What a sad picture this paints who said Britain was a nation of gardeners! Not anymore it would seem.
I thought about it some more & I too am one of the few in my street (well as far as I know). I realised when I stopped working that most of my neighbours seem to have Jobbing gardeners come round to "Mow & Blow" so at least they are kept tidy, here too a lot of front gardens have been Block paved for extra parking. Of my immediate neighbours both have Gardeners round, one side think they are gardeners but obviously are too good to do heavy manual work but "she" will spend an hour twiddling with a clematis trying to get it to go round a wire strung to a fence. Both the front & back were re-done approx 2 years ago after yet another extension was built. The other side are nice and admit they know little they are very complimentary about our garden. The wife said once her husband was complaining why does their garden not look like next door & she told me she said to him that I spend all day in/ on it, which is not actually true. I spend most of my time on the Allotments and just have occasional splurges in the garden apart from the regular mowing trimming which takes about 1/2 a day a week. We do spend a couple of weekends a season together in the garden, my wife has the "eye" for where things should go and what goes with what I am happy to do the manual stuff, raise plants take cuttings etc we both prune. I must admit our front garden is nothing to write home about I have been saying for years I must re-do it completely we do concentrate on the back. The chap over road does his own grass cutting hedge trimming etc, the front is very neat I assume the back is too never seen it. I think another older chap further down does his own I have seen him in the front anyway. Our road is tree lined and we have kerbside hedges so although it's suburbia it's very green.
All my neighbours garden to a greater or lesser extent. On one side we have a house with mature borders and island bed with a minimal amount of grass remaining. I little more disappears each Spring as the border edges are tied up.
On the other side what was lawn had been replaced with gravel, a small central bed with a Flamingo salix, and two corner beds with shrubs. There are also a number of planters which are moved around each year (normally by me). The layout was changed to low maintenance some years ago, which was just as well as the husband died a couple of years ago. The lady who lives there is in her mid 70s and couldn't cope with a lot of gardening.
I've also replaced the lawn with gravel as additional hardstanding but have retained borders on two sides.
The whole road has pretty well kept gardens, even the one where they think that gnomes and toadstools are a good look!
Two of the gardens over the back are walled and looked after wonderfully, lots for the bees and birds to enjoy thoroughly so my efforts are not alone. However, next door is a mix of scalped lawn and stripped leylandii from hard pruning in to dead wood despite some friendly advice a few years back - their solution? to grow bindweed as a perennial climber I did however notice some self seeded goldenrod last autumn
Most of my immediate neighbours are not gardeners. I noticed that the new neighbours next door do at least say love their big back garden and have been pottering. I happen to know that many houses on the street have large gardens but nearly all have 'gardeners' - by which I mean the lawn gets cut and shrubs get pruned. I have been asked a couple of times if I have a gardener and proudly say - "it's me!". Having said this, there may well be keen and productive gardeners living just a few doors away, but there is no 'intermingling' or opportunity to find out really.
I think every single house on my street has car parking in, or as, their front garden. I do have a large driveway but also have some trees, shrubs and a 'wild lawn' (aka: left to nature and rarely mowed as it is a shady patch under Holly trees but is full of Primroses in Spring and a few wild flowers in Summer).
One day, when I am semi/retired, I would like to explore the possibility of a gardening club or even charity Open Gardens for my street.
I could cope wih "paved over", one side they aint gardeners, I posted on here before why buy a place with a big garden, if you dont intend to do it. The bottom goodness knows how many feet, they dont even go down, well you cant, its all brambles,bindweed, huge great fir trees. The brambles go all the way along our garden, constant battle. The front they have a little border unfortunately, next to ours, full of dandilions would you believe they actually have heads on now, I try to whip the buds off before they set seed, and grass weeds, they dont prune,cut anything down tidy up. (or mend THEIR b******y) fence Other side gardeners, but works away a lot, so some brambles there, but we are friends so can forgive them. A few doors down REALLY fussy gardener, never a blade of grass out of place, and the end house always imaculate, but they have both been reitred years and their garden is much much smaller than ours, other side, mostly older folk have gardenrs round to cut grass etc.
They really are. It's much easier to maintain 100m2 of lawn than 100m2 mixed gravel/shrub bed/patio or whatever. A 10 min cut every 2-3 weeks. Job done. No weeding.
Lol I pay a professional to do my lawn every two weeks and it takes him over an hour with heavy industrial equipment. It works out that paying him for 6 years would come to the same price as the equipment I would need to do it plus the shed to keep it all in and it would take me way over an hour each time.
Posts
Cheers Carol
Cant wait for some dry spring weather so I can get my hands in the earth
Good luck with your garden. No doubt, due to your efforts, it will be beautiful dispite your non gardening neighbours
What a sad picture this paints who said Britain was a nation of gardeners! Not anymore it would seem.
I thought about it some more & I too am one of the few in my street (well as far as I know). I realised when I stopped working that most of my neighbours seem to have Jobbing gardeners come round to "Mow & Blow" so at least they are kept tidy, here too a lot of front gardens have been Block paved for extra parking. Of my immediate neighbours both have Gardeners round, one side think they are gardeners but obviously are too good to do heavy manual work but "she" will spend an hour twiddling with a clematis trying to get it to go round a wire strung to a fence. Both the front & back were re-done approx 2 years ago after yet another extension was built. The other side are nice and admit they know little they are very complimentary about our garden. The wife said once her husband was complaining why does their garden not look like next door & she told me she said to him that I spend all day in/ on it, which is not actually true. I spend most of my time on the Allotments and just have occasional splurges in the garden apart from the regular mowing trimming which takes about 1/2 a day a week. We do spend a couple of weekends a season together in the garden, my wife has the "eye" for where things should go and what goes with what I am happy to do the manual stuff, raise plants take cuttings etc we both prune. I must admit our front garden is nothing to write home about I have been saying for years I must re-do it completely we do concentrate on the back. The chap over road does his own grass cutting hedge trimming etc, the front is very neat I assume the back is too never seen it. I think another older chap further down does his own I have seen him in the front anyway. Our road is tree lined and we have kerbside hedges so although it's suburbia it's very green.
All my neighbours garden to a greater or lesser extent. On one side we have a house with mature borders and island bed with a minimal amount of grass remaining. I little more disappears each Spring as the border edges are tied up.
On the other side what was lawn had been replaced with gravel, a small central bed with a Flamingo salix, and two corner beds with shrubs. There are also a number of planters which are moved around each year (normally by me). The layout was changed to low maintenance some years ago, which was just as well as the husband died a couple of years ago. The lady who lives there is in her mid 70s and couldn't cope with a lot of gardening.
I've also replaced the lawn with gravel as additional hardstanding but have retained borders on two sides.
The whole road has pretty well kept gardens, even the one where they think that gnomes and toadstools are a good look!
Two of the gardens over the back are walled and looked after wonderfully, lots for the bees and birds to enjoy thoroughly so my efforts are not alone. However, next door is a mix of scalped lawn and stripped leylandii from hard pruning in to dead wood despite some friendly advice a few years back - their solution? to grow bindweed as a perennial climber
I did however notice some self seeded goldenrod last autumn
Most of my immediate neighbours are not gardeners. I noticed that the new neighbours next door do at least say love their big back garden and have been pottering. I happen to know that many houses on the street have large gardens but nearly all have 'gardeners' - by which I mean the lawn gets cut and shrubs get pruned. I have been asked a couple of times if I have a gardener and proudly say - "it's me!". Having said this, there may well be keen and productive gardeners living just a few doors away, but there is no 'intermingling' or opportunity to find out really.
I think every single house on my street has car parking in, or as, their front garden. I do have a large driveway but also have some trees, shrubs and a 'wild lawn' (aka: left to nature and rarely mowed as it is a shady patch under Holly trees but is full of Primroses in Spring and a few wild flowers in Summer).
One day, when I am semi/retired, I would like to explore the possibility of a gardening club or even charity Open Gardens for my street.
I could cope wih "paved over", one side they aint gardeners, I posted on here before why buy a place with a big garden, if you dont intend to do it. The bottom goodness knows how many feet, they dont even go down, well you cant, its all brambles,bindweed, huge great fir trees. The brambles go all the way along our garden, constant battle. The front they have a little border unfortunately, next to ours, full of dandilions would you believe they actually have heads on now, I try to whip the buds off before they set seed, and grass weeds, they dont prune,cut anything down tidy up. (or mend THEIR b******y) fence Other side gardeners, but works away a lot, so some brambles there, but we are friends so can forgive them. A few doors down REALLY fussy gardener, never a blade of grass out of place, and the end house always imaculate, but they have both been reitred years and their garden is much much smaller than ours, other side, mostly older folk have gardenrs round to cut grass etc.
They really are. It's much easier to maintain 100m2 of lawn than 100m2 mixed gravel/shrub bed/patio or whatever. A 10 min cut every 2-3 weeks. Job done. No weeding.
What about the edging? I have been known to do the edging and leave the grass.
Lol I pay a professional to do my lawn every two weeks and it takes him over an hour with heavy industrial equipment. It works out that paying him for 6 years would come to the same price as the equipment I would need to do it plus the shed to keep it all in and it would take me way over an hour each time.
i would rather spend that time weeding my beds.
Learnincurve
Hi
That sounds as if you have a very large lawn or a very intricate one to require an industrial mower to cut it