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

Ours is tidy in the sense that there is no rubbish lying around, but it isn't "done". We have a nice patio area with seating and a clear pathway down to the bottom of the garden but the rest is wild. The dogs have it dug up in places and we have loads of wild flowers, it would be a massive job to do it fully, but once it is clear of rubbish and the patio is swept, I don't care about the rest

I have to. DH is the gardener and although he spends hours and fecking hours out there, fiddling about, weeding two inches of flowerbed, he loves the wild look - the patio needs weeding, the lawn is knee high. It has pretty wild flowers like a meadow which looks pretty but I do wish it was all a bit more cared for. He gets twitchy if I try and intervene. We are moving soon and one new thing I want is my own half of the garden, which I will care for properly, so I can enjoy it.

Yes if it's overgrown. I love a wild garden. My previous garden was small and in a city but was a totally overgrown chaos. I thought it looked lovely though when the roses, daisies and buttercups were blooming and we had loads of hedgehogs. I actually prefer lawns with daisies, clover and dandelions.

No if it's got rubbish, broken toys, pet poo or anything like that lying around.
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I dream of a low maintenance garden where the hard landscaping would cope with a pressure washer without disintegrating, an irrigation system and repeat planting to reduce the frequency of pruning and deadheading.

Mine is a bit overgrown this year as it has rained every day off I've had! However the lawn was mowed yesterday so that's a big step towards making it look tidier. Got brambles and nettles and other wild plants dotted about but they are flowering now so look pretty. So yes, I can sit our in the garden :)

Still waiting for hubby to finally sort ours, but hasn’t stopped me sunbathing today, could care less!

I love the idea of relaxing in a tidy garden. Sadly, ours has been a massive renovation project and my DH doesn't do gardening. He also takes an age to do trips to the tip, so various piles of rubble have been a constant garden feature over the years. I've got good at hiding them out of eyeline and trying to not have them in full view of passers by, although it does sometimes feel like I live in Steptoe's yard.

A decade later, it's still a work in progress, but I'm 95% there, with finishing the patio being the last job I need to do. We're also planning on moving this year, so fingers crossed I'll get a couple of days of enjoying lazing around in the garden before we sell up! Next house, I'm definitely going to go for a low maintenance garden.

My garden never looks tidy. There are too many big, expensive jobs that need to be done for it to look decent - we need a new patio as our is crumbling, our paths are breaking up so that it is impossible to keep on top of weeds so they need to be replaced, our retaining walls are bowing, and there are so many beds that there are always loads of plants that need pruning or deadheading or shifting somewhere else. Add to this the normal amount of weeding and sweeping that goes with having a garden.

If I didn’t sit in it when it’s messy, I’d never sit in it.

It looks lovely from a distance but it’s a different story when you look properly!

I'm sitting here 😎

I've just spent about 2 hours lying on the grass, reading the newspaper and watching the birds and insects. My lawn and borders have plenty of what people would call weeds, but I would say are native flowering plants and grasses in between the plants I put there. I even have moss growing in some of the joints in the patio slabs, and lichens on the walls and paths.
I personally can't be doing with regimented and sterile looking gardens, but each to their own.

No, but I wouldn’t even if it was immaculate.

I’m a vampire and I hate being in sunlight.

No, couldn't sit in a messy garden. I'm not a huge fan of gardening but love a nice garden, so it's a price I pay

I do sit on my messy patio but it’s bothering me. My garden is pretty big for a little two bed house and it slopes upwards away from the house ( patio is the only flat bit) and I’m disabled so I can’t mow it. I’ve attached a pic. It’s got a huge bank of ivy & brambles running down the left, but I don’t mind that as a fox family lives there, and loads of hedgehogs. It looks quite nice in the pic, but my patio is a mess as it hasn’t been cleaned this year (I got let down ☹️) there are old pots around it and stuff that needs throwing out. The bushes and trees need cutting back a bit too. If I just sit facing the grass it’s fine and don’t look at the patio, I can cope 🤣

No. I used to before we paid to have the garden landscaped and planted lots of plants. After that, since we had paid for it, I spent about 5 years after that, taking care of the garden in a way I never had before between March and October which meant I could never relax as I kept seeing weeds that needed pulling, flowers that needed deadheading, plants that needed cutting, cuttings that needed transplanting, watering that needed doing etc. So sitting in the garden to enjoy it rarely happened . It did look very nice though and we had lots of lovely comments about it from visitors etc

Then about 2 years ago I just stopped doing it l, I got depressed and fed up and stopped going in the garden completely except to hang out washing as it just felt like a chore to keep it looking nice. Now three years later the garden is looking much worse and it is even worse to sit in it as the amount of work to do seems overwhelming. So no I rarely enjoy sitting in the garden , whether it looks nice or not really.

Yes, no problem for me. Although dh's comfort level for the garden's messiness is much lower so I'm almost insulated from ever having to care. This seems like poor compensation for the inverse relationship when it comes to the state of the kitchen but I'll take it.

All the no mow May people - leave it until September! Or mow a space for a table, or just mow a path. The insects and birds will thank you

I didn't mow for all of May and it looked really pretty actually.

Hundreds of cheap lawnmowers on marketplace op.

I don't have much time for gardening bit I do keep my garden tidy because it's far more relaxing to sit in if it's had a mow and sweep.

Usually I sweep the decking and give it a scrub in the spring. And then put a few flowers in pots on it. Mow the lawn Every couple of weeks before green bin day. Trim the hedge in winter and late summer.

My garden is wild and I like it that way. Lots.og wild flowers, long grass, borders bursting. Better for the birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife than a perfectly manicured lawn, or worse a plastic one. I love sitting out in it, why shouldn't I?

Mine isn't immaculate and i sit out, the overall look is very pretty, I cut the grass twice a week and have got a few baskets and pots planted up, the borders are planted with established bushes so we get a lot of birds and insects.
The scruffy bits are a few weeds under the bushes, I haven't edged the lawn and the patio needs washing.

I don't mind a few weeds though, currently there are bright yellow poppies growing in a few gaps between the slabs and against the wall, there's a clump of buttercups flowering and something purple that the bees love.

I wouldn't sit out if the grass was long though and it was over run with weeds.

Our garden is currently a real mess - overgrown and chaotic. But I am sitting out here on the patio listening to the birds sing and watching the dog potter about. DH has been on nights all this week so he can’t mow the lawn and neither can I as he’s asleep. He’s booked a van for a day next week to clear out the garage and the garden and he’s off all week so hopefully by Friday evening it will all be nice and tidy again 🤣

The increase in small birds and butterflies when I dont mow for the summer is massively worth it

Our garden was awful till we got it done. Not just messy but broken patio tiles, uneven lawn. Even when you tried to tidy it , it looked horrible. I hated sitting out there and rarely did. Now we have a new patio and lawn I'm always outside