Like gardens but really, really hate gardening!

melanzana

Artificial grass, artificial plants is the way to go for you my friend!

Some love the garden, some don't. No one has to conform to any ideal.

A garden hose to get rid of the dust a few times a year (from the safety of your back door and hose pipe that has a good reach!, is all you need.

Add a couple of deckchairs, a little table, and a nice teapot/coffee pot/bottle of chilled wine, and off you go.

Main thing is to ENJOY your garden, the way YOU want to.

I think there is too much presssure to Grow Your Own, when many would not know how to grow anything at all.

Still for some learning is a pleasure, certainly has been for me. But for OP, privacy is all, so off you go the way you want to, and enjoy the initial investment in what you want.

snowleopard61

Ben84 wrote: »

I actually don't know why pots are considered low maintenance anyway, they may be small but they need watering often and I find plants in them greatly less self sufficient and in need of significantly more care.

I once heard this explained by saying that plants in flowerbeds were more like wild animals and plants in pots were more like domestic pets. I found this mildly disturbing as I'm very devoted to my pets, but (as you can tell) distinctly neglectful of my garden!:(

snowleopard61

melanzana wrote: »

I think there is too much presssure to Grow Your Own, when many would not know how to grow anything at all.

I must admit that reading about people who grow their own makes me want to lie down in a darkened room! Personally I don't think it would save me money (well, in my case it would be a dead waste of money 'cos the plants would be bound to die either of neglect or just ineptitude!) but in any case it would probably be the very last OS thing I would consider doing. Fair play to those who get huge satisfaction from it though; I do think it's a great thing to do.

Kiwisaver_2

I have fits and starts with gardening, I like the idea of homegrown veggies and do try with varying enthusiasm and success. I would love to have a neat and tidy garden but often find it all too futile and overwhelming to keep up with weeds and get upset when nature ruins my efforts and then it becomes just another chore.

I'll never have enough hours in the day to have the garden looking anywhere near as lovely looking as I would like it and have often toyed with the idea of getting some bloke in.

Sometimes when it all gets a bit much I treat it like I would a massive pile of ironing or a Flylady decluttering project and force myself to go and do 20 minutes at a time, or maybe set myself a mini challenge to go and pull up 20 weeds, on the premise that pulling out 20 little weeds will stop them becoming big weeds. More often than not, just making that initial step to do something very small will motivate me to stay longer or do more than I had bargained on.

I have issues with any kind of creepy crawlies, spiders, slugs and bugs and snails; so have to brace myself with as much of my arms and legs covered as possible so that nothing can get me :eek: and have to don gloves before I can touch anything.

sunflower76

I love my garden and even have an allotment but onw I'm disabled I'm limited in what I can do. We have a lawned area with flower beds around, a gravelled area where the chickens live and a patio. the patio and gravelled area look after themselves and the chickens eat any weeds that dare grow through. The grass is mown occasionally and with a good mower we can do it in a few minutes. The flower beds are more tricky and they do take a bit of time, however they do make the garden look nice. I'm now looking at low maintenance plants which don't grow quickly, need little attention and cover the soil to stop weeds growing. I don't spend more than a half hour a week on it at the very most, and this time of year I spend no time at all.

It all depends on what yoou want to get from the area. If you really do want low maintenance and aren't really bother what it looks like then just stick some slabs down. If you want to use the space think about how you can stop being overlooked. We have a particularly nosey neighbour who has made it uncomfortable for me to go in the garden so we've now put a small tree in front of his favourite looking over place and will put some trellis there in summer.

I love my garden and wouldn't be without it.

daska

I'm like you, I like gardens but loathe the work. But I do like the challenge of designing and making my own stuff. When I owned my own house I completely redesigned the garden to reduce the upkeep to the very minimum - I didn't resort to astroturf though LOL. A little bit of investment in terms of money and time can reap huge rewards. I took the trouble to prep it all properly, put down crazy paving in the middle - I looted bricks, slabs etc from skips and begged from neighbours, set broken plates/pots set in cement etc so it had a weatherbeaten look), dug out and laid weed matting (had to pay for that) on the borders and planted small evergreens - hebes, aucuba, euonymus. It looked great and took all of 10 minutes a week for upkeep. Oh and yes, fake flowers have featured in our family's gardens for many years

Austin_Allegro

Instead of lawn you could put down a load of shingle/pebbles and have a 'beach' garden, with just a few low maintenance hardy shrubs, and a few bits of driftwood etc to complete the look. You could even paint your shed to look like a beach hut!

I visited the late Derek Jarman's beach garden on Romney Marsh which is similar to this.

snowleopard61

Kiwisaver wrote: »

and have often toyed with the idea of getting some bloke in.

Me too. I could even get him to do the garden sometimes ...:D

monnagran

Oh I am glad to meet so many like-minded people. I thought I was the only one. My garden has been rescued from a bit of wasteland. Under my control it is rapidly reverting to type. In an excess of enthusiasm ( what WAS I thinking?) I had a little greenhouse erected, raised beds for veg, trellis to separate the supposed flower beds from the doomed veg patch, a lawn and a patch of paving not so much crazy as mildly daft.

I am trying to persuade a retired chap to come occasionally and do a bit of clearing up, but apparently his knowledge of garden is almost as sketchy as mine, and no, snowleopard, I do not have evil designs on him. My efforts to come over as a frail and ancient old lady are, like my seeds, falling on stony ground.

I'm not giving up though.

Itismehonest

Plenty of plants but nobody wants to buy them, obviously, or you wouldn't be touting for business on here.