AIBU to rip out a beautiful garden in potential house?

@Mum2HC we have similar, a beautiful garden that was, in the early 1930's professionally landscaped. We put a lot into it personally and pay a gardener £800 pcm to assist from March to November. It is remarkable and we enjoy it enormously. It is a labour of love.

If and when we sell the house, we won't own it, the new owners will. They will have complete agency over what they do or do not do to the house and garden. Their money will be in our bank and the transaction will be concluded.

When we left.our old house, after 24 years, the house where the children grew up, I thought I would be very emotional. Once the pictures were off the walls, the photographs and belongings packed up, it was the housee we had sold. The home was in the van and in our hearts.

We couldn't afford a gardener, but got an odd job man who comes every once in a while to mow, weed and tidy up. Not expensive. You could check locally?

Can it really be the house for you if you are looking to destroy the well looked after and loved garden?

Yes, you'd be within your rights to pummel it into the ground if you buy it. I just wouldn't be able to sleep at night myself. I'd see it as bad karma. Perhaps not rational but you asked and that's my honest opinion.

Also: veg patches are far more work than established ornamentals.

Go for it. You don’t want someone else’s garden, you want what suits you.

What beautiful gardens. They're an absolute joy.
Anyway - your property, your choice.

Could you advertise for a retired person who is interested in gardening who is looking for something to do in their spare time as a hobby to get them out and about.

Buy a different house.

They've had their time with the garden. It's now yours, to garden as you wish. However, it seems a bit daft to bin a perfectly good garden. Gardening is not like interior design; you can re-paint a room in an afternoon but a garden takes a long, long time to establish. It would take years to re-instate if you decided it was a mistake. As others have said, take it slowly and learn what does/doesn't work for you.

You mentioned "keeping the flowers in check" but if we are talking perennials then they do that themselves. Fill the garden with things that are low maintenance e.g. shrubs and perennials.
But just remember that there is no such thing as a no-maintenance garden.

ETA: the best gardens are about design, not plants. Get your design right. There are loads of resources on TV and YouTube.

Please buy another house, it would be wrong to destroy something so beautiful - similar to destroying a precious work of art. As someone has said above, this is not the house for you - will you find it as appealing if the garden is gone?

Get the kids involved with the gardening, they'll love it!
It doesn't matter if it's not perfectly maintained but add a hedgehog house, bird bath and a few bug hotels along side popping some easy veg (green beans, radishes, courgettes) and you will have happy kids learning all about nature, seasons, science and proudly bringing you tomatoes and lettuce for tea!

Please give it a full year as it is. There's a strong chance that you will get a lot of pleasure from it and a lot of this kind of planting looks after itself.

Young children can get a lot of pleasure out of this kind of garden - corners to hide in, playing with toys among flowerbeds, finding caterpillars. You'll get lots of birds too

And you'll have a beautiful space to come out to at the end of the day for a bit of decompression.

Lawns and vegetable gardens can be a lot of work compared to established planting. Give it a year and see how you feel.

People are being ridiculous about this! In the same way that you are not under any obligation to keep their interior decor or their kitchen however beautiful it is, nor are you required to keep their garden if it doesn’t meet the needs of your family. If the house is otherwise perfect, of course you should make an offer on it and then change the garden to suit your own needs. Children and family are far more important than plants!

This slightly reminds me of the time we viewed a Victorian house where the owners had ripped out all the original features and decorated to their own eclectic tastes. Not only were they planning on leaving their hideous nylon carpets, they were also insisting on replacing one particularly vile neon pink nylon one in the bedroom before the sale went through. They were extremely offended when we said that if we made an offer we would be replacing all the carpets so they should not put themselves to that expense. In the end we didn’t offer because the costs of reversing all of their renovations would just have been too much.

They can take them if they want

I can see this happening go my Dads garden in 10 years or so. Its got lovely mature shrubs and roses, a massive vegetable garden etc.

I also remember it growing up... with the lawn about three times kmits current size, a lot smaller vegetable patch... and a climbing frame, a path I learnt to skate on, the rabbit hutch my dad built himself (and I cringe at now as i know it was really too small and rabbits need a companion).

The front garden was paved a few years ago (necessity for disabled parking).

It becoming a family home with small children will be the circle of life.

(The previous owners of our house were appalled we removed the hedges from our back garden... they were hideous and blocked out all the natural light)

As PPs have said, growing vegetables is a hell of a lot of work! An established rose bed is much less hassle, so that’s definitely not a swap to make if you don’t have a lot of time and you don’t like gardening.

My one piece of advice is don’t rush in and start ripping things up before you’ve lived with them for a bit (I’ve always done this with houses too, despite only ever buying fixer-uppers - the ideas you have before you buy a place always change and adjust once you properly understand what you’re dealing with).

If you don’t know much about plants, check which ones will give you the most bang for your buck (established, low to no maintenance, soil/climate appropriate therefore don’t need loads of extra watering etc) before you make any major decisions. This will mean living with the garden for a year and seeing what it does. A lot of the structural shrubs and bushes will more or less mind their own business, and the stuff that’s highly labour intensive will start to shows signs of neglect if you’re not tending to it, so you’ll know those are things you need to move on to new homes.

Definitely offer established plants to other gardeners via freecycle and FB - you’ll have no trouble getting rid.

At the end of the day you need to create the space that works for your family, but in your situation I’d be trying to end up with a garden that’s still beautiful and established as well as practical. Lawn is great for kids, but is almost moribund when it comes to supporting wildlife and the environment, and still requires maintenance.

One of my DHs requirements in looking at a house was a low maintenance garden. His parents are avoid gardeners and from spring to autumn spend all day most days doing garden work. (He also rarely eats veg, as they would have gluts of say, runner beans, and so the kids would munch their way through mountains of whatever was in season).

we bought a low ish maintenance garden, only to find that we both actually enjoy gardening!

Rose gardens are low maintenance. Just use the garden as it suits. Put in turf where you need it, leave other stuff be. Small changes to suit your needs now. We have an inbuilt trampoline but also flower needs that need weeding and maintenance .

Yeah its still a lot more labour intensive vs a bush or a perennial (many of mine require zero care and are compatible with 2 x small kids and a ft job)

I'd buy the house and get a landscape gardener in you can keep some /many plants and it can be low maintenance.

Id also say if you camt afford a gardener at £100 -150 pm you probably cant afford the ££££ to level and turf it

I don’t like roses myself so replacing it with veg sounds good, though I’m surprised you’ll grow veg but not tend a garden!
My neighbours ripped up the lovely garden in front of their house and paved it over to put their three cars on. It was a real shame as we could all see it. They did the same with the back but only I could see it from an upstairs window (and I admit I did judge them)! But your property your choice.

I am torn on this, we redecorate houses and change floor-plans and extend all the time to suit needs and stlye preferences. The garden will be yours and it's absolutely up to you what you do with it - it's a question of taste and functionality. And also you could equally hate the style of the garden and want to do something else planting or design-wise. Also it's very hard gauge the garden people are defending to be kept without seeing it. It might be horribly naff to some! I love to garden and am constantly extending the flower beds and hate lawn (it has done its time though fir the kids), but I am well aware others might hate my large shady trees and ferns. (I would hate to have to maintain a rose garden for example).

But what comes through more as an issue is the size of it. Can you actually afford/manage any style of garden at that size? Even if you lay lawn across the whole thing that would require significant cost and then maintenance? Removing a well established garden is a lot of work. And while the space seems nice there is a lot to be said for "manageable" in a garden.

Having a big lawn would also be quite a bit of maintenance. My Mum has a similar sized garden and turfed over her veg patch a few years back as it was getting a bit much for her. She says she doesn't spend that much less time now when she factors in mowing it and doing weed and feed etc. It gets a lot of moss which then dies off in the hot weather, so she has to rake, scarify and reseed. She's not fussy about having a perfect lawn, but that's what it needs to not have bare patches of soil all over.

If the borders have a lot of groundcover plants, you may find there's not too much weeding needs doing. You could get someone in to cut the hedges once or twice a year.

At the end of the day, if you buy the house of course you can do what you like. Agree with the pps who have said to offer the plants to the current owners and community groups etc and not just rip out and dump. I had luck getting rid of a young apple tree on freecycle, I didn't have the heart to bin it and the man was chuffed to have it for his allotment, he even emailed me a few weeks later to let me know it had survived the move.

My grandparents lived in the village next to mine and my grandad adored his garden and it sounds as though it is on a similar level to the one you describe.

When they died a couple from the city bought it and ripped out all the rose bushes, cut down a stunning camellia tree and did away with all the beautiful borders and put down a patio and hot tub. They also weather boarded the lovely red bricked bungalow and it's now black with black windows.

Ironically, the guy gave up his city job and started up as a gardener!

It's heartbreaking to see changes to properties at times but if you purchase that house it will be yours to do whatever you want to do with it.

Roses are so easy to maintain though. I have 12 and they just look after themselves.

There are so many Instagram accounts with useful hints and tips for gardening, you don't need to spend a full day a week on a mature garden.