AIBU to rip out a beautiful garden in potential house?

This.

With the money you’ll save not demolishing the garden you could easily afford a gardener once a fortnight for a few years. Please don’t destroy the garden for a lawn the birds and insects that live their will suffer.

I don't see the point in buying a normal sized house with a big garden if don't like gardening. Someone out there will love that (including me!).
If you do rip it out, please please do in the winter when there is less wildlife.

Can you really not find a more suitable house?

In a world that just seems to be getting sadder and sadder, these sorts of gardens are the patches of uplift, not to mention the positive effect on the environment and the sanctuary it will be providing to wildlife and countless insects. And those sorts of borders will have cost a fortune to plant out over the years.

I just think it is too destructive - and my gut is that you think the same deep down. The right house will come along, I'm sure.

I wouldn't not buy a house suitable for my family and near good schools over a bloody garden. They did the garden like that because it's what brought them joy. You get to do what suits your family and sacrificing the possible outdoor recreation space for the kids and precious family time maintaining the previous owners garden how they wanted it is bonkers. If there is truly no other options then crack on OP.

Because clearing it out would be a mistake for several reasons

• expense of clearning out
• lawn can be more trouble to look after
• devalue house
• kids get less value from it

Yes it would. I hope someone else buys the house who will look after the garden and all the wildlife it has encouraged. There are dozens of dull easy upkeep blank plots out there, go and buy something with one of those and leave this for someone who cares.

I am a passionate gardener. My garden is nowhere near as big but I have it pretty and wild, its full of flowers and trees and wildlife. No insecticide ever used and absolutely minimal weedkiller. I would walk away from my house without a thought but the garden has my heart. Having said all that, I know when the house is finally sold, the garden likely won't be kept and there is zero I can do about it. I wouldn't refuse a good offer on my house because I knew the buyer was going to drastically change the garden. I couldn't afford to do that.
Having said that, if you can't afford a gardener, why are you planning to grow vegetables? I know its the idyllic "lets grow our own" image but its WAY harder than keeping a non edible garden. If you don't want to garden or have a gardener, do not try veg growing.
Reality is (and I have gardened all my life) that that much land is going to need effort to keep it tidy and usable. Careful semi rewilding would be much less effort than turfing it.
Final comment is that of course the seller will sell to who they want, the buyer will do what they want with what they have bought.....if I was a neighbour though would I judge you? hell yes!

My exH bought me out on the house and plans to rip out my garden. My new garden is much smaller. But whilst i am somewhat bitter about the garden, i have learnt so much doing it, won't make the same mistakes again, and estimated that i will be able to completely plant my new garden (with Chelsea level planting density) with 90% recycled plants, in a very cohesive style.
Currently prepping the ground with cardboard and mulch ready to move everything in the autumn.

It may be possible to find a compromise..In some areas there are gruops/individuals who will garden for free just because they love to but dont/cant have their own space.. i

Ooff. I know how you feel as I ended up taking up a lot of long established plants and flowers when we moved for the same reasons as you. However our garden wasn't quite at the same level as the one you've shown is.

I think there's a lot of people these days in our situation, we don't have the time, knowledge or desire to spend a lot time keeping up with gardens and we shouldn't in general feel guilty about that (despite what my Mother thinks). However, the garden you have presented there is spectacular and I really don't think I could rip out a garden like that. I think if you're certain this is the house for you, there needs to be a happy medium at least somewhere.

Gosh that is a lovely garden. The least you could do is say to the owners they can remove any / every plant they wish. Would make me cry to trash that.

Could the garden be split, with separate access created to part of the garden further from your house, so that part could be sold or rented out for allotments?

Would be absolute sacrilege. Someone will be viewing that house purely to maintain that garden. Not to mention the wildlife habitat. I don’t think it’s the home for you.
My garden is nothing like so grand but I will be devasted if a new owner rips it out.

I don't know why you are buying this house TBH. 0.8 acres is absolutely huge. Even if you level and grass it, I think you are under-estimating how much time it will take to maintain.

Can you package off any parts of the garden and sell to developers? We had a .2 acre garden and developers made offers on it. The land value must be huge, so it's hard to understand why this is the only house suitable and you can afford?

I agree. I think getting rid of everything would be a big mistake from the kid's perspective. Big flat lawns are only good if you have a soccer team. You get a lot more independent play with places to hide and wildlife to look at.

I think it's pretty criminal to do this. Buy a different house.

It will be your house, so you can do as you want with it. We knocked down the house that we bought on this plot and built a new one, plus we ripped up the garden and completely redid it. It's ours, we bought it, what the old owners wanted is irrelevant!

Edited to say: we actually made our garden MUCH nicer and much more biodiverse. The previous owners were definitely not gardeners - think conifers, broom, pampas grass and a shitty bit of lawn that hadn't been well looked after, so in our case none of it was a loss - in fact it was a vast improvement.

Why are you asking this here? It'll be your house, for Heaven's Sake...

I love gardening but you are absolutely not being unreasonable. You can do what you want with your own house.

When our (horrible) buyer told us he was going to get rid of the flowerbeds and put gravel everywhere I immedietely starting potting plants up to take with us - they're expensive, and I put a lot of work into them! Definitely offer the plants to the current owners, to be kind.

Awful please don’t do it

I have a garden a similar size to what you describe and am in the process of adding flowers etc to the beds now. Regardless of what you have maintaining a garden that size takes time and effort. In some ways beds of flowers like that will be much more straightforward than anything else.

As a PP also pointed out, your kids aren't kids for long. I think in your circumstances I would probably do a halfway house. Take up some of the beds to turf for the kids to play and keep some. A lot of established flower beds will just need pruning and trimming back at the end or start of the season, whereas masses of lawn needs mowing and edging multiple times a month in the summer.

If you don't like gardening and maintenance outside then regardless of what you do with it, is that house really for you? I LOVE being in my garden and learning about my plants and adding, and taking, and pottering, and planting. If you don't get joy from that the question is would you find it an extra stress? Just the size alone is a challenge.

When we bought our house, the garden was very manicured with far too many shrubs/trees and a tiny path going through it. We had 3 kids under 6 and it wasn't remotely practical. So we ended up having to cut a load of it all back, fill in a pond, and make a garden that we could put swings/climbing frame into and know the kids were safe out there.

We paid for it and it was ours to do with as we wished.

I think I’d be overwhelmed by that garden too! I second the idea of offering plants on local facebook page if you do get rid of some of it. But it will be quite a lot of work and expensive to lawn it. Our gardens are about 2/3 of an acre and we spend hours just mowing in summer.

I would start by getting advice from a gardener. They should be able to tell you which parts are low maintenance and which are more work. Could you make one area clear (ie just grass) for the kids to play, and then maybe have a “nice” (but easy - ie prune once a year) area near the house, and maybe a wilder area down the far end?

If the kids enjoy growing veg you might find that in a few years they’ll do a bit of “gardening” for you (pulling out weeds, light pruning etc).

I’d definitely get advice from someone who knows what they’re talking about, and find out what’s actually involved. A lawn will need to be mowed regularly anyway, so you might find that keeping on top of roses is actually less work!