Does gardening create strife in your relationship?

[Patnotpending]

I moved in with my partner more than10 years ago and the gardening has been our main source of conflict since then. It gets particularly bad at this time of year.

My partner feels that it's his garden and I'm not allowed much of a say in it. The design and planting is still pretty much what was planted back in the 1930s by owners who just stuck things here and there. Things like a single spindly rose bush in the middle of a patch of lawn. It's dated and the rose is dying and looks awful but I can't persuade him to cull it. He's been tending it for the last 15 years and he won't let it die on his watch.

He always wants me to help but if I go out there and pick up secateurs or start weeding he gets anxious and stands over me and wants to know what I plan to pull up or cut back and then usually tells me I'm not to do it. I'm a mature woman who's had several gardens and I have an interest in garden design and planting. I can see how wonderful the garden could be and I'm really not prepared to be out there labouring just to keep it looking like a well-tended, impractical and dated garden. It could be wonderful and it's not.

We've just had yet another row because it's a nice day and he thinks I should be out in the garden with him, but he wants me to do the mowing — and it's Sunday afternoon and I don't want to disturb the peace by mowing the lawn. He's suggested that I sweep up the trimmings where he's cut back some shrubs but I feel resentful at being good enough to clean up after him but not allowed to have a say in the place. I've got a good eye for design: I know my plants. I need to be creatively involved, not his assistant. Sorry for the rant but this is a big rift in what is otherwise quite a solid relationship.

He's not like this about other things. We've been able to discuss and implement changes in the house and he acknowledges that I have a good eye when it comes to colour and furnishings. I was trained as a designer: I can 'see' how things are and how they could be and he can't. He's said that in the house we could always change things back if they didn't work — repaint rooms, change the furniture. But taking down a dying old tree, pruning back a wisteria that's gone completely mad, digging up the ancient spindly rose in the lawn — no way.

He came in while I was having that rant and said he's worried about me, it's a lovely day and I should be out enjoying the garden with him. It finished with his 'I'm scared you're becoming a recluse, sitting indoors when you could be outside' number. I'd love to be outside taking up some of the god-awful planting and hard landscaping that's been there for 50 years and replacing it with something that will be easier to maintain and a pleasure to the eye, but because I'm not allowed to do any of that I can't really enjoy the garden.

It would be good to know if others have this sort of issue in their relationship. I do see that the fact that it's his house and garden has a lot to do with it but for various reasons the house and area suit us well and selling up and buying a place jointly isn't likely to happen until we retire.

It is obviously his house and not yours.

What you do with that information is up to you.

Well, you know your relationship is odd, right?
That said, tell him you want a designated bit of garden that is entirely yours. Not the whole thing, a section. It’s a reasonable request, given how different you are and that this situation is a 10 year stalemate.
Then tend your own and let him be. Maybe he’ll cope with you spreading, maybe not.

Is my relationship so odd? Don't other couples have sticking points?

When we first got together and I moved in I did ask for an area where I could do what I wanted (not difficult, there's a third of an acre here). He agreed to me doing what I wanted on a fairly small area in what is by far the most difficult part of the garden — north-facing and overshadowed by a huge beech tree in next door's garden, which means hardly anything will grow there. I decided to clean it all up and then have a good large shed built there, with paving outside and a log store. (I paid for it all). This is now the working hub of the garden and he would agree that it's made things far easier than before.

The old shed was in a good sunny spot in the garden. I hoped that after building the new one I could persuade him to get rid of the old one and use the prime spot for creating a seating area or a border — but no, the old shed is there. Crumbling and barely used, but still there.

Yes, I’ve been married for over 30 years to an odd man, and there have been numerous situations that could have become Sloughs of Despond. But I negotiate and he compromises and we get over and around problems. I love gardens, 10 years of the same old, same old?
No way.
So, the new shed is useful. Take down the old shed and claim the space.

Can he admit that he needs to try to make a compromise? Now the new shed is doing its job, you could take the area of the old shed as your new patch of garden to do what you like with.

What has he said about this unhappy stalemate? Why is this such a sticking point for him?

I think it is a shame that after over 10 years together it is still "his house" and "his garden". You say you won't buy together until you retire so it doesn't sound like anything is going to change. If you ever broke up would you have to leave with nothing but your belongings?

Wider issue but I think you should be thinking of whether you can afford to buy a place of your own even if you rent it out (if you don't already have something).

Re the garden could you get involved volunteering for somewhere where a "friends of" maintains a park/garden? Would you fancy an allotment. He might reflect on how much he is shutting you out if you take your labour elsewhere - and you might enjoy the new project.

Could you go and visit some gardens together and get an idea of what would work? Show him pinterest images, create a scrapbook/moodboard and look to changing things gradually?

We (dh and I) have a large allotment and a small back garden. We sometimes argue. I have things in specific ways because I know they work for us. It might be that something is low maintenance, or means something to me, or is there because it grows best there. I get stressed when dh tries to move stuff because he doesn't understand it as much as me, or as much as he thinks he does. He gets upset when I do things like cut back something hard, or want to completely get rid of something because it's past its best.

You need to work together. There is no right or wrong with gardening. But you also need to remember he might have reasons. The rose may have been planted in memory, or be for a loved one etc.

Pots may be a good way to introduce new ideas. They arent permanent so can be moved or scrapped with no damage.

If he won't do that then you have bigger issues than the garden.

Get a deck chair, a good book and a martini. There are lots of ways to enjoy a garden.

Or get an allotment.

I don't really want an allotment, I'd like to improve my immediate surroundings, but thanks for the suggestion.

I have my own home, by the way, and my own career. I'm totally independent. I moved in here because it suited us both at the time. We assumed we'd buy a place together but when we started to look for somewhere it became clear that this place — in a village, close to amenities but out of sight of neighbours — was difficult to beat.

Thanks for the suggestions, all of which I've tried over the years. I'm a creative sort of person and work in a creative industry: I can see how good the garden could be and that's what's so frustrating. My partner doesn't have much visual imagination and I think regards gardening as just a form of maintenance. I don't think he gets excited about the garden except perhaps the veggies. He's just not someone who cares about how things look and I suppose there's a lot to be said for that in terms of being green and so on. But when you're someone who gets pleasure out of making things look good it's very frustrating.

The rose was here when he bought the house a couple of years before we met: no memorial or sentimental feelings involved. If there was I'd be more sensitive, I promise.

That’s actually really odd. If he doesn’t care much how it looks why is he so controlling about it with you when you clearly have the skills and vision to make it a lovely garden that you would both benefit from and will make it more sellable when the time comes ? Why would he behave like this, what’s the reason behind his behaviour in the garden but in no other aspects of your life? And then to come in and express concerns about you being indoors when he knows that there is conflict between you about the garden is quite odd I personally feel.

It seems like it’s a control thing with him, nothing to do with the garden. As you have career mad house this is the one area where he can exert control over you, depriving you of doing something you enjoy and he actively chooses to do that and is not content for you to say you don’t want to be involved, he wants you out there in his terms.

DH doesn’t care about the garden and says he trusts me to do it. If he didn’t I guess it would be like those couples you see on Gardener’s World where the garden gets split into two areas, each with their own individual style, I do understand not wanting a plant that was originally there to die - I have a lovely passionflower but it’s now in the way. So i’ve taken a cutting and will put that somewhere so the original plant will live on but in a different form. Feels fitt8ng to me as gardens naturally evolve over time,

How about getting him a subscription to a gardening magazine? Not necessarily GW, but one where design features as well as plant advice.
A browse along a good magazine rack might give you an idea.
Then when you DP reads it you can open up a general discussion about the articles and hopefully gradually move forward.

Popped back after a quick google, The English Garden was the one I was thinking of.

If he cant visualise how it could be could you not draw some sketches and designs so he can see what you have in mind?

My husband is a nightmare in the garden, adores and loves grass but rarely mows it and refuses to let me take it out for flowerbeds.
It involves lots of compromise or, I wait until he's out and just do it, perhaps book a day off and get rid of the old shed yourself, place chairs there and glass of wine. His biggest obstacle may be the idea of hard work as opposed to maintenance

If he wants to completely control the garden, then he should be doing all of the work.
Take a cup of tea & a sketchbook out to a quiet part of the garden, and begin creating your book/business/hobby of garden design.

God, that sounds utterly infuriating.

Can you just do stuff when he’s not there? Take the shed down- just do it!

It’s to do with fear of change and somehow the ‘living plants’ thing is too confronting - once the rose is gone it’s gine - whereas the idea you can repaint a wall is fine.

Apply to be contestants on a garden makeover show? Let a ‘professional’ confront him about the madness!

What did you say when he came in to worry about you being a recluse??

What I wouldn't like is the knowledge that he sees it as his home. You aren't that different to a lodger.

I'm so glad you have financial independence and your own home.

Sorry OP, while I sympathise, I actually understand where your partner is coming from.

You say he is not like this in other ways? In that case, however frustrating it is for you, I'd leave it go.

I very much love 'my' garden as it is, and I would not like a future partner to make changes or want me to get rid of something I had been tending to for many years, how ever much they didn't like it or had envisioned other ideas.

I'm a bit funny and can feel attached to or sentimental about certain things, e.g. I'd rather 'save' a rose that a previous or deceased owner had planted.

Maybe you could compromise by having your own 'patch'?

Sorry