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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To expect my mum to ask me before she comes round to do my garden?

141 replies

101handbags · 09/10/2014 09:44

My DP and I have recently moved into a new home. Both of us work long hours, neither of us have any interest in, or time to do, gardening. Clearly the previous owners felt the same way as the garden could do with a bit of tidying up/weeding etc. We are planning to get someone in next Spring to plant the garden out with greenery/shrubs etc. that look nice but don't need that much care. In the meantime my DP has just been mowing and strimming at weekends to keep on top of it. My mum, on the other hand, absolutely LOVES gardening and has been itching to get her hands on our garden. We kept telling her we are getting someone in to to the flowerbeds, planting etc. but last week DP & I agreed she could come round and do the weeding and tidying. I sent her a text: 'it's fine if you want to tidy up the garden, it is a bit of a mess... we are not going away til mid Nov so plenty of weekends to choose from'. We got home last night to find that mum had been round without asking/telling us, she had tidied up and weeded the front garden AND she has planted out the two flower beds with her choice of spring plants and flowers. I was absolutely livid yet my sister thinks I should be grateful - as far as I am concerned she might as well have painted the front door or something. If she'd asked me yesterday I would have said that's fine & to just do the weeding/tidying, but she said nothing and then proceeded to plant out the garden too. I wanted to choose what went in the beds. It's the first property I've owned and I think she went too far. So this is really both an IABU and also WWYD?

OP posts:

MaryWestmacott · 09/10/2014 11:05

I'm afraid if your mum is an "over stepping the mark" type, then you have to adopt a "don't give an inch" approach, my parents are like this, my db had had his house cleaned for him - lovely, but with half his paperwork thrown out as it was "messy", and every kitchen cupboard reorganised as that's not where my mum woul keep the mugs etc- not quite so lovely.

I would send her a message saying "thank you so much for doing the weeding, but we will be putting in different plants, would you like any of the others you put in back? Also have just got a gardeners details so won't need any help again, but thank you for clearing it." Then refuse all offers I help, no matter how mild.

BiddyPop · 09/10/2014 11:08

There's a big difference between "tidying up" and "planting up".

YANBU about the planting, but it could be that she misinterpreted the permission given.

As long as she does not have a problem with you now going back and planting up in your OWN CHOICE when you get the chance (or instruct the professional to do it for you), then hopefully that should be the end of it.

SHE would BU to get upset though if you do now go ahead and do what you had already planned to do.

2rebecca · 09/10/2014 11:10

I probably wouldn't mention that I'd probably remove some of the plants. I'd just do it but if its not until next year she'll be too busy with her new house to notice and will be less upset at you changing the plants then as it will be an old project. You may decide when you work out what you want that some of the plants she put in are OK.

BiddyPop · 09/10/2014 11:11

Just make sure you don't give her a set of keys, in case you DO come home to find a lovely rose pink front door, and the hall skirtings in a nice grey, and possibly the kitchen window frames just touched up too!!

YackityYakYak · 09/10/2014 11:16

Whatever - I like your DH's style!!!!!

heythatsnotme · 09/10/2014 11:23

I'm trying not to project here but my dad used to do this. He'd come to stay and I'd never see him as he'd disappear into the garden.

It drove me MAD but also and sadly it meant I never saw him to talk to or do things with.

Then he died, suddenly. It was horribly sad as all I thought - think - was how unimportant that bloody garden was. Source of so much angst!

Yanbu OP

TeamScotland · 09/10/2014 11:27

I know my dad has been sometimes because the grass is cut.

My DFIL when he was still alive would do weeding, plant flowers, do hanging baskets etc.

YABU this time.

TeamScotland · 09/10/2014 11:29

Oh meant to add my late DFIL involved the kids in his wee gardening projects, which was lovely.

HamishBamish · 09/10/2014 11:29

I can kind of understand where you're coming from OP. It's not that you don't appreciate her help, but that she's just gone ahead and done something you had asked her not to. It's your garden and yes, it's lovely to have her help but you should be able to say what you would and wouldn't like.

TeamScotland · 09/10/2014 11:59

If I had specific plans for my garden and a parent just went ahead and did their own thing anyway, I'd be miffed. If the result was a decent garden my miffedness (fab new word) would be lessened somewhat.

Ilovexmastime · 09/10/2014 12:08

My DM is like this too. She used to come round and 'help' me by washing up (we have a dishwasher), then dry everything and put it away... where she thought it should go, not where I put it. So bloody annoying, I let it go for a while because I knew she was just trying to help, but after a while, with her insisting on putting things back where she wanted, after I'd asked her not to, I just told her to stop washing up every time she came over. Apart from anything else, she wasn't getting to see her grandchildren.
She sulked about that for ages, she can't bear not to be in control.

Of course, as I'd have actually been really grateful if she had sorted out the garden for me, she never has. She's done my brother's though!

I can appreciate how it looks to others that I'm just being grateful, but honestly, I'm 42 and my DM still acts like I'm about 17 and can't cope in the world. She also doesn't like me to have my own emotions, I should only feel what she deems to be the 'right' emotion for the situation.

I'm going to end there as I feel a rant coming on.

TeamScotland · 09/10/2014 12:12

My late DMIL used to wash up even though we had a dishwasher. She didn't believe in them. She also used to leave the washed dishes on the draining board. I used to transfer them from there into the dishwasher where they'd go through a light wash and thorough dry! Everybody happy.

WD41 · 09/10/2014 12:14

Yabu and horribly ungrateful.

You said in your OP that you have no interest in gardening, so why on earth would you care what she has planted? She obviously finds joy in gardening and it was an act of love.

So ungrateful.

SweetsForMySweet · 09/10/2014 12:14

YABU and a little ungrateful. Your mum did a kind thing for you, you should appreciate her a bit more

echt · 09/10/2014 12:22

I can see how your mum has overstepped the mark. Take out the plants she put and put them in the compost bin.

She was welcome to do any hard yakka in a garden you express no interest in in your OP. But then you want to choose the planting. Are you interested or not? There seems to be some conflict here.

I'd pay her the going rate as jobbing weeder. Check out Yellow Pages.

echt · 09/10/2014 12:22

Oh, YABU.

gotthemoononastick · 09/10/2014 12:36

Thank God it was not the MIL that did this good deed!

As you two have no interest in gardens,just imagine the surprise you will get in the spring when all the unfamiliar plants and bulbs flower.

You can then do your own thing,rip them out and put down gravel everywhere.So stylish and minimalist!

YackityYakYak · 09/10/2014 12:37

The OP is interested in having a garden HER way, and will be hiring a gardener to do exactly that. Just because she's not interested in doing it herself doesn't mean her mum has the right to do whatever she likes!!!

skylark2 · 09/10/2014 12:37

So you have no interest whatsoever in gardening until your mum does it for you, and suddenly it's the end of the world that you won't get to choose your own planting scheme?

YABU. They're spring flowers, not permanent structural planting - something you would not otherwise have had. She did a nice thing for you.

It would be different if you had any interest in the garden yourself and she'd done something you intended to.

Romann · 09/10/2014 12:40

My favourite saying is "Presume positive intent". Give it a go - it's really life changing.

Original poster

101handbags · 09/10/2014 12:44

heythatsnotme - Sorry for your loss. This sounds sooo like my mum. When we all go round to see my sister's family my mum disappears into another room to do my sister's ironing (she has a young baby, so she is happy to accept the help) while the rest of us drink tea and catch up. It's my mum's choice, but we would rather have her company but she won't listen. It's a shame really. I didn't expect so many replies - I am taking it all on board and as I expected there's a real split here. I do agree that those who have not really experienced interfering parents can't fully appreciate how I feel. It's not nice to be described as horribly ungrateful and petulant - perhaps because I am so sickeningly nice and polite to everybody to their faces that nobody would ever describe me in those terms in a million years if they met me. When I say I was livid, I mean when discussing this with my DP last night - certainly not with my mum. Time to toughen up and learn to say no a bit more and stop people walking all over me - my mum included.

OP posts:

whatever5 · 09/10/2014 12:45

You don't have to have an interest in gardening to have an interest in what the garden looks like. That's like saying that those who don't enjoy decorating shouldn't care about the decor in their house.

Original poster

101handbags · 09/10/2014 12:47

gotthemoononastick I certainly have no intention of putting gravel anywhere! I just wanted to get a professional round to discuss what I wanted and then get them to plant them - lots of greenery etc. What I want, though, not what my mum wants. I don't think I ever mentioned gravel...

OP posts:

2rebecca · 09/10/2014 12:47

I find it odd that some people can't see that just because they'd love someone to do their garden the OP is unreasonable for not feeling the same. Choosing what plants to put in someone's garden if you haven't been asked to do so and planting them without being asked is as controlling and unreasonable as redecorating their sitting room in your choice of colours without being asked. Whether parents are dead or alive is irrelevant.
My mum is dead but if she'd come round my house when I wasn't here when she was alive and put a load of plants in my garden without asking me I'd have been pissed off and thought she was being controlling.
Just because you don't want to do the gardening yourself it doesn't mean you don't want to choose what goes in it.
The OP didn't ask her mum to do the weeding, she let her do it because she had been going on about it.
Her mum did overstep the boundaries and took control of the OP's garden. If the OP suspected her mum was like this she should have just been firmer in refusing all offers of help. Also "tidy up" is a bit vague "do some weeding but no planting please" would have made things clearer.

Nanny0gg · 09/10/2014 12:50

previous owners felt the same way as the garden could do with a bit of tidying up/weeding etc. We are planning to get someone in next Spring to plant the garden out with greenery/shrubs etc. that look nice but don't need that much care.

So in other words, you are going to go with the recommendations of the gardener you get in as you have no knowledge or real interest.

What's the difference? You'll have a nice garden until you get it done next year, rather than a bare wasteland.
She probably picked a day when the weather was right and she could just get on.

If there's a backstory you should have just said No, but as you said Yes then I think you're very ungrateful.

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