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

vjm63

When we moved a couple of years ago we did take the fruit bushes from the garden because they had sentimental value - from my parents' garden. We did, however, explicitly tell the estate agents and so far as I know they told all viewers, plus it was written in the details. We dug them up and tidied the beds before we left, so I think all but two viewers would have seen the place without the bushes anyway, and they did not make an offer.

It got complicated after that: someone broke in and stole the water tank :eek:- so we ended up putting the house up for auction just to get it cleared and out of our way! It actually went for not too far off what we expected, plus there was the 28 day deadline rather than months of queries and possible complications etc I read about on here - when we we already living elsewhere. And of course the buyers would have already seen not just the garden but the empty airing cupboard and the damaged downstairs carpet!

Fujiko

Money_maker wrote: »

Plants costing £7-£9 will be pretty run of the mill, available anywhere. Easy to replace. Pick out a few special ones and just take those.

As a gardener, I see a fresh garden as a new slate and the opportunity to create a new masterpiece. Not recreate the garden I left behind.

Exactly! If you managed to buy really good plants for under £10 I would love to know where you got them. We moved house some forty years ago and left behind a 100 foot garden virtually filled with some of the older varieties of roses which had been very expensive. I would guess the buyers may have ripped a lot of them out but so what? It was not our house any more, we might as well complain that they had fitted a new kitchen.

I would not dream of taking any plants. If they are planted in he ground they are a fixture and might well have been a selling point. Just think yourself lucky that you have sold the house.

I would equate this enquiry with a purchaser who actually removed all the light switches and cut off the wires for the lights leaving just one inch hanging from the ceiling! What he was going to do with them I do not know - but the new owner did show me so I know it to be true.

warehouse

If the buyers are aware then there isn't a problem. It's as simple as that.

Augustus_the_Strong

If you've let the buyers know, then take them. But best to leave a few so it doesn't look like a complete wasteland when they move in. They may have been attracted to buy the place by your lovely garden.

Don't take the light bulbs.

cookieSaver

They may not want your beloved plants... My Uncle took loads of cuttings from his garden prior to moving, they lost a few and it turned out that the new owners took out all the plants anyway! I also know of a young man who moved into a house that had an established garden that he didn't like as it was all sectioned off (with plants and what he described as an old bonsai style tree) so he had his friends round to help him strim the garden, had the tree chopped down and turfed the lot.

I love gardening but would not necessarily be upset if a seller said they wanted to take certain plants, it would depend on what they were. A keen gardener may want to make changes and redesign anyway.

Nothing to lose by discussing it with the buyer.

HappyMJ

If you want to take some then take "some" but not everything. I'd expect the garden to be pretty much as described in the pictures. If you do want everything then replace them with something else.

Floral

Please think, how would you feel if you bought your dream home and when you moved in the beautiful garden had gone? If you are the garden fan you claim, why not take cuttings and seeds and start again? It would be better than the legal squabble you could find yourself in.

scrabbly

To take bedding plants is clearly ridiculous - they are sold with the house and are unlikely to survive anyway ! To remove certain SPECIFIED plants I think is acceptable especially if they have some emotional attachment. Even pot plants - if the buyers do not get the garden they think they bought I think is unacceptable. Why not ask ? many people don't like gardening and might relish the extra room left by removing a lot of pots that are in the way

scrabbly

By the way

---

most of these posts would be easily solved if only people SPOKE to each other !!!!! Most people are very reasonable but may not have thought of the "problem"

wishfire

i'm not a great gardener, in fact not even cacti survive my "care", but aren't you risking killing the plants by uprooting them and replanting them somewhere with, probably, rather different conditions?

I would say potted plants or cuttings are good to go, everything else should stay where it's happy