To think people can make more of an effort with their gardens

Another thing I meant to say - pesticides. Overuse of pesticides is one of the main reasons pollinators like bees are in such massive decline. That's people using chemical sprays in their gardens and also huge swathes of agricultural land being blasted with chemicals that kill insects. They kill pests but also kill bees. All chemicals we use on gardens are bad ultimately and will kill more creatures than we intend it to - even synthetic fertilizers kill micro-organisms in the soil, which are absolutely vital to plant health - without them the soil is just dead dirt. There are non-chemical alternatives to all these things. Aphids can be removed from plants with a damp cloth for example - or ants will eat them. I'm trying out comfrey organic fertilizer this year. And no way will I be spraying chemicals anywhere in my garden - claims that they are harmless are bullshit.

If you lived like that then you would have more sympathy

And I never said "everyone" is affected. In fact I never even ascribed an area to it. You did that.

I just pointed out there was a COL crisis and a rise in food bank usage. Both of which are facts.

I annoy my neighbours on one side by allowing weeds to grow, letting my grass get quite long before cutting it, letting weeds grow in the grass etc (I only have a tiny garden). I don't care. It is 100% the best way to encourage our native insects, and my garden shows that.

In summer, I have loads of bees, butterflies and in the evening the bats all swoop around my garden. Another neighbour even asked me what I did to get the bats and butterflies, and I explained - and they have now let buddleia grow in a corner! Can't see them ever allowing their lawn to become unmanicured, but small steps!

You can do it, OP! One small step!

I do plant other things - I love foxgloves, lupins and poppies of all kinds, and I grow tomatoes in bags and lettuce/herbs in pots. But being a lazy gardener does not mean a dearth of insects - the very opposite.

I did notice there were fewer bees and butterflies in general last year, OP, and they came later than usual. It may not be your neighbours - it may be the weather.

My garden is full of bindweed and needs weeding every bloody five minutes. I'd happily let the whole thing rewild, I actively loathe gardening. I'd rather clean the toilet.

People run cars and eat meat which are both a lot worse for wildlife than not planting a lavender bush, and I do neither, so...

Could be as simple as they are not interested. To be fair, I was never interested in gardening. Now early fifties and in the last couple of years we’ve planted our garden and I now love pottering around with our plants and flowers.

It is an expensive hobby though, it is not just a case of a few seeds, that’s rubbish!

No. It's not this. People were always busy working and raising kids, that is the one thing that has not changed.
It's aspirations that have changed.

My neighbours hire people in to keep their garden nice. Which is fine if people can afford that.
I love my garden but it isn’t what I want because of the time and physical skills needed to put that vision in place. I can’t put up a pergola or shed single handed, i haven’t got the skills or strength or money to hire someone to do it for me.
However I have got a few shrubs and trees that look and smell nice and my bulbs are emerging.
I have a huge hedge that I have to pay to have cut each year and I have to save up to do so.
As with anything people who like gardening will prioritise money for it, those who don’t won’t. Working full time means you’re also reliant on what the weather is like on your days off too to get things done.

Maybe they can't afford to spend money on their gardens and are busy working and raising kids?
Other people just don't have the same priorities as you do.
We're lucky with our front garden it had lots of shrubs when we bought it so we just trim stuff, a bit of weeding and keep both lawns mowed. Very little gardening otherwise.
We would love a bigger garden in the future when the DC are older and we have more time!

This is really useful, thank you!

It’s also to do with builders, in the new estates near here all the old established trees and hedges (some 100+ years) were ripped out and a few sad new trees - all the same age, same height, same sort planted in a spindly row.
the result is..well depressing. At least there are trees, but the variety and age of the other ones was somehow relaxing and really pleasant to look at. These look like they should have a broken supermarket trolly under them.

I don't know if I dreamt it but I'm sure that a retailer is going to stop selling non wildlife friendly bedding plants and swap to flowers that attract bees. A lot of bedding plants in places like aldi and lidl are shit for nature.

I have just moved back from living abroad for 20+years.We had a very large garden and I did for many years grow our own veg but TBH it was very hard work and most of what I grew was cheaper to buy. Every year something failed or got eaten of course it was nice to eat your own veg but it was very demanding.
We have a new build and on the same small estate we have affordable living brand new homes like ours. The difference between the two is massive, the council have planted lots of shrubs and tend to them but the back gardens are something else. The council have turfed and fenced them TBH I was gutted when I had to pay for mine to be done as it wasn't cheap.
After having a huge amount of land to keep looking nice we went for an easy to look after garden, we have lots of pots and plants which I have bought at the likes of B&M in their 'sick bay' for very little money climbers etc. Lavender has brought a lot of Beas into the garden and slowly the garden is coming together with very little time or effort. As for people not being able to afford to buy cheap plants or seeds due to the cost of living most mornings across the road from me I see a delivery driver deliver a Mc Donald's breakfast !! They don't work for whatever reason. I maybe wrong but I think because they don't own the property they have very little interest in it .
We wont be making this our forever home and hopefully will be able to afford to move to an area that people do take pride in their homes and gardens.

I agree it's depressing OP and I am also worried about the decline in pollinators - currently doing an RHS qualification and it's very much at the forefront of my mind - however, I also do understand that gardening is time consuming and can be costly, also maybe people don't have a great deal of gardening knowledge, so I don't judge, but I do feel despair at all the potential that isn't realised.

The other thing is that not all plants suit pollinators, some cultivars have been bred with so many petals it's hard for pollinators to get to the nectar/pollen, so those flowers don't help. People may not understand the difference.

The other thing is nesting sites - bees need somewhere to live, you need that alongside the plants. There's lots online about that. They need habitat, we keep destroying it.

And I don't agree with the PP who said you'd written your post out of snobbery - you are worried about pollinators, so am I, they are in massive decline. Without them we can't grow food, so we should all be worried about this, it directly affects us. If plants aren't pollinated there won't be any seeds, without seeds there won't be new plants - that includes crops we all rely on. There's nothing snobby about being concerned about that. It's an inconvenient truth.

I like to see a well kept and/or a pretty garden but I am aware that not everyone even likes gardening or has the time or money to do anything with it.

The front gardens I really hate to see are ones where old cars/fridges/settees etc. are left rotting away and numerous black bags piled up in it. It looks absolutely awful.

Shit dying is fucking depressing though and makes me feel like a failure... again. Plus the guilt over time/money spent and actually guilt for killing the poor things. I have issues I know.

Actually, properly "urban" living is very good for nature. By minimizing household footprint and car use and enabling cities to be much more compact, it allows far more nature overall to remain pristine and untouched.

Creating cities full of detached houses with their own gardens sounds nice and all, but by causing cities to sprawl outwards, take up more space and require more and more car use, it's actually far worse for nature.

I don't want detached houses with gardens to disappear, as some people do get so much genuine joy from gardening, but given the environmental impact of "detached-house-garden-car sprawl," I do feel that if you DO live in one of these setups, you should at least blinking well make sure that that garden is a haven for wildlife. Which most people probably could, because most people aren't disabled or similar.

And the same people will then complain and moan about how they leave ina crap place and people living in nice houses and gardens.

Just like people who dump or drop rubbish on the streets then complain about it. Why do it? Why deliberately make your environment messy and not so nice.

Sometimes I wish we had some of Japans culture about being more considerate of your environment no litfee dropping etc it would be so much nicer

There's more to it than that though.

People now seem to be buying houses with mature gardens and ripping out every living thing. It happened in the house next door to us, which used to be a woodland garden and was a haven for wildlife. I saw a post on here recently about someone buying a house and saying they planned to take out the trees and bushes. It's vandalism, pure and simple. Why not just buy a property with an already sterile garden if that's all you aspire to?

We live in a comparatively affluent north west village, the demographic hasn't really changed, there's always been a mix of retired professionals and a lot of young families.
It's not about age or status or financial stability in this area but it seems to be a modern mindset that nobody wants a garden. Peoples aspirations have changed.
I do think to some extent that it's about trends and social media. All the talk about making your garden a living area, "an extension of your living room". First it was decking now it's paving, outdoor furniture, hot tubs and astroturf, outdoor kitchens, fire pits. And lighting. The light pollution here now is insane, the birds sing all night because it's so brightly lit.

Thirty years ago when we moved here, this street was full of bedding plants, brightly coloured hanging baskets, gorgeous colourful shrubs in the front gardens (which are predominantly now paved over). The back gardens all had trees, everyone sat in their gardens, a lot of people had greenhouses and grew tomatoes. It was a lovely environment for little kids because of all the birds, animals, green spaces to play.
I'm talking here about working people with kids, in privately owned houses - that aspect has not changed.

So I don't believe it's anything to do with "not being able to afford plants or garden equipment". This is a place of multi car households and high property prices, designer clothes and gym memberships. A lot of people employ cleaners and dog walkers. I'm not talking deprived urban with no green spaces, I'm talking about an affluent north west suburb with footballers and multi million pound properties. It's a mindset and a fashion, it's not about money or "not having enough time".

I think some people should simply not buy houses with big gardens if they don't plan on using them...

It rains 2/3rds of the time in England. I work full time and have two (now older) kids.
I love my home and the small amount of time I get to enjoy it I like it to be clean, comfortable and cozy. Funnily enough I don't have the same motivation to tend to an amazing garden that I might get to sit in for a few weeks of the year.
Yes it's about priorities but the garden isn't one of them.
I do have a few pots and might chuck some wildflower seeds around but that's my limit, I wouldn't judge someone who couldn't be bothered doing the same though, we're not competing for Britain in Bloom!!!

@Lovelybitofsquirrel3 I haven't read the full thread, but 2024 was not a good year for bees. It was cold and continuously wet when insects needed warmth. We have a large garden and an orchard and I can honestly say the two worst years for pollinators in my experience were 1977 and 2024.

There's definitely some truth in this.

The 10% of garden-neglecters who actually do have a chronic illness (or whatever) come on here to tell us about it, and fair enough. Meanwhile, the 90% of garden-neglectors who don't have a chronic illness (or similar excuse) post nothing and keep quiet and we see nothing about them.

The casual observer of this discussion is therefore apt to come away with the impression that "Virtually everyone who does nothing with their garden probably has a chronic illnesss." That's unlikely to be the case.

It's the same with threads on exercise and poor diet.

It's a bit taboo to point any of this out, because on female-centric forums there is a lot of pressure to "be kind," which means assuming that virtually everyone is poor, disabled and what-have-you. Having expectations of anyone is mean and nobody wants to be the mean person.

i live in a leafy bit of town so lots of bees etc, but there’s a handful of gardens that are anything other than a hedge and a tree and a lawn or a lawn edging a paved over parking space. I hate it when you see before and after ‘landscaping’ photos where back gardens have been paved over.

it doesn’t cost much and isn’t hard to pop to B&q or garden centre, check the label for what size a flowering shrub will grow and if it’s ‘easy’, dig a hole, pop in ground and water it in, and water it with a bucket of water once a month in the first year….it’ll grown 9 times out of 10. Plant a Hebe.

i love gardening and have a garden full of stuff that needs pruned or wrapped up in winter for protection. I take cuttings, I p,ant bulbs and seeds. Because I enjoy it and I find it joyous in the summer sitting there surrounded by bees buzzing around.

but honestly planting a few bulbs and a hebe…it’s not hard and it’ll look nice and it’s not expensive.

I'm chronically ill. In the before times, my garden was well tended and looked fab. A few birds, bees and butterflies.
Since becoming sick, 'no mow May' became a year round thing. Dh mowed an area to sit and a few paths, but otherwise the grass is untouched (except by our natural lawnmower - bun). Done nothing more than a few pots on the patio and chucked some handfuls of wildflower seeds in neglected borders. The amount of wildlife has absolutely rocketed. I'm not sure I'll ever go back to a neat and tidy garden now.

No, it absolutely is the full story. 50+ people have more time (no children at home, often the women in the relationship are working & have always worked PT, many of them will be retired so lots of leisure time) and more money.

Its just a symptom of a culture where both partners in a couple need to work FT just to keep afloat, the retirement age is being steadily pushed back and people have less disposable income. Fewer and fewer people have the time or inclination for gardening