Small garden - deal breaker?

[carrottbaton]

Hoping for some perspective. We sold end of last year and have been looking hard ever since - almost nothing comes on the market where we live. Been to see somewhere yesterday that is almost perfect - apart from a pretty small garden that is currently laid to patio. Is this a deal breaker? Feel I'm doing the kids a disservice as we currently have a large garden but on the other hand - do we really need that? This is a big move up the property ladder for us and would be our house for the foreseeable.

I know this is very much a first world problem.

My husband used to say a small garden is fine when kids are little and when they start wielding a cricket bat (or kicking a football) no garden is ever big enough! As an owner of a sizable garden where most of the back windows have been broken at some point i can atest to this! Now double glazed and a bit better at withstanding wayward balls.
If there's a decent size park nearby it wouldn't bother me at all.

I think it depends on how much you use a garden. It would be a massive dealbreaker for me as I use the garden a lot and as a result so do the children. I couldn't have a small garden, where would I grow everything?

However, if you don't use the garden then your children probably won't be that bothered by not having it either. So choose the garden size you want and don't worry about what the children might want.

I have heard a few people reflect on being glad they went for house and location over garden because ultimately the years that kids really use the garden are fleeting.

We compromised on garden over location. So it's a smaller garden than I would have liked. We were moving so I could garden having had only a very small and completely full with plants back yard.

But it's big enough for the dog and to have people round for a BBQ and I'm planting lots of climbers and putting stuff in pots. So big enough for us and doesn't take up all my time looking after it.

We compromised on location over garden but I'm now considering moving again after two years because I hate the size of the garden so much. We have young children and it gets used a lot.

Only you really Know how much your kids currently play out in the garden? Some people's kids don't really bother playing out and prefer the park etc so a small garden wouldn't bother them? For others they are in the garden rain or shine so yes it wouldn't be great for them to move to that house?

Is it a south facing garden? Is there room for a seating/dining area as well as a place for kids to play?

I watched an episode of Alan Titmarsh's Love Your Garden recently, the one with Tasmyn and Alex Wood, and he and his team transformed a very small place into a fantastic retreat, with enough space for everyone.

My garden is 8m by 8m and I did think it was too small for our kids when I moved here. But it was big enough for the trampoline they wanted, and a paddling pool so they were happy. Note they are all older (youngest is 13) I've just doubled the patio and added a huge Sand pit for my grand kids. Less maintenance, I've got room for a hot tub and an outdoor kitchen and it's just cooking together and starting to look lovely. I'm delighted with it tbh. I've still got lots of nice planting but no big green lawn to worry about.

How small would you consider small to be? If you stretched out your arms could you touch both the back of the house and the far perimeter fence at the same time?

If the house is near a large outdoor green space then the smaller garden won't hinderance them too much. My brother and I were sporty kids and had a park at the end of our street. The back garden was for paddling pools, barbecues, and a small climbing frame, while the park was for football and cricket.

It really does depend on the level of use, what you'll use it for, and proximity to green spaces that could accommodate activities that require more space.

How much of the outdoor activities you can 'outsource' e.g. spend more time in nearby parks, send kids to friends with gardens etc.?

I've seen people manage fine with beautifully designed and lit courtyard gardens + big picture windows so the garden is almost part of the house, you can pull up an armchair and look out.

I guess the main thing is that on the few beautiful summer days your garden gives you the experience you want from it, eg being able to sit outside with a drink, enough space to BBQ, whatever makes you happy.

I’m an ideal world you’d want a small garden for babies-6 yrs old and bigger garden for 6-12 years old and a smaller garden for teenagers....or maybe a enough garden for a summer hour for teenagers.....
The patio would be a deal breaker for me, my gardens small but it’s grass at least.

Garden size is what we compromised on. We live in a period cottage but have a driveway which most nearby don't,

It's so individual. Garden size was the one thing we wouldn't compromise on. We rejected about 8 houses that were otherwise suitable. We compromised on a parking space in the end but got a long garden (about 25 x 7 metres). Our last garden was a little smaller and they was my limit. How much do you use your current garden? It seems to be something many people compromise on and my friends with small gardens all seem perfectly happy. I gree up with a big garden and so it was important to me.

Nothing is perfect. Sounds like the kids can have a play outside, and hopefully you have walks / parks within easy reach?

There's always a compromise with any house. Ours is 8x10m and, whilst it's quite small, it's totally private and gets the sun all day. So we really like it. Would we prefer bigger for the DCs? Yes, definitely. But not if we lost any of the privacy or the sun.

As long as everything else is what you want, then I wouldn't let garden size dictate.

I compromised on garden size with house number two and did regret it. House number three has a large garden and even though the children are growing up now I still (probably naively) think we will still use it loads. Only you can say how important it is to you.

Depends is it a sun trap or dark and dingy? Is it overlooked or relitavely private? Do you enjoy gardening?

It's such a personal decision.

Personally I'd rather compromise on other things than compromise down to an outside space that small.

Although I'd LOVE acres, I'm happy to settle for an ok size garden, to get other things (another reception room/better parking/decent garage etc.) but still have space to plant what I want, have friend around for a BBQ. - not be constrained by size if we want a trampoline/temporary swimming pool, green house etc.

Think about what you really want from a garden & stick to that. Don't compromise because you can't change it!

I remember seeing m6 house and absolutely loved the location off the road, the size of the rooms, the privacy etc then looking at the back’ garden and going “oh” as it was disappointingly small.

We bought anyway and I have never regretted it. We made the small garden into a lovely large courtyard garden with raised beds and year round plants and a couple of small fruit trees. We have lovely DP garden furniture and lighting and cobbles and BBQ and we use every single inch of it without having the ball ache of mowing the lawn every week in summer.

We do have a small lawn at the front for kern appeal and because if the privacy of the house and the front being SW facing we can sit out there and no one can see us anyway in the heat of the day.

When out D.C. were small or large they never used out garden anyway, we live very close t9 the park, so meeting their friends there was preferable.

I would never have a large garden again unless I could afford a gardener, even my small garden takes a weekend of work every spring and autumn.

To add, we have hosted countless teenage “gatherings” in our garden for up to 12.

Depends on the garden. If it was a south facing, low maintenance garden I’d take it over our huge, damp, north facing garden any day. Ours has taken so much work, time and money to get it looking tidy, I hate it.

It's 8x9m so not tiny. We use the garden an average amount, I like pottering but realistically we work full time and have 2 kids under 5 so not loads of time to give to a garden..

Is this going to be your forever home or do you imagine that you might move again in the future?

If you think that this is a forever home and want to put the garden to more use as your kids get older, then you may want more time to ponder on it.

If you see this as a stop-gap on the way to your forever home, then it might be worth compromising on the garden as your kids are so young so that you can secure a nice home.

Do you have a nice park nearby? That makes a big difference I think. And that's not that small, you can at least have space to eat outside and have some greenery, just not a climbing frame.

This is something my husband and I have been discussing recently. We viewed a property at the weekend and the house was just amazing and so perfect for us... But the garden was absolutely tiny so we walked away. I guess it is a big deal breaker for us. We have two little boys and the 2 year old is obsessed with being in the garden... Practically my entire childhood was spent in our back garden with my siblings. Also, we figured we can extend a house but can't change plot size. We plan to stay for at least a decade if not longer in our next house so we'd like so where we could extend, at least add a conservatory! But if you do that in a tiny garden you're left with no garden at all.

I do think though that 'large' garden is very subjective, and people have different opinions on what that means depending on where they live. It's a very personal decision though.

Oh and it depends on age too I guess (of kids)... I moved from a house with a large garden to a house with a tiny garden when I was 13 and didn't mind. I was old enough to go into th nearby fields or whatever. But if I'd have moved when I was, say, 8, I'd have been gutted.