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!!

OP please watch David Attenborough’s new show “Secret Garden” before you consider doing this sad thing :(

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002tsb4/secret-garden-series-1-3-the-lake-district?seriesId=m002sthz-structural-1-m002stj1

Roses are so easy ... a chop once a year. Plus, the pleasure you get from wandering down to pick them for the house. It's so therapeutic.

Give the garden a year, to view it through the seasons.Take a gardening friend round to identify the plants. Who knows, there may be peonies ... such expensive flowers and they take years to grow.There might be lovely daffodils in spring; zero effort required.

Is there a local college that offers gardening courses? Might be students willing to do work experience.

If you remove some plants, please offer them to other people first. Get them to come and dig them up.

Surely that is the garden of Monk's House in East Sussex?

If it isn't, it looks exactly like it.

If you don’t like gardening absolutely do not start vegetable gardening…it’s much more time consuming and hard work than you can possibly imagine.
The rest of it is a beautiful garden and it would be a shame to rip it out but maybe they will take the roses and other perennials with them if you say what your plans are - they want to sell after all, and will realise you might not want the same set up.

Those gardens are the opposite of the manicured borders the OP is describing. In one of them, the family are even filmed - gasp - playing football!

Don't think about veg gardening. It is labour intensive. Flower beds don't have to be massively high maintenance. The middle way is to keep the flower beds but accept a bit of a wilder look. Could you clear a space for the kids to have a kick around but keep some of the flower beds for beauty. I agree with a pp to keep it for a while and see how it goes. But definitely don't start a vegetable garden. They're a labour intensive nightmare.

There are plenty of people who do not have have access to a garden but would love one. Instead of ripping it up you could advertise locally to see if anyone can maintain it for you.

Me too! Imo, this is not the house - or garden - for you @Mum2HC.

Our last garden was on the Historic Parks and Gardens register (Wales) although it was a mass of weeds surrounded by huge trees when we took it on. We created a beautiful 0.5 acre garden worthy of being on the register, planting hundreds of perennials and shrubs including more than sixty David Austin roses. If our buyers decided to rip it out (although we'll never know as we moved back home to England 😍), I'd be inclined to do as a previous poster suggested and haunt them!

It would be utter sacrilege to remove the garden that has obviously taken the current owners decades to perfect. Couldn't you keep the garden and teach your DC to appreciate it (and play ball games in the park) - who knows one might grow up to be the next Arthur Parkinson or Frances Tophill?

@Mum2HC

Seems odd to buy a house with a massive garden (nearly an acre) if you don't like gardening.

'The only house we like.'

How many have you actually looked at?

YABVU obviously. You remind me of one of my neighbours - a woman in her 30s - on her own, who bought a 3 bed cottage 4 years ago with half an acre of garden (same as us.) She CBA with the garden either, and it's baffling that she bought a house with a big garden!!!

The outside is as scruffy as fuck because she doesn't like gardening. She has dropped hints a number of times (mostly to the men in the village.) A few times she has asked outright, and a few times she has put on Facebook 'hey I am wondering if a big strong man (like you) might fancy mowing my lawns, weeding my flowerbeds, and trimming my overgrown bushes? I can't afford to pay, but I do have coffee and Boaster Biscuits!'

Cheek! No man has ever agreed to do it (why the hell should they?) and she refuses to pay anyone, so it's a fucking dump, full of dog shit as she has 3 dogs, and can't see most of the shit so just leaves it. The cheeky cow even asked me once, because I love my garden and keep it lovely, and am in there for much of the Spring and Summer. She said 'you can do my garden if you want, I can see you love gardening.' I said 'I love doing MY garden, doing anyone else's would be a chore. No thanks.' Then I handed her a leaflet for 'Tom's Gardening Services.' She said 'errr, no thanks, I'm not paying anyone!' Utterly farcical! She won't pay as she 'can't afford it' but smokes like a fucking chimney, and goes to the local pub twice a week. Also has designer clothes.

If you CBA with gardening, then get a flat, or a house with a very small garden -preferably mostly paved/decked....

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When (if) it’s your garden you can do what you like. You might find that some of it isn’t as high maintenance as you think though, as others have said mature shrubs and trees aren’t hard to maintain and stop weeds from growing. Annual flowers will either disappear or self-seed.
I think you should offer the sellers (and maybe even the gardener) the opportunity to take what they want, but I wouldn’t do that until after you exchange as it might put them off you.

That is a LOT of garden. I would probably keep some and make the rest work for you. If you are not a good gardener it can be stressful, I have a tiny garden with beds and bushes and spend a LOT of time cutting back the bushes/weeding/wondering why ive managed to kill a plan tree again. Conversely, mowing is very satisfying and much easier. That garden looks amazing so I would leave it a year and see what is actually manageable.

You know what will work for you, but that's a mature garden and will likely be a lot easier to keep in check than doing the work of a brand-new garden/veg patch, etc. Our garden is probably a tenth of that size, and we started with nothing, literally a pile of mud, and its taken a year of my DH working every weekend just to get it to a point where we have a lawn, some borders with plants in and space to sit. This is because just getting a bit of land to a neutral point is a lot of graft and expense. Even a big lawn will be a significant amount of work to maintain, needing biweekly mowing at least in the summer. If you have almost an acre of land, whatever you do with it, it will need attention and time — weeding, mowing, cutting back, pruning, tidying etc. Perhaps you need a house with less land? I just can't see it working for you if you think that maintaining what is a really well kept garden and really won't take a huge effort will be too much.

OP did say they were similar pictures she found on the internet.

We sold our parents' house with an established garden full of unusual plants although I did dig up one shrub which had sentimental value for me. The new owners filled in the garden pond which had frog spawn every year and astro-turfed the whole garden surrounding it with fairy lights and 6' fences which they tried to talk the neighbours into going half shares on paying. My feeling was I might not like it but it was their house and garden to do what they wanted with it.

I like the PP's suggestion of digging up what you can and putting it out in the front as free to take. Otherwise get to know your new neighbours by having a 'bring a trowel' party and invite them to dig up and take what they want. I went to one once and gained a lovely peony

I think there is a valid element of heartbreak. Not the kind you get losing a human or pet but a deep sadness at seeing the destruction of something beautiful and meaningful. Whether that’s a garden or architecture we can feel it.

Oh @Mum2HC - don’t feel too bad ….we’ve done this! The garden of ours is 2acres though🙈. I tried really hard to keep on top of it for several years but everything got really out of hand. The roses you can prob keep for the time being - they take very little looking after - just prune them and dead head if/when you have time. Ours were beautiful but sadly died due to honey fungus. After that I got the diggers in and levelled out that side of the garden - it now has lovely trees & bulbs that come up in spring but takes just an hour to mow. The other side the boarders are totally out of control and we refer to it as the jungle. Thankfully it’s not visible from the road so old owners will never know. The plants in yours may well be worth quite a lot of money. Go ahead, buy the house and once you’ve exchanged say “we plan to make the garden a bit more easy maintenance, if there are any plants you & your family would like to take with you please do”. Then get in a decent gardener - they can remove anything that you might want to keep & pop back in after relandscaping. You may be able to sell other stuff on even! Don’t feel too bad - the old owners of this house prob feel we ruined it but we only ruined their version of what perfect should look like - my version is a lot less work!!… we plan to pull out all the beds on the remaining side this summer, keep any roses, trees and large shrubs and then stick grass seed down. Then, eventually when the kids are older and I have time, I’m going to put in a veg patch. Time evolves - as long as you don’t put down concrete or Astro you’re grand imho!

no its not as it is. Its also my understanding that its not the ACTUAL garden but a similar one. But maybe I am wrong?

Leave it for someone who'd appreciate it. That's beautiful and it would be a shame.

Yes, so well said.

And such an awful mindset that you can just pay money to take something on and ruin it.

What a cheeky so and so! My dream is to have a little cottage with a country garden, but one I intend on investing time in.

That would really put me off the house. I have no interest in gardening at all, it's just a chore to me and even cleaning is preferable. Our garden when we moved in (15y ago) was nothing like as complex, but it was still a lovely established garden, and we couldn't maintain it - neither of us interested / skilled enough and it's just quite a mess now. I wish we'd bought somewhere with a simpler garden.

If you really can't find anywhere else, when you buy it, I'd ask for advice from the current owners about maintenance and have a go - if it doesn't work, change it, but that might be expensive and difficult in itself. I would really keep looking. As a non gardener, I wouldn't touch this house with a bargepole.

"We have no idea how to look after it" is not a good reason for trashing it. There may be other good reasons but ignorance is not one of them

Buy the house & see what evolves. Yes it would be sad if you had to take some of the plants out but it will be your home so has to work for you.
its a daft reason not to buy a house imo. Someone else might come in & do exactly the same thing.

This is still a bit of a shame, but I do think there is a more than subtle difference between taking something on then, once you have owned it some time, finding you need to change it, and taking something on with the clear plan and intention of destroying it.

Bathrooms, kitchens, wallpaper all fair game for the most part, provided they aren't special examples of something. But a beautiful garden is something that we should be safeguarding.

I love my garden. I have been in this house over 30 years and my garden is my pride and joy. However when I move, it will no longer be my garden and whoever buys the house will rip it apart and do whatever suits them, their family and their lifestyle. I dont have a problem with that.
I fully intend to establish MY garden wherever I move to... regardless of other peoples opinion of my style!
You do what you want to make your home and garden yours. But may I suggest that you offer the sellers any plants they want and also if they want to take cutting from shrubs etc.. If there is a local gardening group you could ask them to come and take what plants you need removed from the beds and suggest they make a small donation to a local charity in lieu of any payment.
Good luck and much happiness in your new home.