Really grrrrr about a letter in Gardeners World Mag this month.....anyone else see it?

[taffetacat]

Entitled "Are unwatched children the biggest garden pest?"

Doesn't seem to be on the website so here goes:

"My most feared pest in the garden is children. More to the point, its the adults who visit without first explaining to their children that not all gardens make suitable playgrounds.
My heart sinks when acquaintances arrive with children or grandchildren and send them off, saying "run and play". Our garden is lovingly maintained, full of carefully chosen and unusual plants and is a haven for wildlife.
I wince when a particular seven year old races towards the pond yelling "where's the net?". Pond dipping is not an activity our water plants enpoy. And the fish are positively traumatised by having a net smacked repeatedly down on their heads. After a visit from another small child, it took me weeks to retrieve the gravel he'd removed from a bed and dumped in our conservatory. They play "chase" in our flower beds, stamp on our vegetables and swipe the heads off flowers with their plastic golf clubs.
If these adults can't keep their offspring under control, why don't they invite us to visit them instead? Despite our advanced years, we'd be happy to kick a football around a bald lawn with their kids. Anything to keep them out of our garden!"

Grrrrrrr.I don't know where to start. I want to email a response but am too enraged. I think the bit that annoys me the most is the assumption of a bald lawn!

Please God I never become like this when I'm older.

Any thoughts?

Think this says more about the calibre of their visitors - family possibly? - than any children I personally know. Have they given any thought to why there is no reciprocal invitation?

Well, tbh, if children came into my garden and dumped gravel int he conservatory or tried to fish in my pond (assuming I had a conservatory and a pond) then I would not be chuffed either.

As to playing chase in flower beds, and swiping the heads off of flowes, surely that is just not on?

Would you take your DC to someone's house and let them rampage, breaking and damaging your host's possesions?

Yes, good point about family. I am more relaxed about my DC running around at close family's house.

I can see that unruly children could trash the lady's garden and that would be unacceptable. I think its the tone of the letter that has upset me.

More to the point, its the adults who visit without first explaining to their children that not all gardens make suitable playgrounds.

She is not nasty about the children though, she is annoyed at the parents not disciplining their DC.

I read this and thought it was hilarious. To me it smelled of somebody who'se been on one of writing correspondence courses which encourage students to write to magazines. Just the tone of it may me suspicious. Having said that I do think that the baby boomer generation are a pretty intolerant lot.

Maybe its her responsibility to mention to the adults what goes and what doesn't in her garden? People that don't garden wouldn't know about the unusual or highly prized plants, for instance.
If a child is doing something obvious, like whacking a koi carp around the chops, of course the parent should be expected to intervene. But if they are running about and fall in a flower bed for instance, or grab some sneaky handfuls of gravel without being noticed, is that different?

Can't say I've any problem with that letter tbh.

As a keen gardener, I can only sympathise with the writer of the letter

I am whatever the opposite of a green thumbed is but i agree with that article tbh!

Why would you rampage in someones garden like that?

If you change all the garden references to inside the house you wouldn't stand for it and if they have spent hours on their garden why should the same rules not apply?

I totally agree with the letter writer tbh. It's all about teaching children to respect certain behaviours and boundaries. You see the same behaviour in parks and public spaces too - some people think that their children have a right to pick the flowers, rampage through the beds and snap branches off the trees.

If that makes me a miserable old git I don't care.

I agree with the letter writer too. I wouldn't allow my kids to behave like that in our own home, never mind anyone elses.

the letter writer really shouldn't have focussed their venom on the children, though.

what they meant was "aren't the parents who don't control their children a big garden pest?"

although, clearly, the writer has never had chickens in his garden!

I am the owner of a garden full of carefully chosen and lovingly cultivated plants. I am also the owner of small DC. They get short shrift if they go anywhere near the flowerbeds. I accept that balls may squash things but they respect the garden in the same way as they have been taught to not fling all the books off the shelves in the living room.

But I am quite old it must be admitted

Looks like I am in the minority then. I suppose I have never ever come across children that do what the lady describes and assumed she was exaggerating.

I do think its snidey though, esp the last paragraph.

Put it this way Taffeta, it sounds as if I wouldn't have any problem with your DC in my garden.

I don't think there's anything snidey about the last paragraph at all! If children play on grass all the time, it does go bald. Simple fact

I think the problem I have is balancing my love of gardening and plants with my love of seeing children free in an outdoor space, esp if they have been cooped up inside ( esp if in a "precious" house where its hard to breathe, let alone move around ).

Small children and precious gardens/gardeners don't really work together, IME. Even the best behaved toddler and conscientous parent will encounter issues. Accidents happen.

I'm not articulating it very well, but I think there is some irony in there somewhere about the gadren being a haven for wildlife but banned to children.

No problems with that letter.

If children did that in our garden I'd be having a word with them.

I suppose the way I do it is to get mine involved. We are growing sunflowers on the window sill to plant out, they have their own forks and gardening gloves and are keen fillers of the bird seed containers.

My garden is not a show garden, far from it (there are bald patches on the lawn for a start!) but I've tried to make it one that allows me to indulge my horticultural passions and be a place to play. I'd really like bigger beds but have conceded that the DC need the grass.

I can imagine that it must be hugely frustrating if you have relatives who don't have any interest in gardening coming round and allowing their DC to rampage through your lovingly tended patch.

Grass can be resown, lawns can be cared for, even if they are used as football pitches.

I am very proud of my garden and my lawn, and proud that my DC have an outdoor space they can be free in. As a parent, I build in losses to plants from footballs etc.

Surely all it takes is for the letter writer (if real) to say "we don't do X in our garden"?

Even as the owners of a garden which has been significantly improved by the attention of 4 chickens (they have raked tons of moss out of the grass and eaten most of the ants, for a start) there are limits to what our DC are allowed to do - and playing chase in what passes for flower beds or stamping on vegetables are well beyond said limits.

LadyBiscuit - re "....relatives who don't have any interest in gardening coming round and allowing their DC to rampage through your lovingly tended patch".

Maybe this is the crux of it - if you don't understand about gardening then the parents are probably oblivious and need it spelled out. I wonder if the lady has said anything - even gently?

I have had children in my garden whose parents aren't gardeners and who have trampled through flowerbeds and it is quite awkward if their parents can see them doing it and clearly don't see an issue with it. I do say something but I'm not sure it goes down that well

I think there's a big difference between a garden that's been designed knowing that children will play there, even occasionally, and one that hasn't - you incorporate different elements to give the children something to do, even if it's half-unconsciously.

I'm with the letter writer here

(and I speak as a grandchild who once dug huge chunks out of my Nan's lovingly tended turf to make 'stepping stones' )

the lady shouldn't need to gently spell it out- it's just rude to let your kids rampage round other folks' gardens- or houses, same difference.