Is gardening outdated

[BulbsAndLampsDiffer]

I live on an estate, on my road I am generally surrounded by couples/ single mums in their 30s and 40s. I am single mum try to maintain my garden both front and rear, paining fences, mowing the lawn and general weeding, so very cheap and easy. However when looking around I feel like the only one to be doing do with lots of weeds on driveways and un mown front gardens. I know it’s not a priority in modern busy life.
For convex some one said to me years ago it is impossible to have a tidy home, tidy child and tidy mum. And I do let myself slip in order to keep my home and child looking put together.
No judgment just curious if where I live is the norm.
YABU too busy to pull up weeds
YANBU pride in your garden

On the contrary, everyone I know, seems to be really getting into it.
DH and I have always sown tomatoes, garlic, chillies, cucumbers,courgettes, beans, spinach, squashed, various beans and peas.
We also grow a lot of soft fruits and propagate cuttings.
Every year we get more and more requests from friends and colleagues asking for cuttings and advice.

@hooverbob · Today 08:09

There just isn't time for everything these days.

Yet you have time to read threads and comment on Mumsnet.

It is just a convenient excuse to say that you can't be bothered.

After reading many responses. I think I am referring to house maintenance which to me is important to a clean kitchen.
My garden will not win any awards but it is presentable and I am proud to walk to my front door.
Anything more than mowing and weeding costs money, hence why I am waiting for payday to finish painting my fence. If I had the money there is a lot more I would wish to do. I have a proportional large front grass area that is of no use but given the money I would like to do something with but for now I will continue to mow.

I live on an urban street where most people take pride in their gardens, often with the help of gardeners.
The average resident is older than most streets though. As they die off, new people come that pave over all the flower beds and just have a robot mower for the lawn or get a gardener.

I don't care about my front garden because I don't spend any time in it. It doesn't benefit me to have a lovely front garden. I don't enjoy gardening so any time I have to spend doing it, I spend on the back garden which I actually use, so I benefit from the boring hard work.

YABU to talk about letting yourself ‘slip’.

some people enjoy gardening, some people dont. Some people are busier than others.

normally mine is reasonably tidy but with all the rain the weeds are having a field day at the moment and it’s going to have to wait till I have time to get it done and a day off work.

the gardens near me that are immaculate at the moment are tended to be retired people and SAHP.

Our garden isn't great. We tried to get a local gardener to come in and help us keep on top of it but everyone was too busy. We both work and we both have chronic health issues / disabilities and DH's often limits his mobility. We do weed and cut the grass and try to keep on top of it but we just don't have the knack and everything grows so fast at this time of year that you do it one week and the next its already looking overgrown again. We also tried to get a landscaper in to simplify the garden, we really are clueless about it. We want to keep natural grass and things that are beneficial for bees and birds but neither of us come from homes where parents gardened so we just don't know what to do. The Garden is also at the bottom of a hill and very, wet and soggy.

Ideas about gardens are changing to be healthier for the planet - “weeds” in driveways all help to build space for insects ,long grass is great for insects and birds

its actually quite hard to create a wildlife friendly garden that looks acceptable to old fashioned eyes

Gardening is a lot of work and people don’t have the time. I have lots of plants and trees but it’s time consuming

Remind him that under UK law it is against the law to cut a hedgerow between March and August.
What an idiot he is.

There's definitely a trend here for no-mow May and to let "weeds" and grass grow for the insects. We do it ourselves and mow a path through it so it looks more deliberate rather than lazy. I actually love all the daisies and dandelions in the lawn. A perfect lawn looks sterile to me.

I like gardening but am not very good at it. I had no interest before I was 42 though and just did the absolute minimum. Tbf, my old garden looked overgrown but had amazing wildlife. I'd rather an overgrown garden than fake grass or 90% paving.

Ah I think that’s really good to hear !!

I think it is perhaps seen as a lesser priority nowadays. I so admire a beautifully kept garden and the work that's gone into it though.

Mine is an overgrown mess at the moment, everything needs cutting or cutting back. The front isn't too bad as I cut the grass before the last heatwave and it hasn't grown much.
I worried about cutting all the ivy back because I think there are birds nesting in it, so waiting until they have left, although I am not sure when that would be ?

I was at an RHS lecture about the loss of green spaces in the UK, and everyone thinks of big housing estates built on brown or green belts, or deforestation etc, bur actually 80% of front gardens in the UK are now paved to make room for the amount of cars we now have, and our way of parcelled up land into little gardens with fences/walls etc makes it difficult to call it a green space anymore.

So yes people are gardening less, using gardens as outdoor rooms more. People are busy too and perhaps think gardening takes more time than it needs to, or can't afford to pave their garden in such a way that weeds won't grow etc. If they have kids they won't want to spray weedkiller to keep them down etc etc.

I'm a gardener so I love working in the garden and it doesn't have to take loads of time, but people are so busy now.

If they are a single mother, works full time and has multiple kids then she’s not really going to have the spare time to pluck weeds is she? Hardly a priority.

That's an intriguing question. Obviously, lots of flats and apartments but also miles and miles of suburbia in Greater London. I wonder how they balance out and what percentage of Londoners (and the UK) has a garden.

(And what counts as a garden? Is a beautifully tended balcony a garden? Is a paved front garden still a garden?)

A few plants in containers are not too time consuming but weeding is an absolute faff, we never seem to get on top of it.

We've always taken in interest in having a colourful garden, this year has been the best. DH does all the hard labour and I swan around and prune the odd shrub and dead head the roses - which is a constant task but they smell so gorgeous and you need to encourage more to flower.

Lavender is a fairly tolerant plant and the bees love it

Gardening isn't outdated, gardening is a lot harder, because people do not look after their gardens like they used to and your forever digging up weeds that have blown in from other gardens.

I love my garden looking nice, but ita definitely more difficult weeding constantly.

80% of front gardens in the UK are not paved over. That's just nonsense.

It's taken until my 40s for me to get into gardening. Just wasn't on my radar before, I saw it as a nuisance, now I appreciate it.

Lack of time (and the unpredictable weather, it rains a lot here) means gardening is probably low on the list for a lot of young working parents.

Retired people's gardens are usually lovely 'cos they've got all the time in the world!

Funny you posted this as just this morning I was looking out to the roses that are all along the back of our garden which we left from the previous owners and thought to myself, they’re so old fashioned. I hate them. The same goes for all the plants we’ve just left to grow.

I’d love to re-do the entire thing but I’d be pulling up all the flowers (I know, I’m evil) and planting more modern things with lots of pots but the key is it would have to be low maintenance. I don’t love gardening so in the very small amount of spare time I have it’s not something I want to do.

My garden is tidy and friendly to wildlife you can have it both and not infringe on your neighbours.

Some of the people in my street have hedges that are so overgrown you can not get past them on the pavement and these are all private houses!

I love my garden. But I don’t want to live in Disneyland so I allow some controlled chaos to occur - plus I garden organically as really I want to support wildlife. But, it
is obviously a nightmare if you like straight edges and perfect control over nature 🤣.

Did you ever consider getting rid of the grass at the front and giving over nearly the whole space to planting? Make a virtue of the vice?

I did this in my last house and it was so successful - I did it section by section, taking plant giveaways on Social media, doing seed swaps. In summer I get up at 5am and do my hour of gardening and it’s blissful; in winter I do a lot less but I will get outside at the weekend (after a while you don’t feel the cold).

I bought small “starter” shrubs and took cuttings from friends and relatives. Inside 2 years that filled all the big spaces with things like lavenda , rosemary and rock rose, along with a few things I picked up randomly but couldn’t identify later! Then I interplanted with fun things that caught my eye or would happily spread like mint and poppies, aquilegia, sweet Williams, wallflowers and snapdragons.

Herbs do great in gardens like that too - and it feels so satisfying when you can eat your own stuff! The bees love chives; borage is pretty and self seeds; thyme can creep everywhere and suppress weeds; sage establishes quickly and likes to be cut back savagely - then it will grow huge and be covered in flowers that attract insects.

You might also enjoy growing lemon balm
(although it can be a thug/get unruly!) which is very easy to grow, and a climbing rose if you have a wall.

For structure I added a big feature pot with a baytree as I like to cook with bay, and a bird table (one of these metal ones with hooks and hanging feeders).

Oh and finally I made a quiet corner for a pile of old wood, which is full of creepy crawlies. I have learned not to scream when I lift a pot and find 50 woodlice underneath. I actively like spiders now. The ants, I hate them - but well, you can’t win ‘em all.

It’s immensely satisfying and a fabulous talking point to re-wild your front garden and let nature and flowers guide your planting decisions.

give it a whirl.

Gardening will never be outdated OP. Without plants we would all die. Without people who know about horticulture the human race would be properly screwed.

I'm doing RHS Level 2 at the moment and trust me, there are a gazillion people out there who are obsessed with gardening and plants.

Fly the flag for gardening on your street, maybe others will notice and take inspiration. Do your bit for pollinators (in serious decline and we depend on them for food) maybe others will follow suit. Don't stop gardening just because others aren't bothering, make your patch an oasis :-) Be proud of your garden, what you are doing there is important, more than you realise.