Neighbouring gardens

[Chrissyteacup]

I think the problem is space and time Because I work long shifts I have more days off so have the time to garden and we do cheat a little with a man who comes and mows and does the hedges for us to stop it getting too overgrown if I had more time I’d do it! Most of my friends only have small gardens (in modern houses) so don’t have the space to garden and (I can’t imagine any have or would considered an allotment) or are at work full time and don’t make the time to. They all seem to be interested in my little plot!

[annie8]

We live in the city but are lucky to have big gardens for the size of the houses. Am surprised to see how few people have much growing in their gardens. Lots of pretty dull gardens that lack character. Lots of the younger families go for low maintenance and have gardeners coming in. Am still working on turning my back garden into a workable mix of growing area, flowers and a grass area for football. It’ll never be pristine though and am really happy with that.

[Containergardener]

Bit of a mix, i say half grow their own and have chickens ducks geese , one neighbour bit of smallholding going on with pigs, sheep. Others mostly tidy gardens, cut grass, have bonfires, wash cars. Next door who is moving soon has biggest garden but doesnt go in it, she doesnt like trees, hedges, birds, flies...needs to live in a tower block maybe.

[Lardman]

I'll just leave this here. My neighbours garden.



He's not been in it for 3 years,the previous owner an avid gardener used to grow his veggies there.

[veggiechicken]

How sad
I'm sure the wildlife like it though

[celticmyth]

I live in a group of 7 bungalows and i'm the only one that grows anything. Next door even dug up the lawn, front and back and put astro turf down!

[Babru]

AstroTurf, the scourge of the 21st century. Covering your garden with plastic fake grass, it's just horrible.

We've been in our house just over a year. The last owner was frightened of all insects, so had it completely paved (80 foot x 40 foot, must have cost a fortune) with 40 foot of bamboo hedges in a square in the middle. Not pretty. Apparently it was the talk of the neighbourhood when the previously-lovely garden was bulldozed and replaced with concrete and bamboo.

OH has dug out all the bamboo, (needed to buy a breaker to cut up the roots before he could get them out, it's like wire). Permanent structures are in, two sheds for him, one for me, summerhouse and greenhouse.

Now planning the rest. Sitting areas, flowers, fruit, a bit of veg. Work is in progress. No lawn, as I'm trying to future-proof a bit. I'd rather be spending the time when I'm old looking after flowers and fruit than mowing grass. Lots of people have been shocked by the no-lawn decision, oddly. A garden needs grass, etc. I know what they mean, but....

This summer I plan to have tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and chillies, salad, courgettes, Swedish brown beans (thanks Sariss!), herbs, broad beans and strawberries ie all my favourite things. Have a couple of tiny blueberries from Morissons growing on for eventual planting. A pal is growing me a cutting of her extra-tasty bramble.

When the back is done we will lift some of the mono bloc at the front to put in some flowerbeds. This is some years down the line.

My gardening style is messy, what I want is a jumble of wonderful colours, and lovely perfume. A main aim in planning the planting is to have something in flower for every day of the year, which I've easily managed so far.

The houses round here also all have big gardens (for Edinburgh). A house about three gardens away has hens. I can hear them when they've laid, and can just see them from my upstairs window. Most of the other neighbours have nice gardens and a few have greenhouses with tomatoes. Not much in the way of veg though. Thankfully, although everyone has parking at the front, only one house near me has completely concreted over their front garden, which is my pet hate. So ugly, so unnecessary, so bad for both the environment and the psyche.

[tallis]

The house on one side of me has quite a nice front garden, but it's not the best looked after; apparently the late husband of the oldest woman who lives there (it's her, her daughter, and her son's daughter that live there, iirc) was the gardener, and now he's not around to do it, they don't really make that much effort. Their back garden is mostly paving with things in pots, from what I have seen.

The house on the other side of me has a rose the owner is very proud of in the front, and rhubarb in the back, but apart from those two things, both gardens are entirely lawn.

There's one house a couple of houses down that have turned half their front garden into a driveway for their car and the other half into a strip of astroturf I'm not a massive fan of lawns, but I am even less of a fan of fake lawns.

[Lady BlackThumb]

I live in a suburban village area that seems to have a lot of house proud folks. All my immediate neighbours have pristine lawns (it sure does look pretty, like a manicured golfcourse), and most of the older neighbours of the huge gardens either have 100% Lawn and ornamentals, or 90% lawn with a tiny little veg/ghost of a veg plot bit riiiiight at the bottom of their huge garden.

I admit lawns do look pretty (my neighbour's gardens look at lot greener at the moment than my browny woodchipped hell), but I have never really seen the appeal, especially after too many articles about how Lawns are a PITA to upkeep/ uses a lot of water/ pesticides in our commercial produce etc. My goal is to eventually get rid of all the lawn, and have my garden be a fully productive or at least full of pretty ornamentals and groundcover. Traditional lawns are really a waste of time and resource IMO, unless you got the little people under 12 who require non-hard surfaces to play on..

(Don't get me started on Astro turf or the folks who pave over their whole gardens. Like WTF mate. And then they wonder why their area keeps flooding when it rains.)