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

It is frustrating when people don't bother with their gardens; my neighbours are like that and it does affect the number of pollinators etc. Saying that I can totally understand why it is difficult for some people to nurture their gardens and I had a spell when I couldn't do much due to illness, young children etc. However, there are some people who just don't care; they buy a house with a long garden and then cut down every single living thing and stick down astro turf (I know this person) - its awful to see and so damaging to the environment.

The OP is largely correct.
Leaving aside the absolute horror of what urban living is doing to nature ...

Gardening is dying off because it means engaging with dirty unpredictable nature, not a nice clean screen. It means deferred gratification not instant dopamine hit. Those who say they have no time, probably go to the gym. Why? Gardening is a work out.

Many of those with kids complain the kids are stuck to screens, are overweight, don't sleep and have poor mental health - so get them gardening.

The mental and physical benefits of being outside and in nature are well researched.

Yeah I think people are lazy. Britain has got such shit gardens. Most people I know want just flagstones basically. You don't really need to spend too much time on trees and shrubs but that's not what people want. They want grass all the way up to a bare fence, or flagstones.

This is the most spot-on post I've ever read.

Agree, the whiny litany of excuses is tiresome.

Yanbu. Almost everyone should have some flowers for wildlife in their garden. Californian poppies, lavender, buddliea etc (which would survive a nuclear bomb I reckon).
Nothing needs "weeding" as the bees need dandelions. And you don't really need to tidy up much for winter as the birds need the seed heads over the winter months. Nature thrives in a half arsed garden.

It's a time thing. Keen gardeners tend to be older and retired people and it was always thus when I was growing up.

On the subject of what bees like, I planted salvia and lavender last year, they came up really quickly and we had swarms of massive bees all year long. Saw my first massive bee again last week, so early!

The thing is when you do priortise wildlife gardening and have a few dandelions and leave seed heads on, and don't cut the grass as regularly, the manicured lawn and summer bedding plant lot think your garden is scruffy.

Most gardens would be better left to nature than the short grass and mature exotic shrub and summer bedding type of gardening which was common until very recently.

I live on a council estate (if that's even relevant) and there are lots of lovely gardens around. Our neighbours are mostly older people though so maybe it is a generational thing.

I'd love a manicured flowery garden but I've got young kids and a job and genuinely don't have the time or the energy. I have tried but all I've managed is a few pots.

‘Most people don't know much about gardening and even less about wildlife gardening’

Yet there are endless gardening progs on tv ,internet, blogs,tik tok.
It’s the same with cooking. Endless progs etc
But what they don’t realise is what they are missing -there is satisfaction and reward in a beautiful rose, delicious cake. Even if the rest of the garden/meal is rubbish.

I think a lot of people are taking op's post personally but in reality their gardens are already much better than what op refers to.
There's a social housing estate nearby and the gardens are really off-putting. This outdoor space with so much potential that can benefit the residents physical and mental health in a very effective and cheap way has just become an eye sore/ rats infested dump. And many of the people are at home for longer hours compared to people who need to work to pay off a mortgage.
No idea how to change the situation though. May be Switzerland fining people has got it right?

This. Maybe OP should learn a few basics of gardening before commenting on gardening.

Before I looked at the replies, I knew what you were going to get. If you suggest people wash more, wear clean clothes, keep their property even vaguely tidy (and I don't mean manicured lawns), you'll always get a barrage of responses that suggest that every single bugger has 'mental health', suffers from CoL problems, is working eight jobs, and has fourteen children with special needs.

OF COURSE some people have really crushingly hard circumstances and aren't being referred to, but anytime there is a discussion about people smelling bad as a group commuting, or a street of people, there is the usual assumption that every single one of them has ten very good reasons to not do whatever. Of course it's personal choice, and of course you can't force people to take any sort of pride or interest in their appearance or property, but it would be nice if as a community we could try.

It won't matter in the slightest that as a formerly very cash strapped single mother with two jobs and some neuro challenges I was still trying to keep up my front garden (happily in much better circs 20 years on). I should probably be counting my privilege and strapping myself to a stake for sharing the OPs opinion.

A big problem is that most people equate wildflowers with an unrealistic carpet of brightly coloured annuals. Real wildflowers in the UK are the 'minging weeds' of a PP. Dandelions, speedwell, all the straggly grasses, nettles - which are the hardworking backbone of wildlife sustenance. They need soil, roots, stems, seeds - not just flowers.

The attitudes on this thread are unnutterably depressing. I don't think you worded your OP well but I do agree that nature deprivation is the problem of everyone who owns land or buys food. However, a rampant, ignored 'weed-filled' plot on your estate may be more wildlife rich than a neat mown lawn surrounded by largely sterile shrubs and imported bulbs. Or worse - concrete and astroturf. Growing food is not about encouraging nature (though it is good for body and soul). 'Waste land' eg railway lines is incredibly wildlife rich. It may not look beautiful, but our aesthetic sensibilities need reeducation if our dwindling widlife is to have a chance.

I agree with a PP who said we should probably live more densely in cities and allow more wilderness with no human access outside this (the George Monbiot position). But humans get a lot from green spaces, gardening and growing, and that is not how our housing is arranged. I would say: don't see your plot/garden as a chore. See it as a space for nature to take a foothold. Remove hard surfaces, add a bucket or similar for a pond, allow things to grow and just see what comes. Mess is really really good.

Sometimes people don’t know how, if they weren’t shown by parents themselves. As adults they might be prioritising working and raising kids. Sounds like something you could possibly support with in your area? You could lead the way and teach people while bringing the community together.

We live in a lovely area but there’s a clutch of rented houses close by. The people don’t work and have let a lot of rubbish pile up. They have their issues and sad back stories. We’ve started paying the guy who lives there to tidy the local area (weeding cobbled paths and repointing) and he’s started to have a sense of pride in his own garden now. He’s working all hours, no longer getting paid. Everytime I see him I tell him what a wonderful contribution he’s making to the area.

You could do the same! It has to start somewhere. Maybe approach them to show their kids as a way in.

Cash poor (really can't get a 'few pots), time poor (kids, work, sleep), and disabled (tricky with bits missing).

Those are my excuses and I'm sticking to them.

I can't be arsed and I don't want to. There you go, is that the answer you were looking for so you can sneer about how lazy my generation are or whatever? I've got better things to do with my exceptionally limited free time than doss about on my hands and knees in the dirt. Snob away.

It all dies (some stuff never even grew) so I gave up .Threw some packets of wildflower seeds around last year. We'll see.

There's a clover patch that grew out of nowhere and kept spreading last summer and I hope it comes back again (and keeps spreading ) as it's very pretty.

I would love to be in the garden more. I like the idea of having a little veg patch.

My issue is time, i work, my husband works, we have young children. I hardly have time to clean a bathroom and I don’t have time for much self care (my self care is napping at the weekend as I’m tired). Maybe once I’m less tired and don’t nap at weekends I could use that for gardening but I also have a list of things like exercise, meeting friends for lunch, cleaning, decorating, walking in the woods.

Currently my only spare time is 8.15-9pm once the kids are in bed and before I go to bed which I will use doing more work in my laptop, watching TV or just doing nothing. This spare time isn’t great for gardening with it being at night.

It doesn’t take much effort or money to sort out the garden, or do a bit of DIY and update the house or get yourself to the gym or eat healthily or do a hobby or look after your pets or kids or elderly parents or any other the other million things most of us do every week, it’s doing all of it that’s hard and expensive.

"Something is only simple if you know what you're doing and if no one's ever taught you, then it's not simple.*

But nowadays it's actually quite simple. Internet. The never ending source of knowledge most of us have all the time in our pockets. For those who will come and say they have no internet, library books. Asking in store, asking sellers on flea market etc. The knowledge is everywhere

Totally agree!

If the situation is causing you distress, offer to help:

Offer to garden other people’s gardens for them, or to look after their kids whilst they do it, or do their other tasks; offer to loan tools and give seeds. Or join a gardening club where you might find other people with whom you could discuss the situation and see what other communities do.

This thread got mean quickly! I see people's points about why people don't for many reasons, but I think an important point it many people want to but genuinely don't know what they're doing, so it's not as simple as just 'stick some shrubs in'

When I moved to my first home with a garden I genuinely had no idea the difference between an annual flower and a a perennial and a shrub. I put something that needs full sun in the shade.

No one had ever taught me this stuff, but I didn't have a super hectic job and I had no kids and I was interested so I put in the time to learn, but it's taken years really. Now I'm moving to a brand new garden and my plan is to 'stick in some shrubs' but now I have the knowledge of what a shrub is, which ones to choose for which locations, which need pruning, which are evergreen etc.

Something is only simple if you know what you're doing and if no one's ever taught you, then it's not simple.

Yabu and judgemental. You don't know what is going on in people's lives.

They may have chronic hay fever, a phobia about creepy crawlies or three screaming toddlers and no time. Plus remember not everyone is taught how to grow things. Easy to plant a few seeds, get nothing to show for it and give up.

And the gardens of modern housing estates are vile, builders rubble covered in cheap turf. It can be very expensive to sort it out.

I have a garden, my pride & joy until 2021 when I found myself so dog-tired it was all I could do to keep up with work and the school run. A cancer diagnosis and three years treatment later, I'm back to normal but facing a garden gone wild. It will take years to get it back to anything close to tidy and fruitful.