Would you 'interfere' in this matter?

[OrmIrian]

My parents are 78, so far reasonably fit and healthy. But last week dad had an angina attack and is feeling very ill and sorry for himself atm. Mum also has extremely severe arthritis in her hips.

They live in house with a very large garden - 3 acres with woodlands, orchard, ponds and a very large veg garden. They have managed to keep on top of it but as dad can't do much and mum is struggling, I can see it getting out of hand. I have no time to help (and am useless gardener anyway . The other factor is that it on a steep hillside and walking down the greenhouse or up to the gate is hard work in itself.

Sooner or later they are going to have to consider moving. DB and I both think it should be sooner rather than later - at least now they are still together. I think it would be very sad if one of them had to move out alone. Dad has mentioned it before - he fancies buying a little place in Wells (they do voluntary work there). Mum thinks it would be 'defeatist'.

Is it our business? I worry about them so much. I have a terror of getting a call saying mum has fallen going down the garden and done some major damage, or that dad has has another serious attack. Or they will watch their beautiful garden fade away which will be so so sad.

What can I do?

Understand totally Orm, my parents are similar.

We tried to get them to consider moving when they were much younger but they would not entertain the idea. It has taken a broken ankle and a severe illness for them to accept that a downstairs bathroom would be a good idea (they are now in the middle of building an extension - not themselves, of course).

And they have been persuaded to have railings on their steps - they had refused previously because they thought it would make the house look like an old people's home.

My Mum's disability has meant that she is also entitled to attendance allowance which helps them pay for a chiropodist etc.

My dp's parents (age 80) are about to move to a bungalow with a small garden. They have become demoralised with seeing their beautiful garden grow wild and unkempt.

I think all you can do is keep talking to them, never force your views on them, look out for signs that things are getting too much for them and keep spotting opportunities to find them help.

My MIL is similarly distressed about not being able to keep the garden up to scratch although it still looks very impressive to me. But she was a very keen gardener. She has someone come in every fortnight, I think (she's not badly off but afraid of spending her money IYKWIM - think that generation who grew up during WW2 are terrified they will run out of cash).

Do you have a Momentum office nearby. It is an organisation for people with brain injury and mental health problems. They have access to gardening programmes so could possibly point you in the right direction. They may ask for a donation or a small charge but it would be worth it.

Gardening can be quite cheap (I know a retired teacher who now gardens who charges her elderly clients £5.50 an hour, for example) - and if you had someone come in once a week.

I think the problem is that with a garden, you have to move house while you can still create a new garden, which is heartbreaking to the old garden. You're saying goodbye to a living work of art, which you know will probably decay as soon as you leave.

This might sound a bit odd, but I wonder if you could find them an article or book about Penelope Hobhouse and the way that she's planned her garden for her old age. She couldn't be a more respected gardener, and she's really taken the bull by the horns when it came to moving house and creating new gardens. If you could persuade your mum it's a new challenge, and that they can begin to design a new garden together now, she might become much more positive about it. Do they go to things like the Chelsea Flower Show? Could you go to look at the Courtyard and Urban gardens together, and think about how they might design a smaller garden?

Lots of brilliant suggestions about the garden upkeep.

About them maybe moving, from experience with my older family, it is a decision that takes quite a while. So I'd just leave them to mull it over (could take months), but if no decision made do remind them gently about planning for the future.

What about a house swap with you?

Do your parents happen to live anywhere near a horticultural college? Students might welcome a bit of practice for not much money, if any. We aren't far away from Capel Manor, for instance, but there are loads of others.

There are also schemes where people "rent" out a room in exhange for help, in case the house etc are also difficult for them?

Sympathies, anyway, it sounds v difficult and stressful to sort.

Same situation as my parents some years ago. They were determined not to move either (4 bed detached house with big gardens), so after much discussion grudgingly employed a gardener and a cleaner. Within weeks they wished they'd done it before - the peace of mind at knowing the jobs would be done was well worth the money they spent.

The turning point was when they admitted they needed help. That was after lots of gentle suggestions from me and my sister along the lines of "so-and-so's mum's had a cleaner in and she's so pleased! The place is sparkling and she doesn't need to worry about doing all that housework!"

My parents never moved and died there in the end.

Thanks everyone.

Drawn a blank with the 'bad boys' edam but I do have a friend in SS so she might be able to help. Nothing from local Age Concern. I will try the local agridultural college - problem is it isn't really 'local' to my parents just us.

fabster - houseswap! My parents would hate it in the town where we live - it's not a salubrious area and we have almost no garden. They'd wither away. And I would be overwhelmed with the responsibility of that garden. It would haunt me even in my sleep.

grendesmum - that is a problem. It's far too big for most people and not an easy garden to maintain. I think it would make it hard to sell TBH and I think it would definitely be a factor in them not wanting to move - the fact that the next people won't care for it properly.

Hmmm - could this be an argument for them putting the house on the market earlier rather than later, and with a specialist 'houses with gardens' company? Someone will love the garden, will buy it for just that reason, and it will blossom again. If they were to get a gardener now, they could tell the people who buy it that it needs 2 hours a week of a gardener, and they'll probably accept that. But they'd be better to sell it to someone who wants to buy a large garden with house attached - we are out there!

OR what you could do is to radically redesign the garden now to make it easier to maintain. Orchards and woodlands shouldn't be too difficult, so I'm guessing a big chunk of the time is spent on lawns and the veg. Can they identify what is time intensive, and reduce that? A large garden really, really, truly and honestly doesn't need to be particularly time consuming to look after. There's a team of ecologists and garden designs at the University of Sheffield researching this area, and they were to go with something like a 'pictoral meadow', www.pictorialmeadows.co.uk/gallery, they might find themselves with something that long term needs not too much time.

Graham Stuart Thomas (late gardens advisor to national trust) has a rather dull book called 'Three Gardens', but he does talk a lot about growing a low maintenance garden of a high quality. Again, might be worth pushing their way as one of the options.

Oh, that's a shame about the 'bad lads'.

Another possibly daft idea - could they sell or rent out some of the land, leaving them with a manageable garden (one that either they can maintain or if they get a gardener in, it wouldn't cost too much)?

Or, really drastic, could they get planning permission to build themselves a new house designed for their stage of life and have part of the garden for that, leaving them with the old house + smaller garden to sell? Money raised would pay for building costs, I'd have thought? Have a look at homebuilding & renovating mag's website - loads of case studies of people who have done this. Although obviously building a house is a huge project! (Or could you build a new house on part of the garden, leaving them with a smaller plot?)

Edam - they have thought of that (with regard to building a holiday home to rent out) but access to any part of the garden is very tricky. It's set in a steep valley on the side of the Mendips. Apart from the main drive they can't access any buildable land (ie not on a ridiculous slope) without going through the fields below which they don't own.

I do think that short of them selling up the only way is it get them help with maintaining it. Just a question of where.

grendels - yes. Lawn and veg - quite a lot of animal proofing (deer are the worst culprit) and pruning/weeding and leaf sweeping. And everything on a steep gradient.

Would whoever owns the fields be interested in buying/renting some of your parents' land?

Or, from my extensive studies of Homebuilding mag, some people do a deal with neighbours if they need access through adjoining land...

One thing they might be able to do is to get WWoofers - willing workers on organic farms. If they're organic, obviously. It doens't have to be a farm, can be a garden.

The National Trust gardeners use a leaf blower to get large areas leaf free, and that might work well - they could get a gardener to leaf blow.

If they look at redesigning the garden, they could potentially massively cut down on the amount of weeding, and quite probably on the problems that the deer cause.

Do they have the cash to pay for someone to do a lot of upfront gardening now in order to cut the work down later?

But I still think that they might be better off deciding to put it on the market now, so they have a lot of control over who they sell it to!

"But I still think that they might be better off deciding to put it on the market now, so they have a lot of control over who they sell it to!"

So do I. But I think we will have to wait for the dust to settle from Dad's attacks and then see what happens.

Ormirion, I have the greatest sympathy for you and your parents. It's a heartbreaking set of choices to make isn't it?

We were in a similar situation regarding my mother (81 today! ) until 3 months ago, but our solution probably couldn't work for you. My mother has a very large house, and a manageable garden, but was no longer able to take care of the house on her own. She originally planned to sell up and move near us in London, but the house needed too much work to sell so we have moved in with her instead.

If they are really determined to stay put, do they have any spare rooms that they could rent out to a young person/couple for a nominal rent in return for taking care of the garden and doing odd chores around the house and generally keeping an eye on them?

Your parents might be prepared to sacrifice some of their privacy if it means they can stay in their home.

If you are in the part of the country I think you are, they are a great many young folk around who are interested in an alternative lifestyle, who would welcome the chance to live in a self-sufficient fashion in the depths of the countryside. Affordable accommodation is a very hard to come by in rural areas and unemployment is high as well.

My mother coped for years by having lodgers in after my father died - usually friends of mine whom she'd known for years. It gave her a small extra income and meant there was someone around to help her if necessary.

HTH

I don't know how to write this without coming across as a bit insensitive...so please don't take offence.

I know an elderly couple, living in a 4 bed house with a reasonable sized garden. They talked about getting a bungalow etc, but decided to stay put. Fast forward a bit, one has had a stroke and the other is now a FT carer. They should have moved to a bungalow when they discussed it because now she doesn't have the energy to move IYSWIM and it is a far more difficult and depressing prospect.

If you move somewhere whilst you are still "healthy", you can enjoy the new place (in a liberating way) before you actually get "sick". Whereas if you wait until you are "sick", you will feel as though you are moving to an old people's home, IMO and never get to enjoy the new place.

Also agree with teh point about them moving together now, rather than one of them having to do it alone in the future.

crokky - exactly! My thoughts entirely. But it's hard to say that to them.

mrsf - we can't really move in. Kids love the house - for a few hours!But they also like having the freedom of movement being in town gives them. They can get to see all their friends without having to be ferried about. And DH would probably leave me if we moved in with my parents Is it working OK for you? They might be open to having someone move in and help short-term. They are quite open-minded to different lifestyles and ideas but I'm not convinced it would work long-term.

i have similar with my grandma, i'm next of kin but live 2 hours away. she's now 88 and has a huge garden, though thankfully has a bungalow. she used to get very worried about upkeep on the house and garden but wouldn't move, having lived there for nearly 50 years. we had asked her to move in with us.

age concern were extremely helpful. they have a handy man service she can call upon for odd jobs. also, they did a sort of financial review and found she could claim attendance allowance at the lower rate. i was so surprised as she's in no way short of money. the allowance gave her an additional £47 a week which the age concern lady explained to her is for such things as paying for cleaners and gardners. i loved this as grandma wouldn't have been keen on 'claiming benefits' but the way the lady explained it to her made sense to her.

Crokky is right of course - the sensible option would be to sell up and move somewhere more manageable before they are too frail to cope with the upheaval. But it sounds as if they would need a lot of persuading.

Out situation was/is unusual. We were renting in London, which we were struggling to afford, and DS was very unhappy at his school, so we were planning on moving him anyway. We've been able to move in and take over rooms which were not being used. We have our own bedrooms plus one spare, a large living room of our own and DH has his own office (he works from home) so we don't have to impinge too much on her space. We still squabble about kitchen and bathroom issues tho' .

On the whole, it's working fine after some initial very stressful hiccups, like the building work on the new roof and attic rooms over-running by a month, and no internet access for ages. DS is settling into his new school.

We aren't constantly worrying about something happening to my mum on the other side of the country any more. She really appreciates the company, and it's taken a huge financial burden off our shoulders, while helping her out with money (we pay all the bills and council tax).

Hi! Citizens advice bureau might be worth a call, they may be able to put you in touch with other services or organisations that can help. Or your local council office, mine has a room in local libraries so ppl dont have to queue up at the main office. Hope you find a solution as its very difficult situation to be in.