Use of massive garden

[gg12346]

Would you buy a house with a massive garden .We are considering putting on offer on a property with massive garden .I didnt wanted a massive garden but got it by chance.Can I rent it out ?

You can rent out parking spaces (in prime locations). A friend of mine has just paid £87 for a years rent for an allotment so I cant imagine you would make much.

I 'sold' a section of mine to next door neighbours with a very small outdoor space.
We transferred the ownership legally but didn't exchange any actual money. They paid for all legal costs and the building of the wall of my choice as the new boundary. It was win, win.

If the garden is more of a field you could rent it out. A family member has a field, someone keeps rescue donkeys in it for free, but they maintain the field for the family members.

If there is access at the back, you could build on it

If there is access at the back, you could build on it

You could, but your new neighbours will hate you.

You could plant a hedge across it, have the bit near the house as garden, and the back as a wildlife haven.

I would and did! A big garden was one of the main things we wanted. We ended up having one at the expense of some other things we had really wanted, but loving it so far. They don't make houses with big gardens any more, so I think they will become more and more of a commodity. It will always be a niche market though.

How big are we talking here? Do you have children / animals?

My offer got accepted on a house with a garden like a field really.its tucked all our boxes so we did put a decent offer and it got luckily accepted as well .But I am really get nervous with cost if maintaining it and what it comes with as well .yes I have just one child at the moment.

If it’s in the countryside someone will rent it from you.

Personally I’d love it. And would probably plant lots of trees and pay someone to mow round them when needed or get a couple of sheep to keep it down.

Or I’d get a massive pond dug.

Oh fuck it I’d love a huge garden rather than the postage stamp I’ve got.

But if you want easy to maintain then fence of a bit as a garden and pay someone to come mow the rest every so often.

If your neighbours have small gardens you could sell some of it . But I would plant an orchard and buy a ride on lawn mower and enjoy it.

A big garden is a lot more forgiving of neglect 10 years on in a similar situation. Fencing off and having a natural meadow is a good idea. Ride on mower if you have a leas bumpy garden than mine is a time saver. Big garden means a large distance from neighbours which I love but I do find the garden can become a bit like more housework. You can get some lovely cats as it’s safe for them....

Warning! A garden can choose you and then you're infected for life.

You'll know it's happened when you keep saying "I'll just..."😄

I'd have a few greenhouses, grow fruit and veg, keep chickens and use it like an allotment.

I am not a particularly good gardener but love having a massive garden. Obviously everything takes longer and things like hedge trimming, pruning, weed control and especially grass cutting can be a massive chore (we don’t use a ride on because it’s more of a formal setting) but I agree with a PP that you can get away with a lot more scruffiness if it is big!

Benefits ime are:

Space obviously and distance from neighbours so no overlooking
Always somewhere to sit if it is shady/kids are on trampoline/whatever you can move around
Proper options for growing fruit and veg - cages, greenhouses, poly tunnels - essentially you can hide stuff out of the way
Outdoor buildings such as an office or summer house, and an outdoor kitchen that doesn’t then take up space
Parties

I do my own gardening and treat it as a respite from work and other chores; I like the passing of the seasons so there is always something to look at and we are rural so lots of wildlife. It can be hard work but I would struggle to give it up

Depends on what you mean by massive. Around an acre? Yes, I'd absolutely love it. One can dream.

How big is massive?

I don’t understand how you’d rent your garden out? Isn’t the house basically in it?

I would love a big garden! But if you don't want the effort to maintain then fence or hedge it part way down and let the back part go wild, maybe scatter wild flower seeds and plant a few fruit trees first, it will attract lots of wildlife that you can sit and enjoy from the tidy part of the garden, is great for the environment and local biodiversity and your child will love it! Or rent it for animals to graze if it's really big and they will maintain it for you (and again fun to watch). Or some neighbours might want to use it to grow food (and share it with you!)

Personally I would get goats, chickens and plant a food forest but I suspect that is not quite the low maintenance option you were after

My 1st husband and I bought a house with half an acre of garden, with an attached ancient orchard, mostly full standard apple trees, plums and quinces.
About a third of it was laid to flower borders, and had 4 outbuildings. The rest was mostly grass, with several old fruit trees.
I loved it!
I had some rabbits with a huge outside run, and invested in a bloody good petrol mower. The first cut of the growing season would take a whole day, or a couple of days, but as the summer wore on I could do the lot in an hour. The borders needed some attention, but I could experiment. Lots of fruit and vegetables meant we could could swap with our neighbours, and occasional bonfire night parties were wonderful. I did what others have suggested - each year, I’d pick an area to leave the grass longer, as a natural meadow, and see what came up flower-wise. The following year, I’d cut that, and do another area, to rest each bit in turn.
It was wonderful at the time, but now I work much longer hours, and live alone, it would be more of a task, and less of a pleasure, although I would buy similar again, but I’d build in the cost of a gardener to cut the grass!
I’d go for it! Lots of space, lots of bird life, insects, and room to do what you want.

Ours is just over half an acre so not enormous but a decent size and we've defined different sections over the years - an orchard with chickens, woodland area where we planted some silver birch trees etc, large lawned area, one patio with fire pit and low chairs and another with table and chairs, also a small part where we put a wildflower meadow and another part by a stream where we planted weeping willows and put in a tree house. Plus different types of plants like rhododendrons in one place and cottage borders elsewhere - It's nice to have defined areas and it's slightly more manageable - you can do each section at a time, although we do have a gardener who comes once a week which really helps!

We also put in raised beds in one part for vegetables so that's well worth considering.

You can fence iff part of it & get it cut once a year, or plant fruit trees, or have a donkey/ goats/ chicjen/rent it to a horse owner/sell part if it/rent as alottment/
build/ garage/office/ play room/ airb&b

Sounds like children's heaven

I'd love a massive garden!

All large garden costs to maintain is time, and fuel for the lawn mower, if you don’t say how big it is it’s hard to help.

Ours is three acres, it mainly laid to lawn, you can cut thr grass on the ride on in a couple of hours if you mulch it, it’s got mature beds all round it, and within, and I just get the bush cutter in there, under the soil to get rid of weeds, I don’t weed manually, and have a lot of ground covering shrubs. You need to keep on top of the shrubs, bushes and trees or things become over grown, but past that, because everything is pretty much done with machinery designed for it, I wouldn’t say it’s costly or time consuming to maintain, you need a couple of hours a week each in summer and spring, although we enjoy it so do much more, and you need time in winter early spring, leaves, dying plants, pruning etc. Basically you get a system and you chose to maintain or you choose to maintain and enhance.

I’m still not sure how you’d rent it out unless you intend to fence it off.

many people would be more than happy to rent your garden if you didnt want to maintain it.
im currently looking for a house with a min of 1 acre and anything with land is flying of the market. so the demand is there.

I agree with the others. Section a bit off and turn it into a wildlife haven.

We have a few acres and yes it is a lot of work but would be far more work if it was all manicured. Actually most of it is woodland (still requires lots of work in terms of tree maintenance, bramble clearing etc) and then semi wooded. I have a large open lawned area but have now planted fruit trees in it as a small orchard and keep the grass long there for insects.