If your garden is messy, do you still sit in it and enjoy it?

[Wheeder]

We did a massive job 6 weeks ago. Looks like shit again. Cba to be honest. Lawn mower is dodgy, not going to spend an hour trying to get it on.

Do you sit in messy gardens?

No, which is why I got a gardener. £25 per hour- he does 2 hours a fortnight between April and October so around £350 a year which means the garden is always under control and I can potter - I'm not a fan of gardening but find it easy to keep the garden tidy if he's been.

What he does in an hour would take me about 6 (and I'd hate it).

Our garden is rewilded (see the Ark Movement) and I get so much joy from watching all the bees and butterflies feeding on the wildflowers. Can’t stand a tidy garden - they are tidy biological wastelands.

I have a small scruffy garden. I like it that way. I do cut things back and plant nice flowers but for the most part I like having it as a little nature reserve and letting things grow naturally. So to me it isn't a mess, but others may think it is.
So I'd say yes :)

Nope.
our front garden we keep fairly neat-ish but it’s completely open to the street so no privacy at all, but I’ll sit out there to supervise the kids playing.

our back garden is a disaster. Overgrown and full of cat poo - none of us go out there. I won’t even hang the washing out there.
DH is gradually digging it up to level it and lay patio instead. Once that’s done we’ll have a table and chairs to sit out there.

Yes, I sit in mine. I do want to make it look nicer, but I’m going to try and do that in a fairly natural kind of way. As long as the grass is short enough to walk on, I don’t mind dandelions and daisies in it and I’m going to plant low maintenance perennials and dig a nature pond.

Normally no, I would sit down & then see little jobs that need doing but the fact that that there have been so few opportunities to sit outside I have & just ignored everything!

It'll be raining again tomorrow so I've decided to make the most of it!

Depends on your definition of messy. My neighbour thinks my garden is messy, I've overheard them whining about it but it's a wildlife garden so the grass is tall and I've left things that have self seeded to go into flower. But it's beautiful and well looked after just not sterile.

Couldn’t do it. Can only just sit out here when it’s pristine. Don’t like UK muggy sweaty sticky weather. This helps though….

Forgot to attach

Such nonsense. Ours is tidy and it’s full of insects, so many butterflies, bees, dragon flies, and everything in between, my husband trimmed some wisteria today and was concerned as it was so full of bees he’d get stung.

are people so ill informed they actually think if you’re garden is tidy it is a sterile wasteland. The grass, the plants, the trees, the shrubs, the insects love it all.

I'm gardening for wildlife this year, cut the grass in March and will do the hay cut at end of August, it's very meadowy sorrel is 5ft high, ox eye daisies 4ft as is the knap weed and poppies. I have a path to sit by the wildlife pond but other than let leaving it to it's own devices.

DD is a teen and no real interest in the garden, we've had years of short grass, climbing frames and trampolines in the past and they've all gone now. I go out and eat my lunch by the pond most days in summer if the weather allows as WFH and a cup of tea in the evening otherwise it rarely gets used so seemed daft to keep cutting it when it could be beneficial to wildlife .

@Myblindsaredown of course you are right, bees and insects will love any flowers. However wildlife gardening isn't necessarily about just feeding pollinators but providing very niche habitats for native species, leaving areas of the garden untidy suchas leaving stems of plants for some species of bees to lay eggs in instead of tidying them away etc. Increasing biodiversity richness often improves the populations of insects less noticed like different species of moths that you miss as they only come out at night.

My patio doors are broken and not being replaced until next week.
I've not been able to get out in my back garden since last year because I have no back gate.
The grass is above the knee and looks unsightly.
Once my new patio doors are fitted I will cut my grass straight away because I can't bare sitting in a messy long grassed garden.
It feels dirty and even more bugs

I'm a keen gardener so mine is tidy all the time because I'm out there all year round, I've been addicted since I was knee-high to a grasshopper but it isn't a source of judgement to me if people choose a wild garden. People have demands on their time and budget, everyone's different including their priorities for gardening.

It really doesn't matter, the insects and bird couldn't care less as long as you keep a source of clean water for them most days and there's diversity and pollen-friendly plants. Even though we keep the grass short, our garden attracts loads of pollinators, hedgehogs, squirrels, bats, sodding slugs .

This time of year birds have plenty of food but in the winter I put seeds and fatballs out there on the bird feeder and stand at the kitchen window watching them.

we have our dinner in the garden every evening, when it's warm and dry, but at the weekend, I don't sit down in the day, apart from a quick cuppa - I'd find myself listing out the gardening jobs I need to do!

My garden is messy. Too embarrassed to sit out. DH died three years ago. State of the garden is down to a combination of physical ill health and bereavement depression.

Had a shoulder decompression about a year ago. Starting to get back to physical stuff, but my knees are shot and the consultant says they'll not consider a replacement for at least another 10 years. I'll be 74 by then, if I'm still here.

I'm trying to do a bit at a time in the hope that I'll have a section I can sit in.

I've been concentrating on the front and thinking that I could sit on the verandah and read a book, but I've realised that I have issues to deal with round the back: in the space of one month, the greenhouse has been overtaken by a bramble. I've chopped it up and applied glyphosate, but I need to try to get to the roots.

Realised that the padlock on the back gate wouldn't open - I wanted to clear my section of the common path. (It's not bad - I'm one of the few folk who takes care of my own section.) WD40 didn't work. Boltcutters wouldn't get through the padlock. Had to cut the ruddy hasp, so now I have that to replace.

At least I can get out the gate now. Have found a length of chain and another padlock as a stopgap.

I can’t see any sort of mess or untidiness in the garden or my home and sit and enjoy it. It nags at me to sort it out until everything is just right. Being disabled makes this very hard but it is essential to my peace of mind.
Part of my OCD diagnosis but I would add that not everybody who is very tidy has ocd and the term is frequently misused.
In a way I envy people who can feel more relaxed about things.

Yes, I do.
I don't cut my grass, it's kept at about calf height by people walking on it, hanging out washing etc. I have clover, chamomile, self heal, ladies smock and all sorts growing through it. My borders are wild and I have all sorts of things that I have never planted -2 ash trees, a goat willow, cottoneaster, evening primrose, Melissa, all sorts of wildflowers that have just sprung up. I let my bird food grow where it drops on the ground.
I love it. My tiny garden is bursting with life. The birds, bees, butterflies, moths, voles, beasties and even frogs it attracts are so much better than close cropped grass and soulless, structured borders weeded to within an inch of their lives.

Even when my garden was tidy, I had wild sections. Don't think the neighbours approved.

No. And I'm incredibly irritable when the house is a mess, too.

Love the garden after a good mow. Makes 80% difference. Also have a paddock intentionally left natural. My chickens love it in this field and I put my sunchair in here.

And this is where so many people get it wrong, you don’t need to leave it “untidy” , it’s about the right plants, in the right place, managed correctly. Leaving it “untidy’ Is simply the lazy way.

Mines a jungle. A massive mainly badly paved jungle and it has weeds and grass coming up every crack. The wildlife have reclaimed it. I keep the bit nearest the house cleared and swept and just throw an outdoor rug and some pillows out and chill in it every day.

I also spend 10mins in morning and 10/15 in evening just playing with one bit and working my way round the garden. I do it whilst having a brew break. Looks better for it and I feel better. Progress not perfection and all that.

I have a garden-ish. Its not landscaped, that would look ridiculous TBH. Pots, slate waste, slate patio using slabs i found, somewhere to sit.

but im rural and don’t really need a garden. I have greenery all around.

Some might say our garden is overgrown - our grandkids call it "the jungle". But I love the green, I hate to see bare earth and bare fences. So we have ivy, golden hops, honeysuckle and other climbers slugging it out over all the fences and up the pergola (which helps with the privacy aspect) and very densely planted shrubs, perennials and annuals in the flowerbeds. It's only a small garden, but this kind of planting means there is little if any weeding and lots of cutting back. Since I hate weeding and love cutting stuff, this suits me just fine. And best of all, it doesn't take much time to do, so I can get back to the gardening I am best at. The kind that is done on a sun bed with a glass of something cool in my hand.

I think gardens are like houses.

Shabby chic can be quite enchanting in the large garden of a nice home in a pleasant area if the basics are taken care of. So a patio that isn't in disrepair, a fence that isn't falling apart with panels missing. No broke furniture slung outside etc. Grass that's a little too long and a few unpruned bushes is fine.

But if it's a tiny garden attached to a house which needs work with broken patio stones and an old washing machine, then it's not so charming.

It's the same with houses, a large Victorian house with decent flooring, walls and furniture can cope with a bit of shabby chic. A council flat with peeling lino and scuffed skirting board really can't.