If your garden is messy, do you still sit in it and enjoy it?

Eh? You don't like to sit outside if the weather is nice?

Some of these replies are unusual to me.
I love being outside, don't care what it looks like. I have a few chairs set up on the path by the front door and I sit out to get my vitamin D every day if I can. Thats what I see the garden as being for. To get fresh air and sunshine.
Y'all would hate my Mum's garden - its essentially a meadow with no lawns - she has planted large shrubs and loads of fruit trees. When you sit in it the hum of bees is deafening. I love it. Its untamed nature.

I've got a decent size garden that is tidy but it never crosses my mind to sit in it or even be in it unless I'm hanging washing out.
I've no idea why people would choose to sit outside in a garden when they can be inside the house, that's just crazy to me.

We stay in this place where they deliberately don’t mow their back garden, just cut a path through with the mower to the seating area. It looks very pretty and makes a virtue of its long grass.

Yes love sitting outside in my wilderness!

Inspired by this thread I spent a couple of hours weeding the garden yesterday I cleared a 1m sq. The docs were as tall as me and the roots were a complete bastard and the horsetail and ivy was everywhere but I've achieved something. One small cleared space and a full body workout.

I've been putting off the garden makeover because I know it will cost thousands but I think we will do a small bit at a time instead.

I sit outside when it's messy, play with grandchildren, grow stuff, have barbecues, picnics, feed the chickens
We got someone to come and trim the hedge (major job) over the weekend
My garden (both front and back) will never be tidy but I love them both - it's full of ornaments and all sorts.

You have deer and sheep grazing your lawn?

Not really. You're exchanging a go-over with a strimmer for 4, 6 or 8 mows.

Keep the grass short on my tiny lawn as it's easier to spot dog poo. She doesn't poo there often but sometimes needs must.

Slowly chopping into lawn to create bigger beds.

I've got a small wildlife pond.

All this means I've got loads of bees, birds, newts, frogs, mice....

It's not super messy, but it's not super groomed by any means.

I find it hard just to sit in it and not potter round it deadheading etc. It's my favourite place to be.

Nature bites me and gives me fairly extreme reactions..,!

I’ve learnt the hard way that if you don’t regularly keep up cutting the grass it just becomes an absolute nightmare and a little job becomes a huge one. I’d rather do it every few days / week and give myself less of a difficult job. Personally I can’t relax if the garden is overgrown. It just makes me feel anxious and on edge worrying about when it’s going to get sorted.

Nature abhors tidiness. It is a human concept. Nature is diverse and alive.

But you can have a well maintained garden full of insects and plants.

flowering plants, shrubs, trees, they come in all shapes and sizes,

our garden is very well maintained, with deep borders, it’s very large, and it’s full of insects, it’s a labour of love.

and I think this is what I don’t get, people seem to think it’s either let your garden become some overgrown mess, or prune it to within an inch of its life and have tiny plants, like they don’t know they come in all shapes and sizes,

our patio is full of pots, all different sizes, there must be about 200, it’s a huge patio, we have everything from massive bamboo to large acers, from roses, to petunias, to hostas to camellias, in the borders there is everything from azaleas to rhodendrums, to ornamental grasses, to flowering bedding plants, on the borders there is hedging, honey suckle, and round the house is wisteria and clematis. Round some of the borders we plant wild flowers each year, many of which repeat. There is also a lot of trees, from hornbeam, to pine, to chestnut , to yew. As well as insects we have rabbits, squirrels, deer and ducks.

our garden is not overgrown, it’s fully maintained, it is not remotely sterile, I can easily watch insects if that wss my bag, and that’s the point. You don’t need to let your garden become an overgrown mess to attract wildlife. It isn’t either extreme.

Mine is an ecosystem in the back, and a herb and veggie garden in the front. The insects i nurture in the back, make the plants in the front thrive. I have various fungi growing too.

I am delighted by the birdsong, butterflies and other insects.

Oh and I converted 80% of my lawn into clover. 3 different kinds, plus planted dandelions, which I eat.

I have natural paths which are created by the route I take to the washing line.

I prefer the garden messy. DH is always wanting to tidy it, which basically means chopping down or pulling up plants. I like plants. Apart from the odd stinging nettle or giant buttercup, which I do pull up, i don't mind the weeds. They are green and lots have flowers. I also think the grass looks nicer unmown and covered in daisies. I wouldn't be so keen to sit in a garden full of rubbish but an overgrown garden full of plants insects is perfect for me.

I consider this worth it! I know it not for everyone, but the difference in insects is so astounding it brings me genuine joy to see

For me pockets of this can look nice but if it was the whole lawn it would look unkempt, as do the bushes/shrubs bordering it I’m afraid,

if I want to watch insects, and there does seem to be a lot of people who really like watching insects, I can see them going through the flowers, plants, roses and wisteria etc.

but I’d need to deal with that garden, like I would a messy house. However unlike housework, I enjoy gardening, and we have got ourselves into a routine, so we know how to maintain it efficiently.

the truth is cutting the grass and strimming the borders, always immediately makes it look a lot better,

Pressure washers have their place. If we didn't keep our stone surfaces reasonably clean, they would have been absolutely lethal (green and slimy) during the prolonged rain in April and May. I don't fancy a broken wrist or hip from slipping.

My garden was definitely therapy during COVID that's for sure. Just about the only positive was the weather.

I don't need to worry about not mowing, the farmer next door gets into the groove with "No Mow May" and has turned his field into a wild flower meadow. It's lovely - it'll get cut in a few weeks because there's always livestock in the field for a few months during the summer. If we left our grass this long it would be an absolute nightmare to cut!

Op I would just skip retinol for a day and put on sunscreen. You should be fine!

I use retinol and sunscreen every single day. My skin has never reacted.

I used to love to sit in my beautiful garden. It had enormous 100 hundred year old trees on it. It was like a forest in the summer. It's why I bought my old house.

Now ds and I live in a condo with a huge balcony and I sit here every night for at least an hour. I love gardening. It's beautiful and has lots of flowers, plants, a huge lilac I'm quite proud of.

Gardening is my biggest act of self care.

Yes we used to sit in it when it was messy. During the pandemic we started working in it and it's much nicer to sit in a garden we are proud of/satisfied with. Maybe it's that we are also older, that the house renovations are just about done etc.

Yes, we do. I pretend it's a rural / rewilded / nature garden, but it's just massively overgrown. I do clean up wrappers / crockery, but the rest us just a tangle of weeds, with the occasional rose poking through. The toddlers and rabbits seem to enjoy it though, and it's fun to watch them explore without worrying they're going to break / eat something precious.

My garden is always messy, I live in a subtropical climate and it’s been hot and pissing rain for months so everything is massively overgrown. One thing I always do though is put a bunch of flowers in pots over winter so that I can see them from where I usually sit. This helps a lot as it’s a visual distraction from the mess. Try doing something like that, if your situation permits.