AIBU to rip out a beautiful garden in potential house?

[Mum2HC]

Looking at new house - only one we like. Owner is an older couple who have spent years creating a garden worthy of an National Trust property!! The issue is we do not enjoy gardening and do not want to have to pay a gardener to keep all the flowers in check. Would it be awful to take out half the gardens flowers and replace with grass? It is 0.8 acre so a very big garden and our children would much prefer all turf to play football etc. It would feel almost criminal to do it but we don't want the upkeep - they also have a large rose garden which we would rather take out and have a vegetable garden. Is this all just too much?! It is the only house we like in our ideal location. It must be a full time job to look after it!!

I think people who are keen gardeners, those who feel a deep connection with nature and love having their hands in the soil do understand how this can be heartbreaking.

I've said here I'm a professional gardener but it's also my hobby too.
I upsized from my old garden and left behind a front garden that I'd put my heart and soul into. Here's a photo of the garden I created from new build debris. Obviously the new people were free to do exactly as they'd pleased and they tore out the plants and laid lawn.

It made me sad, but I've created a new garden here that is 100% wildlife friendly so I all is well.

On Saturdays I visit my old next door neighbour and I have a wry smile to myself when I say hello to the new owner of my old house as he plugs in the mower. Here's the lawn he has now. I suppose it's what he wanted.

I think it’s fine to clear SOME beds (maybe the rose garden) to create a space for football climbing frame etc but leave the borders round the edges. As pp say the roses could be offered to others.

I know a couple of families who have taken on gardens like this, both have ended up clearing some beds but left a lot of it. The owners in both cases were downsizing and admitted the garden had got too much for them so I think that reduces the guilt. There’s not very many people who would have the time and the health (or the money) for this kind of garden. Basically it’s empty nesters but who are still in good health and love gardening- a fairly narrow pool of people.

The families I know do however both love plant and have kept as much as they could. I think it would be tragic to take all this out and just have turf. If you really have zero interest in plants and keeping any of it then I would pass.

My advice If you do feel you need a lawn would be just to change one area into lawn. Then tell the owners you will be changing a small area to create a lawn for playing and if they want any plants from that area alone they are free to take them. Don't just tell them to take stuff out randomly since that will leave spaces everywhere and create work.

I know that dilemma OP! I took over a very small but beautiful and loved garden with old rose plants that smelled divine in the summer. It took me a long time to develop an interest in gardening as it always felt like there was something better to do during the weekends.

I can only say that established gardens take a lot of time and money before they get to that stage, so are worth preserving if within your means.

Do you think there will be people living nearby who love tending to gardens but have too little space of their own? I have an elderly gentleman neighbour like this… he’d go up and down the road trimming all the hedges back and tidying up the paths in general - he is very much appreciated by everyone!

Also, are you likely to have lots of roses to take as cut flowers when they’re in bloom? A bit fantastical, but I can imagine Open Days in a garden or a little flower cart with posies out front. Sorry if that’s totally unrealistic.

while I agree about not being able to expect stewardship, you have zero idea why the sellers are selling. Saying "if they loved it that much then they wouldn't" is just ridiculous.

Buy another house that’s someone’s dream garden.

open days and selling posies? really???

Not buying a house which is otherwise perfect for you because you don't want to manage a garden is mad. What next, not buying a house because it has a room with nice wallpaper?

OP, absolutely crack on, buy the house and rip the garden out if that suits your lifestyle.

Of course you can be selling your home for lots of reasons and still love it.

We are merely custodians of the properties we live in. I've loved, and continue to love, my first home in London. I had it for five years and loved being a part of its history. It was 100 years older than me and will no doubt live another 100 or more after.

I also loved the tiny arts and craft house I rented in Belfast. Though I still wince when I pass that house knowing the new owners ripped out a beautiful flowering wisteria as soon as they moved in and all the irises that lined its tiled pathway. The house looks less pretty from the street. I dread to think what they did to its period features.

I love the old stone cottage I'm in now with its 0.75 acre garden and I will be sad when we put it on the market, probably next year. It's been a very happy home that has been loved by us and the families before us. We bought this house over another because it had a mature garden - you can't buy that. We weren't gardeners as such and we've happily let the borders go wild but its bought us so much pleasure. The grass is the most high maintenance part of our garden as others have pointed out on this thread.

Yes, you can look at a house as purely transactional (me and mine) if you must but I pity those who do. What a miserable way to go through life. Our choices do impact on others, not least the creatures we inhabit this planet with and the future generations who find their way to that front door. It's simply not the same as ripping out a wetroom.

I really hope you reconsider. There are other houses and this one deserves better stewards.

presumably that comment was to put the OP off buying!

.8 of an acre is a big garden, whatever you do to it is going to be a lot of work. I’m not sure this is the house for you.
I couldn’t rip it out, I just couldn’t !

A family member had a similar dilemma recently. The house they moved into had a mature garden, not huge but with no grass and some unusual plants, some very large. They just wanted mostly grass for their young children to play. They had the whole lot taken out and the area grassed over, with just a narrow flower-bed at the side - but before it was done they advertised locally that anyone who wanted any of the plants was welcome to come and dig them up and take them, free (with times arranged, obviously). A local community garden took a lot, and neighbours etc. most of the others.

Perhaps you could do something similar. I don’t think you should be bound by the previous owner's taste in gardens; over the years beautiful gardens rise and fall, but it was nice to think that the plants were going to good homes.

Its soooo not like wallpaper. Whatever they do with what is in the garden, the actual acreage will remain and need some kind of care. If you can't/don't want to put in the care or pay for the care and don't want to live with a total mess then maybe its not the house for them?

its the "not huge" that makes the difference!

bring back the laugh emoji

Awful thing to do, just think of the wildlife.

That is so sad ! And the lawn is possibly more work than the flower bed, dragging the lawnmower from the back garden.
I hope your new garden is beautiful and full of bees and butterflies.

Depending on how that garden has been managed, there may not be that much wildlife!

Fundamentally, unless you pave it over completely - 0.8 acre takes a lot of looking after - even if you lawn it all.

Friends in their late 60s took on a large established beautiful garden - they both love gardening but won't pay for help - it's too much for them and they are fit and energetic.

Seems a shame you can't leave the house for someone who would love the garden.

Highly unlikely. The pollinators alone will benefit hugely. Even if they were laying up slug pellets and using weed killer (which clearly they wouldn't be with that type of garden since it would also kill the intentional plants), that garden will be creating a significant ecological benefit.

Except that OP not taking on this property doesn’t mean that the person who does buy it won’t come in and level it, sell it off to developers in a garden grab deal etc.

It’s up to OP whether she choses to try and preserve some of it [and I hope she can, whilst adapting it to her children’s needs], but not buying it offers absolutely no guarantees that the garden will remain in the future. In fact the likelihood is that any future buyer will rip much of it out.

If she loves the house, location and all the rest that it offers in an area where very little comes onto market, she should absolutely buy it and grapple with how to proceed with the garden once she is in situ.

ETA just to add… it is our lawns that require the most input and maintenance. At least half a day a fortnight (or weekly in the growing season if it rains a lot). The shrubs/flowers only need annual titivating… never underestimate the commitment of a large lawn!

Ouch. That kind of hurts my heart a little. I bet your friend misses her lovely view.

Its beautiful but virtually a full time job to keep it up.
If you buy it its yours to do with what you wish. Maybe you could post on a local.facebook page for people to come and take what they want

For perspective 0.8 acre is about 10 allotment plots.

My one allotment plot keeps me occupied in my spare time all summer.