To be totally overwhelmed by the garden?

[flyingtartar]

It defeats me every fucking year. Last year, for obvious reasons, I got on top of it and got some pleasure out of it and thought it would be a turning point. This year I started out with good intentions in the Easter break (I'm a teacher) and mowed the lawn and did some weeding and planting. Then it rained solidly for a month.

This morning I have gone out there and it's just awful. The lawn is massive, there are waist high dandelions and other weeds around the edges. These weird things that I think are comfrey (?) are out of control and shrubs that had been cut to stumps are flourishing in an unattractive way. The lavender I planted last year looks good and can just about be seen, the carpet rose I planted is alive but barely identifiable and the hydrangea I planted at Easter is amazingly alive but only visible if you go right up to it.

It doesn't help that I'm really scared of slugs and snails so won't go out unless it's been dry for a few days. Also a big hebe in the front that had been there for a few years had died for some reason so that needs sorting too.

When I go running literally every garden looks tidy and the majority look lovely yet this seems beyond me. I posted on a million sites and a guy is coming round later so hopefully it will be better by tonight and ds1 has decided to dig up the dead thing, but AIBU to think every other person manages to keep on top of this?

Plenty of people who have no garden would leap at the chance to potter about in yours unpaid for your mutual benefit. . Advertise for volunteers on NextDoor.

I work as a gardener and the demand for my services is always pretty high - I can promise you that a lot of people do not keep on top of their gardens!

Also my own garden is a mess at the moment...

I love gardens but have never been any good at hardening. I wish I was. I feel exhausted and defeated by it every year. I plant things, they don’t grow. Or the wrong things grow. I’m just useless at it. Weeds everywhere.

Totally with you, see my username. Makes me want to cry, it's an acre and I just stand staring at it for ages, get covered in scratches, sneeze like mad with hay fever, come back in and feel depressed! I have a gardener thank God but honestly it's like using a dustpan and brush to clear up earthquake rubble . She can only do a couple of hours a week so barely touched it. I've got a bad back and allergies so am utterly pathetic really.

Cocolapew

Ours in wild for the wildlife too but it's beyond even that really! We have snakes, the lot 🐍

SAME OMFG. Every Time I look at it I feel sick. Our hedges are wild and it's all top much.

I love gardening and I would much prefer to look at a garden like yours than a horrible ‘low maintenance’ garden. Yours will be a haven for wildlife and wildflowers. Why not tidy a little corner and enjoy the wilderness?

Too much that should say. Also I pressed post too soon. I pressure washed the patio this afternoon and it took 3 hours. Knackered. Wish I could afford someone to come fix it but got quoted £700 the other day just to tackle the hedge!

I have an overgrown garden, and I don't care if the neighbours hate it. It's good for wildlife. My front lawn has long grass, dandelions, clover, nettles and bushes. It's often covered in flowers, and moths and bees and there are birds nesting in the jasmine bush. Many of my neighbours have pristine resin driveways which gleam with cleanliness, but all the rain immediately runs off and floods the gutters, and there is absolutely nothing for wildlife. Every so often I chop the lawn back, but it never looks pristine. I just keep reminding myself that it's much better for nature to be as it is. It smells amazing at the moment because there is a huge drift of bluebells which just came up by themselves.

I hate gardening and am planning on patio stones over it as I do not have the time to be doing it.

This is why people have small patio gardens or fake grass. (I hate the latter but hate gardening so understand the pain).

Oh my, I don't care if people think he was too expensive - the garden looks so neat now. We even ate out there. I get that a bit unruly is better for wildlife, but when it's just a massive mess it's too depressing. I wouldn't mind if there was ever any colour out there... I tried with the wildflower seeds one year but none ever came up. I actually don't hate doing it and last year surprised myself by how much I did enjoy it, but it's all too much when I'm not wfh and it's so bloody wet! I'll definitely get some bedding plants this week - I was thrilled to discover last year that they do actually spread; they even blocked the sodding comfrey.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone, though I wish some of your houses were on my running route!

You need to remove the weeds around your favourite plants and put a thick layer of bark mulch around them if you don’t want weeds coming back (and choking your plants/shrubs).

Rough long grassy borders are good for wildlife. Yellow rattle can be planted as a grass substitute, or tough native ground cover plants that spread quickly and inhibit weeds.

I agree with a previous poster that nice gardens take work. We love ours and do something in the garden every day, sometimes spending hours and hours (like today, cutting the hedges then clearing up the mess and taking it to the tip, a full weekend job) and sometimes just an hour weeding a border, planting out veg or potting things on in the greenhouse. But it does involve doing something almost every single day, most days of the year. We are lucky as I'm retired and my husband is semi retired so we have the time to do it.

It is a labour of love for us but there is no denying it is hard work and if you don't have the time or the inclination you either need to pay someone or have your garden re-designed to be very low maintenance. 🙂

I love gardening but don’t get much time to devote to it (max 3 hours a week). Last year as I had a newborn, we planted some wild flower seed mix and it went bedeck. We couldn’t see out of our front windows. I felt so discouraged and defeated.
This year, our garden is starting to look much better. A few well chosen, low maintenance evergreen shrubs and some perennial bulbs mean we are getting g somewhere.
So OP please don’t feel discouraged. Get a gardener in to get it all into shape and the you can continue with the maintenance. Or if you really don’t like gardening and can afford it, employ a gardener all year round. And just sit back and enjoy it. Life is too short.

@Mygardenisanightmare, OP, and others - have you seen AllotMe? A chance to rent out some garden space to other people who want some. Not sure if it works or is of any use but I thought I'd mention it.

We have a fairly big garden, around 100ft and pre DS it was lovely I had a yearly timetable of what needed pruning/planting etc and would go out in the evening for an hour or so to keep it nice. I have no time for that now, so we end up blitzing it and then it grows wild again. Biggest advice, don't plant wild flowers/bee bombs. They will look lovely in their areas the first year, then you'll get massive weeds and random stuff growing all over the place, parts of your lawn will get taken over etc. I've found hydrangeas, camellias and rhododendrons to be fairly hardy and good for colour. Having said that our camellias have gone crazy this year and need hacking right back. Roses are also quite easy in our garden, I basically ignore them then prune/deadhead quite aggressively and they come back beautifully. We are in the South and get a lot of sun and our soil is quite acidic, so that probably makes a difference, I can easily grow tomatoes, peppers, chillis, strawberries in pots not needing a greenhouse even for seedlings (those were the days when I had time for my garden!).

Edge it with railway sleepers leaving a thick border of 3-5 ft . Chuck meadow seeds in those borders and let the wildlife flourish. Then it’s just a lawn to mow which you can pay a local teenage boy 20 quid for. Job done and good for wildlife too .

rewild it

The best thing I ever did was have my garden landscaped. I have two massive raised beds, a patio, two circular fake grass lawns and the rest is pebbles.

We did it because we have dogs, and it sounds counter-intuitive, but I do more gardening now than ever and it looks gorgeous. I have mini-raised beds with veg growing in in one area; a zen garden with an acer and various appropriate ornaments under a plum tree in another area; a mini-pond; a wildflower bed; tons of pots; a hammock under an old apple tree - I love it.

It’s manageable at last, and all the stuff I do out there is enjoyable. Before we had it done I felt like I was running to stand still and it was no pleasure at all.

Low maintenance is the way forward!

I haven't cut my lawn for over 2 months. I'm growing it until it is a proper jungle. Then I'm going to paint my DC's face like a tiger, turn them loose to prowl and hopefully lose them for the afternoon.

This was us. My DH has terrible hay-fever so asking him to cut the grass was just a no. It was all left to me and it constantly looked a mess so now I have a wonderful man, every other week who mows, weeds and edges the lawns. Twice a year he does a big job when he cuts things back, hedges etc. I love him and can finally enjoy the garden.

Ah that’s great news it is looking good op, that seems money well spent and you can now enjoy it and hopefully keep on top of it much easier.

On a side note, I’m sure you know that wildlife will come to your garden if you’ve plants, grass etc. They don’t need it to be over grown.😂

Please don’t cover your garden with artificial grass and pebbles. It looks awful and is terrible for wildlife
The best low maintenance plants are trees! Forget the fiddling little annual bedding plants and plant a beautiful tree.

I enjoy gardening but agree it’s an ongoing job to maintain. If you can afford to maybe getting someone to cut the lawn regularly would probably help

A big garden is a lot of work. My last garden was beautiful but I'd spend an hour after work every day making it look lovely. I was a bit obsessed and I'd trim the edges with scissors but it looked amazing. Its one of those things that you need to do regularly. At least every other day for half an hour minimum.