I've been gardening for 40 years I've made 40 years worth of mistakes but I try to not repeat them more than once. We're all learners. Gardening teaches most of us a bit of humility GoS proved that we all have less than perfect gardens. I'm sure St Monty even has bits he'd rather we didn't see 🤫
I think @Dovefromabove was right on the money...a long time lurker doesn't just visit 4 times. Just a time waster it seems...
Possibly, but anyway, taking the question at face value;
@Fire that's fantastic - and that success will hopefully keep at least some of them engaged post lockdown. Personally I think gardening needs to be seen as a process not a product. If you enjoy doing it, rather than finishing it, you don't get as disheartened when it doesn't turn out like the picture on the label. And if people want to grow begonias, or hanging baskets, or champion veg, and some of the other things that some can be a bit snobbish about, then that's fantastic. All the better if people want to grow for wildlife, but it doesn't matter. The essential optimism of gardening works, whatever it is you're trying to grow and any sort of plants are better than concrete.
ETA I think Monty is a huge help with this. He makes mistakes. He's not always right. He's an amateur and he doesn't try to make it a mystical pass-time that is strictly for those with horticultural training. Whether you like his garden doesn't matter. I think he encourages people to just have a try and see what happens. He's not always the best person to look to when it goes wrong, for sure. But there are others in the team that do that.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I think it's as easy as it can get. Honestly, I don't really care about how many people enjoy gardening. I am not a part of any "we" and there aren't any others. I enjoy it and if others don't, that's their decision. I admit I would like to have more local gardening friends but people of my age rarely like to garden. They usually have other problems, like owning a property in the first place or having small kids and busy lives.
Since we moved here and started planting "pretties" our farmer neighbours shake their heads at the time and money spent on ornamentals but love the fact that we've started a potager cos that they understand. She is not above asking for flowers form our garden when she needs some for a special family lunch such as Easter or big birthdays but not, obviously, in the last 12 months.
Our other neighbours had horses and trees and a sunny terrace and grassy bits. Now they too have a potager and she has insisted some trees be trimmed or removed and now has a flower bed.
Sometimes, just showing it can be done is enough to get others started.
As for experience, I've been gardening for 40 years but changes of garden, climate, soil and resources in terms of basics like planting composts to plants available mean that nearly every day is a learning day.
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 find the way the original question has been framed is odd. There is a possible overarching theme about gardening in an environmentally friendly way but then two sub questions sit underneath that are not particularly well connected: what problems are faced by novice gardeners and how can experienced gardeners encourage others to pick up the hobby.
Taking first the issue of gardening and the environment an observation that seems to be driving the enquiry is that “private gardens cover an area bigger than all the country’s [national] nature reserves combined.” That is true: UK gardens - c. 500,000 ha National Nature Reserves - c. 95,000 ha
But NNRs are not the only protected land and if you incorporate SSSIs, Ramsar sites etc the total for England alone is over 1 million hectares. You could then mention 1.6 million hectares occupied by the UK’s national parks. In short, lots of land is under quite close guardianship and, as gardening moves in the direction of environmentally sustainable practices I do not think gardeners need to feel any collective guilt about what they are doing. Peat in compost is being phased out, many garden chemicals have been withdrawn from sale and others, like glyphosphate, cannot be far behind.
The far bigger issue is the environmental damage done by farming (UK farmland 93 billion hectares, UK gardens 500,000) but I am reasonably optimistic the Environmental Land Management Scheme will meet its objectives and, soon I hope, its remit will be lengthened and strengthened.
Looking at the two follow up questions I have little to say about problems faced by novice gardeners because I am not one. But comparing life today with perhaps 50 years ago, I would say there is slightly more advice on TV and radio than there was then, a lot more book advice with the added bonus that second hand gardening books are extremely plentiful and very cheap and an overwhelming abundance of online advice compared to none just a short time back. The problem is maybe advice overload. Relative to the cost of living, most garden tools are now much cheaper now than they were then.
As for experienced gardeners encouraging others to participate I feel little need to be actively involved in this. That said, all the surplus plants I grow I give away through the medium of our village Facebook group and several of the recipients are quite novice gardeners who ask for extra advice. Indeed one, from the circus that overwinters in the village, is a Mongolian trapeze artist and not many can list that on their gardening CV! So, though personally I do not do much to encourage community projects, I take my hat off to those that do. @Fire, chapeau!
Posts
We're all learners. Gardening teaches most of us a bit of humility
GoS proved that we all have less than perfect gardens. I'm sure St Monty even has bits he'd rather we didn't see 🤫
@Fire that's fantastic - and that success will hopefully keep at least some of them engaged post lockdown. Personally I think gardening needs to be seen as a process not a product. If you enjoy doing it, rather than finishing it, you don't get as disheartened when it doesn't turn out like the picture on the label. And if people want to grow begonias, or hanging baskets, or champion veg, and some of the other things that some can be a bit snobbish about, then that's fantastic. All the better if people want to grow for wildlife, but it doesn't matter. The essential optimism of gardening works, whatever it is you're trying to grow and any sort of plants are better than concrete.
ETA I think Monty is a huge help with this. He makes mistakes. He's not always right. He's an amateur and he doesn't try to make it a mystical pass-time that is strictly for those with horticultural training. Whether you like his garden doesn't matter. I think he encourages people to just have a try and see what happens. He's not always the best person to look to when it goes wrong, for sure. But there are others in the team that do that.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Honestly, I don't really care about how many people enjoy gardening. I am not a part of any "we" and there aren't any others. I enjoy it and if others don't, that's their decision.
I admit I would like to have more local gardening friends but people of my age rarely like to garden. They usually have other problems, like owning a property in the first place or having small kids and busy lives.
Our other neighbours had horses and trees and a sunny terrace and grassy bits. Now they too have a potager and she has insisted some trees be trimmed or removed and now has a flower bed.
Sometimes, just showing it can be done is enough to get others started.
As for experience, I've been gardening for 40 years but changes of garden, climate, soil and resources in terms of basics like planting composts to plants available mean that nearly every day is a learning day.
Taking first the issue of gardening and the environment an observation that seems to be driving the enquiry is that “private gardens cover an area bigger than all the country’s [national] nature reserves combined.” That is true:
UK gardens - c. 500,000 ha
National Nature Reserves - c. 95,000 ha
But NNRs are not the only protected land and if you incorporate SSSIs, Ramsar sites etc the total for England alone is over 1 million hectares. You could then mention 1.6 million hectares occupied by the UK’s national parks. In short, lots of land is under quite close guardianship and, as gardening moves in the direction of environmentally sustainable practices I do not think gardeners need to feel any collective guilt about what they are doing. Peat in compost is being phased out, many garden chemicals have been withdrawn from sale and others, like glyphosphate, cannot be far behind.
The far bigger issue is the environmental damage done by farming (UK farmland 93 billion hectares, UK gardens 500,000) but I am reasonably optimistic the Environmental Land Management Scheme will meet its objectives and, soon I hope, its remit will be lengthened and strengthened.
Looking at the two follow up questions I have little to say about problems faced by novice gardeners because I am not one. But comparing life today with perhaps 50 years ago, I would say there is slightly more advice on TV and radio than there was then, a lot more book advice with the added bonus that second hand gardening books are extremely plentiful and very cheap and an overwhelming abundance of online advice compared to none just a short time back. The problem is maybe advice overload. Relative to the cost of living, most garden tools are now much cheaper now than they were then.
As for experienced gardeners encouraging others to participate I feel little need to be actively involved in this. That said, all the surplus plants I grow I give away through the medium of our village Facebook group and several of the recipients are quite novice gardeners who ask for extra advice. Indeed one, from the circus that overwinters in the village, is a Mongolian trapeze artist and not many can list that on their gardening CV! So, though personally I do not do much to encourage community projects, I take my hat off to those that do. @Fire, chapeau!
It may be that flowerbuddy has recently heard this fact and felt the need to let us know.
Good on Him !