally our team is provided a spare key for the rental duration (if not accessible without a key), or access via a concierge. The fee for this service would depend upon the property location, ease of access, season of the year & what type of plants are installed.
Please get in touch with our friendly team to discuss further for a quote.

Can we extend the rental period if the property fails to sell at auction?

Of course. The normal contract period is 4weeks, plus an extra 2 weeks free of charge if the property hasn't sold (total of 6 weeks). Therefore extensions (in weekly blocks) after the 6 weeks are finished, are charged by the week at 25% of the 4 week rental cost only (pick-up is already paid).

What if some of the plants are stolen?

Our rented plants are your responsibility between the times of delivery and pick up. Saying this, to date we have had only two small incidents of theft in over 2,000 contracts. If you are at all concerned please let us know, and we can find a solution eg. moving plants at front of the property to a safer area when it is not open for viewing, or picking up asap after an event to ensure they don't go missing!

Can we buy any of the plants at the end of our contract period?

Generally no, as we require our key stock for ongoing rentals. Feel free to contact us anyway to enquire, as there are some plants we may be happy to sell. Their sale price would be additional to the rental rate.

Can we add more plants after the contract period has commenced?

Certainly. Many clients find extra plants will enhance certain areas after viewing the initial installation. As there may be an extra delivery charge for this, we recommend that if you are unsure of quantity required, we bring a few extra plants/hedges with us at time of install, just in case they are needed.

What if the agent for any reason puts the auction date forward or backward by one or two weeks?

No problem. Just let us know as soon as possible and we will reschedule the installation date.

Will the new owner expect the plants to stay with the property?

No, normal sale contracts state the seller will remove the furniture and pot plants after settlement. However, any planted annuals or shrubs that we have supplied would remain.

What should we do with our existing pot plants?

We generally recommend you remove them to a non-visual area unless they are in exceptional condition.

Do you move our pots to our new home?

No. Removalists will be moving your furniture and effects. It is more cost-effective to include pots in that contract

Do you have additional services to help improve the presentation of our property?

Yes. We can:

Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy the plants in pots from a garden centre?

You may find some types of plants we quote in commercial nurseries...but these are inevitably much smaller versions of the established mature shrubs and hedges that we offer, hence a lot less effective! Then there is the extra cost of pots or troughs, soil and delivery/installation. Also, cost of moving them once more to your new property. A couple of larger shrubs or hedges makes more impact, than lots of small baby ones dotted around. Items such as our mature Conifer hedges are just not available to buy elsewhere. These have been grown on specially by us for the purpose of creating effective 1mL x 1.5—2mH screens.