Kitchen Garden Forum

Catherine

In many ways your practice of visiting NGS garden open days is better than going to shows, the gardens you visit are mostly created and cared for by 'real people' not fancy designers being paid thousands of pounds to create a show garden design that most of us could neither afford nor fit into our garden space

I agree Pa Snip.

Ever since I took an interest in gardening I've been up against comments about me not being very good at planning my garden.

I have over an acre of ground that sits in farmland, I try very hard to keep it looking like part of a tidy farm rather than a suburban garden. At times it starts to look very tatty when the windflowers in the banks are being overtaken by tall grasses and start to go to seed.

Right now I appreciate the opportunity to cry on your shoulders after being wounded by comments earlier in the season by my best friend that we should employ a designer.

Anything you do in a garden gets undone within a few months by nature, here in this lovely place with the sea around us on three sides, fields with grasses for grazing and occasional cereal crops whatever you do gets undone in half that time.

People also love scruffy dogs.

Keep at it Richard, employ a designer !!!! my backside.
Glad you are doing your own thing.

So right about nature, we can't beat it but we can try and nurture it to our advantage. Hopefully that is what we all try and do for each other here.

PS, no offence to designers intended.
Just a comment relating to Richards 'friends' suggestion.

Morning Richard, i wouldn't take your friends comments too badly. Everyone has their own idea of what they want out of a garden and also what they want it to look like. So saying that, your friends comments were quite cutting, so an answer like, "i never want to become a control freak", might have the desired effect.

I do six gardens for my work and they are all quite different in their styles and planting, ranging from immaculate to quite wild. And i must of admit it took me a while to adjust to the owners needs, when i first sterted tending them. But it has made me appreciate different types of gardens a lot more, so a real bonus.