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!!

Awful please don’t do it

I love gardening but you are absolutely not being unreasonable. You can do what you want with your own house.

When our (horrible) buyer told us he was going to get rid of the flowerbeds and put gravel everywhere I immedietely starting potting plants up to take with us - they're expensive, and I put a lot of work into them! Definitely offer the plants to the current owners, to be kind.

Why are you asking this here? It'll be your house, for Heaven's Sake...

It will be your house, so you can do as you want with it. We knocked down the house that we bought on this plot and built a new one, plus we ripped up the garden and completely redid it. It's ours, we bought it, what the old owners wanted is irrelevant!

Edited to say: we actually made our garden MUCH nicer and much more biodiverse. The previous owners were definitely not gardeners - think conifers, broom, pampas grass and a shitty bit of lawn that hadn't been well looked after, so in our case none of it was a loss - in fact it was a vast improvement.

I think it's pretty criminal to do this. Buy a different house.

I agree. I think getting rid of everything would be a big mistake from the kid's perspective. Big flat lawns are only good if you have a soccer team. You get a lot more independent play with places to hide and wildlife to look at.

I don't know why you are buying this house TBH. 0.8 acres is absolutely huge. Even if you level and grass it, I think you are under-estimating how much time it will take to maintain.

Can you package off any parts of the garden and sell to developers? We had a .2 acre garden and developers made offers on it. The land value must be huge, so it's hard to understand why this is the only house suitable and you can afford?

Would be absolute sacrilege. Someone will be viewing that house purely to maintain that garden. Not to mention the wildlife habitat. I don’t think it’s the home for you.
My garden is nothing like so grand but I will be devasted if a new owner rips it out.

Could the garden be split, with separate access created to part of the garden further from your house, so that part could be sold or rented out for allotments?

Gosh that is a lovely garden. The least you could do is say to the owners they can remove any / every plant they wish. Would make me cry to trash that.

Ooff. I know how you feel as I ended up taking up a lot of long established plants and flowers when we moved for the same reasons as you. However our garden wasn't quite at the same level as the one you've shown is.

I think there's a lot of people these days in our situation, we don't have the time, knowledge or desire to spend a lot time keeping up with gardens and we shouldn't in general feel guilty about that (despite what my Mother thinks). However, the garden you have presented there is spectacular and I really don't think I could rip out a garden like that. I think if you're certain this is the house for you, there needs to be a happy medium at least somewhere.

It may be possible to find a compromise..In some areas there are gruops/individuals who will garden for free just because they love to but dont/cant have their own space.. i

My exH bought me out on the house and plans to rip out my garden. My new garden is much smaller. But whilst i am somewhat bitter about the garden, i have learnt so much doing it, won't make the same mistakes again, and estimated that i will be able to completely plant my new garden (with Chelsea level planting density) with 90% recycled plants, in a very cohesive style.
Currently prepping the ground with cardboard and mulch ready to move everything in the autumn.

I am a passionate gardener. My garden is nowhere near as big but I have it pretty and wild, its full of flowers and trees and wildlife. No insecticide ever used and absolutely minimal weedkiller. I would walk away from my house without a thought but the garden has my heart. Having said all that, I know when the house is finally sold, the garden likely won't be kept and there is zero I can do about it. I wouldn't refuse a good offer on my house because I knew the buyer was going to drastically change the garden. I couldn't afford to do that.
Having said that, if you can't afford a gardener, why are you planning to grow vegetables? I know its the idyllic "lets grow our own" image but its WAY harder than keeping a non edible garden. If you don't want to garden or have a gardener, do not try veg growing.
Reality is (and I have gardened all my life) that that much land is going to need effort to keep it tidy and usable. Careful semi rewilding would be much less effort than turfing it.
Final comment is that of course the seller will sell to who they want, the buyer will do what they want with what they have bought.....if I was a neighbour though would I judge you? hell yes!

Yes it would. I hope someone else buys the house who will look after the garden and all the wildlife it has encouraged. There are dozens of dull easy upkeep blank plots out there, go and buy something with one of those and leave this for someone who cares.

Because clearing it out would be a mistake for several reasons

• expense of clearning out
• lawn can be more trouble to look after
• devalue house
• kids get less value from it

I wouldn't not buy a house suitable for my family and near good schools over a bloody garden. They did the garden like that because it's what brought them joy. You get to do what suits your family and sacrificing the possible outdoor recreation space for the kids and precious family time maintaining the previous owners garden how they wanted it is bonkers. If there is truly no other options then crack on OP.

Can you really not find a more suitable house?

In a world that just seems to be getting sadder and sadder, these sorts of gardens are the patches of uplift, not to mention the positive effect on the environment and the sanctuary it will be providing to wildlife and countless insects. And those sorts of borders will have cost a fortune to plant out over the years.

I just think it is too destructive - and my gut is that you think the same deep down. The right house will come along, I'm sure.

I don't see the point in buying a normal sized house with a big garden if don't like gardening. Someone out there will love that (including me!).
If you do rip it out, please please do in the winter when there is less wildlife.

With the money you’ll save not demolishing the garden you could easily afford a gardener once a fortnight for a few years. Please don’t destroy the garden for a lawn the birds and insects that live their will suffer.

This.

Ah, then I wouldn’t panic about levelling it - lots of fancy gardens actually are very self contained (lots of flowering shrubs can be left and looked after every few years; lupins, peonies etc just grow back every year and get cut to 6-12 inches in the autumn). What often looks high maintenance may only need annual or every other year blitz.

The advice is generally give yourself a year of living in it to see how it looks through the seasons [take pictures each month] so that you can decide which areas to dig out. And I would absolutely look at consulting (usually free) a landscaping/gardening service about what they would suggest to keep it low maintenance or to expand the lawned areas. We opened out one area and DH bought a croquet set and we have spent many an afternoon since the kids were teens mucking about with mallets (and beer).

In our case, because we gradually replanted the easier to manage shrubs and self/re-seeders, we get by all year with just mowing the lawn weekly/fortnightly and my DH spends a few weekends in the autumn cutting lots of stuff back to stumps. He has a new role and has agreed this year we will get a chap into do that work, so the gardening costs is just that one annual expense. We are at the stage, being amateurs, where there are few plants that we are not sure are weeds or not now!

TLDR: Don’t panic. Take your time. You may find your kids would love to get involved in gardening along side you… our neighbours kids are outside alternating between kicking a football and helping dad with the veggie patch.

Expense of clearing it... True
Lawn can be more terrible ... Doesn't have to be with a robot mower that self mulches
Devalue house... OP is already holding back on putting an offer in, so the garden isn't currently adding value/saleability to this house!
Kids get less value from it... Kids like having parents who are present, not stressed out maintaining something that they are not passionate about.

If it's like the photos, it is criminal it really is! And thousands and thousands of pounds of plants and hours spent. You'll have so many creatures in there, I bet a hedgehog or two too.

Can you teach the children how to garden, lol?

I’ve just watched the neighbours national trust worthy garden be levelled and a massive McMansion built to the edges of the property. 😢. I’d much rather someone like you had bought it and just made some of it lawn.