Money Moral Dilemma: Should I take my garden plants to my new home?

Unicornucopia

I've only done this once after spending a fortune having the garden landscaped a year before deciding to move. Even then I only took three or four rhodedendrons from a garden of 1/3rd of an acre so they weren't exactly missed. I kept those rhodedendrons in large pots for the next 18 years and each time I moved I just took them and anything else in moveable pots including one very tall and outrageously expensive specialist fir tree (£100+ in 1993). With the last house move I even left the pots (and that fir tree) as the garden in our current house (a) is a fraction of the size of our old house and (b) already had the prettiest garden we've ever had.

scarlet_macaw

Not really a moral dilemma at all, but a legal one.


Not only would it be stingy, it would be illegal to remove any plants from the garden unless you had agreed it first with your buyer

danrees

What's the buyer going to do? Sue you because you took the plants?

Seriously, if you put the effort into bringing together the collection, don't worry about it.

Togseymorello

I have recently moved house and done something similar except it was trees and shrubs that were a hundred or so pounds each.
If you want to remove your plants you are within your rights to do so on the proviso you put it on the TR7 form (I think) which forms part of your sale contract.

marmiterulesok

Yes, you should take them if that's what you feel is right.Just as long as you make this clear to the new owners.

radio_hack

I used to belong to a specialist horticultural group and a lot of the plants in our garden were very unusual and either not on sale generally or very difficult to obtain. So, yes, we took the real gems with us when we moved.
BUT the estate agent knew from the first valuation, it was written into the details and noted on the contract.
So I don't feel we were being stingy.
However, it was A LOT of work so I'm not sure I would go to that effort for anything that cost under a tenner or wasn't of special or sentimental value. You'd have to buy compost and pots and either fill your own car with them or pay a removal company to do it. Financially, it doesn't really make sense.
Tell all your gardening friends how disappointed you are about leaving your beautiful plants behind; you'll be inundated with cuttings in a week

Talent

Don't take anything that's fixed unless it was agreed beforehand.
Simples.

simiontemplar

No!
What you have planted into the ground stays,regardless of what you paid for them.
And for you divs that take out telephone extension wiring when they move house are the lowest of the low.

Davesnave

This isn't a moral dilemma; more a matter of knowledge and organisation in propagation.

It's only when time is short that moving plants, while still allowing them to stay where they are, becomes a problem.

Most of the plants in my garden were in my last garden as well. If not, they were in someone else's garden!

Plants are for sharing. You can give them away and still keep them. Cake and eat it. Nice!

waterbaby59

We have moved 3 times in the last 4 years and our plants moved every time. Buyers are told which ones were going and why - most had sentimental value (eg, a gift from my departed mum) and not one person complained. However, we did leave a basic backdrop of things in the garden so that the next people had something.

What is most interesting is that new people always rip up or change your garden so don't fell guilty. It's like repainting the house when you did it anyway.