Need advice on my elderly mums garden
lisey2013
Posts: 32
Hi. I have just joined and I wonder if anyone could give me some tips please. I care for my mum who hasaid dementia and she's alays loved her garden and it's well established as she's been gardening for many years. What's happening now is many of her beautiful shrubs and meat of her garden is overrun with bramble and although I try trimming the bushes etc I feel I'm a bit out of my depth as to how much I trim and whether to cut them right back. I can't afford to get a gardener but I desperately want to make it how it once was so she'll get the pleasure from it and be able to sit out in the garden. I just don't know where to start and to try and bring her garden back.
Thanks for your time in reading thisome and any advice would be great. I'm not sure how to attach a photo to show you what I mean.
Lisey
Posts
Hopefully I've managed to attach photos
This area used to be so colourful with beautiful pink flowers against the trellace at the back. I'm so new and although I may know some of the basics I really have no idea what I cut right back etc.
Hi lisey and welcome. It's lovely that you want to sort your mum's garden out. It's a bit of a jumble alright. I can see brambles and ash trees and a whole lot of stuff I don't know.
There are folk on here who are amazing at IDing plants so if you can cut a wee bit off and post them a couple of pics at a time it'll be a start. Personally when I was faced with a bit of garden like that I just levelled it and let the good stuff grow back. I take it you don't want to do that.
I don't know how well your mum is but I know when my dad was diagnosed with dementia he really brightened up and "came back" if you like, when we talked about his passion which was motor bikes.
Why don't you get your mum involved? Do you remember this plant mum...how do I prune it....? It'll maybe surprise you what she comes up with.
We had some amazing laughs with my dad switching from perfect sense to perfect nonsense and back!!
Ask her the main things and we'll stand by to help with the rest.
Good luck.
First thing I would do is try to trace the brambles back to ground level and cut all them out. It's not the ideal time to cut most shrubs back so I would be inclined just to trim back anything which is getting in the way, and leave the rest until the autumn. You should still get a good display of flower on the shrubs and run the risk of getting no flowers if you cut back now.
I know nothing about dementia other than what I've seen on TV programmes but, as PP said above, sometimes it can help. Obviously that depends entirely on your mum's situation.
The brambles are the very prickly ones with big long stems.....wear stout gloves!!!
Thank you both so much for replying. Sounds like a good plan. I will cut some off like you suggested and post on here. I think I will try that and see if it triggers something when the weather's a bit better and hopefully she will say 'ooo that can be cut back and I remember planting that!'. It's funny how you wish you had taken more attention at the time and learnt more about gardening from mum when I had the chance but with this fab group ill be pointed in right direction. Thank you so much. Tomorrow I'll try and trace the bramble too and trim shrubs
. Thank you for being so welcoming x
Thank you so much. ...I did buy some specially but must admit I'm dreading it!!! Roll on bramble
Not a problem. We don't know what your level of knowledge is so keep us right.
I'm about a 2 compared to some on here!
I think I'm about minus 20!!!!
Lisey, well done you for caring for your mum and her garden. Many would not bother with the garden!
there is lots of help out there especially for folk like your mum. Care for the elderly, community councils local church groups ( doesn't matter if you are a member or not ) social work( yes really!) garden clubs
try googling help for Pensioners gardens and put in your post code?
A A Milne