My step daughter has managed to buy in Brighton... She bought small fixed it up, sold, repeated twice... Now married and a teacher for excluded kids aged 26. We taught her things were tough when your an adult from the age of 11.... If you want choice, work hard, have direction, luckily she listened. She has far exceeded us but isn't that the whole point of the next generation, that's why we invested in her and her brother so heavily.
We could have practically bought a house in Whitstable on the Barclaycard a while ago . Unfortunately, we didn't. It's become expensively fashionable now. This happens all over.. It doesn't seem at all likely here but who knows? You don't own your land to the earth's core so if they discover oil we wouldn't benefit😞
I offered Wonky work too; she could do a British GW tour of gardens
(I jest, I know there are health issues and other considerations). She is welcome any time. 🌱
Around here the going rate for cleaners, odd job men, 'mow and blow' gardeners, mobile hair dressers etc etc £15-20. I pay a hort student £15 per hour for occassional help moving pots, shifting compost etc.
I was born in the 90s and almost all my friends are into gardening. It feels like the right thing to do to as we have been learning about global warming since we were kids. We are all trying to do what we can to help. I must have planted hundreds of trees so far.
Gardeners our side charges £25/hr min 2 hours, do not take away waste. Which is quite a lot for some who are just “garden labourers” with zero knowledge.
I do feel somewhat inadequate when speaking to older gardeners who have very specific rules for specific things. Some tend to be less forgiving to new ideas. I have attended a gardening club in the village once but felt it was quite off putting and time consuming. I could have gotten all the information off google in less than 1/100th of the time.
Going back to the OP’s question, in my experience, wild garden is the perfect solution to reduce cost and maintenance effort. I have left the majority of the garden become wild meadow this year and continued to plant trees around the boundary to create a woodland. I also don’t mind weeds much, as some of them could be highly beneficial for the wildlife and ecosystems. As a result I am not terribly impressed by the super neat and controlled garden but much prefer a controlled wilderness look.
I too understand that you can feel inadequate when speaking to older gardeners I had the same experience in the past. However my thirst for knowledge forced me to swallow my pride. I am so glad I did as I have learnt so much. Now I except that if I get it wrong it is not something that I am going to worry about life is too short. If I ask a silly gardening question it is because I really need an answer.
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
I do feel somewhat inadequate when speaking to older gardeners who have very specific rules for specific things. Some tend to be less forgiving to new ideas. I have attended a gardening club in the village once but felt it was quite off putting and time consuming.
I think a lot of younger people feel the same about any kind of older style club, board or community organisation. The UK has a history of residents' associations but many are dying away as people don't like to go to a monthly meeting and discuss dutbins and parking - unless they have a Big Beef, in which case residents come in droves. There seems to be ennui and rolling of the eyes at the ideas of committees, trusteeship and AGMs. Our residents love the street parties and the local picnics, the clean parks, fountains and compost give aways, but don't really want to help them happen. The response is usually "I'm far, far too busy". Generally this means they choose to do other things with their time; I do understand the frustrations of long, circuitous meetings, esp hard if you have a job that involves long circuitous meetings. The last thing you want to do is be locked in a room with someone droning on for days. But those kind of meetings are how street parties and campaigns get to happen; organisations need trustees, schools need governors. There has been a mass exodus of school govenors with the stresses of covid. Getting a set of trustees for the local food bank has been a battle. Getting people to step up is a real problem.
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It doesn't seem at all likely here but who knows?
You don't own your land to the earth's core so if they discover oil we wouldn't benefit😞