We have retired and moved to a new house and garden and have plenty to do to make the plot into a garden. Didn't plan to have such a large plot but it comes with the house which felt right to both of us.
One of the tricks to sitting and enjoying the garden is actually having somewhere to sit so this year a table and 2 chairs have migrated from terrace to the veg plot and 2 more chairs will follow to the shade of the barn and a bench has finally found its permanent home in the rose garden. More to follow but, of course, first I have to renovate/fix/build the seats as the case may be............
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
I guess I only consider working to be the bits I don’t enjoy, like weeding. I enjoy things that might be otherwise considered work, like deadheading, feeding and watering, etc. I always go out for a stroll first thing every morning to survey what’s new that day, and I might sit for a few minutes. I get up quite early most days so it’s very calm and peaceful. I don’t do a lot of planning, I’m a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ kind of person 😆
Now that we have borders dug and filled the split is around 20:60:20.
I try very hard to just sit and 'be' in my garden - but the only time that really works is when I have a good book and a glass of something long, cool and chinking as a reward for work done during the day. Can rarely just sit with a cup of tea without noting which weeds I need to pull on the way back to the kitchen.
I did try to make myself plant more shrubs & fewer perennials to make for less work, but it is so dry here that it's quite a job to get shrubs and trees established - plus I think we have honey fungus present and a few roses etc have succumbed over the last couple of years. I know that I'm a cottage gardener at heart and we all know that's a labour intensive garden. Always seem to be out there propping up, dead heading and cutting back.
Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
How interesting to read all the comments here. It seems unanimous that we tend to spend a lot more time on the working bit, followed by planning and finally the actual sitting in the garden bit. But like many have pointed out, a lot of the joy of gardening comes from the actual work itself and to me, the researching too, as I always feel like a child in a candy shop when one is exploring the huge market of horticultural goodness - especially if it’s a new plant that I’m planning on venturing into. This day and age there is just such a massive range of varieties for the same species of plant.
I confess I did from time to time feel as though I ‘should’ spend more time sitting in my garden and felt slightly pointless deep within that in reality I spend more time gardening than I do ‘enjoying’ the garden.. but of course then I realised I’m just as happy when I’m doing the work if not more so than sitting in the garden..
I can't really put numbers on the split as two are often being done at the same time. I spend a lot of time pottering/planning/'working'. However, you can't beat the satisfaction of having planned and carried out a task even if you don't necessarily take the time to sit and admire for very long.
Think I'd be 40:50:10, although now that the children are a little older I can sit outside for a cuppa or my lunch, especially while I'm working from home 100% at present. Out of the 40% planning, most of that is procrastination over whether my ideas and plans are good or not. The amount of times I've decided on something, then changed my mind, only to find two years later I haven't got around to anything!
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One of the tricks to sitting and enjoying the garden is actually having somewhere to sit so this year a table and 2 chairs have migrated from terrace to the veg plot and 2 more chairs will follow to the shade of the barn and a bench has finally found its permanent home in the rose garden. More to follow but, of course, first I have to renovate/fix/build the seats as the case may be............
I try very hard to just sit and 'be' in my garden - but the only time that really works is when I have a good book and a glass of something long, cool and chinking as a reward for work done during the day. Can rarely just sit with a cup of tea without noting which weeds I need to pull on the way back to the kitchen.
I did try to make myself plant more shrubs & fewer perennials to make for less work, but it is so dry here that it's quite a job to get shrubs and trees established - plus I think we have honey fungus present and a few roses etc have succumbed over the last couple of years. I know that I'm a cottage gardener at heart and we all know that's a labour intensive garden. Always seem to be out there propping up, dead heading and cutting back.