Whatever happens to a garden when the owners are no longer there?
It's a question that I ponder upon every so often. It's also a question that I encounter on a regular basis too. And in light of recent events in the exotic gardening scene here, made me think of this question and subject matter again.
Gardeners move on from the garden they created for a myriad of reasons. And when the gardener is no longer there, what happens to that space that has been created and received so much love and attention before?
The answer is pretty obvious. Some gardens become immortal. But that is a rarity. A vast majority, ninety nine percent of the time the garden will go shortly after the departure of its creator and caretaker.
It's something that we have witnessed ourselves before. The garden of the house opposite ours used to have a very well presented collection of alpine plants on large raised beds. Now there is a large skip sitting on top of the largest raised bed as the new owner prepares the house for a makeover. One of the large palms on our top patio was dug up a few years ago from a garden that was being cleared after the owner's divorce. That's just a couple of several reality tales that we know of.
Asking the question above in relation to our own garden, what would happen to it if we are no longer living where we are now?
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| Jungle hut may become a row of brick houses... |
If we put the house on the market then we'll put a clause that we'll clear the garden if the buyer wishes us to. Densely planted as it is now without that condition potential buyers may be put off. And if we continue gardening somewhere else with a similar climate and keep the same style we'll be taking as much of our plants now with us.
The koi pond will be decommissioned too, perhaps even filled up. Or we can just reinstate the old boundary fence before we bought that patch of land where the koi pond is now as it's not part of house deeds.
When we are no longer where we are now it may not even be a garden at all. It's future may even be a row of houses as our back garden, together with the adjacent ones are potential building plots.
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| Densely planted, may become overgrown, or a lawn... |
With all this pondering in mind, the lesson is to enjoy the process of creating the garden. To enjoy the present and relish in the memories of the many fleeting beauties one encounters in the garden. Very, very few gardens will attain immortality and continue as they are even when its creators are no longer there.
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| Enjoy it while it lasts |
Mark :-)
This gardening blog follows our journey as we create our Tropical and Exotic themed garden. We hope you'll enjoy the journey as much as we do. We started our Exotic Garden in 2005 and this site will show its development, as well as our travels, both abroad and within the UK to gardens, nurseries and friends.
When I am gone I know what will happen with my garden: it will take over the neighborhood! (At least the bamboos will) Only half joking for if I leave unexpectedly, who will know how to tame it? If I leave by plan everything will be fine (as long as I prepare myself as you do for the garden being removed).
ReplyDeleteClever answer Alan! Leaving by plan is the best one of course, to be in control right till the very end ;)
DeleteI often think about this. Most often when I am putting in 8 hour days. It reminds me of an architect we once employed who said don't spend silly money on a kitchen. He did.. and a few weeks after he moved out he found the kitchen in a skip outside the house. People want to make a new house their own. And that means change.
ReplyDeleteGood analogy Jessica. Taste differ from one person to another and this affects the garden too. A new owner is more likely to prefer to put their own stamp to the place :)
DeleteI think each moment of gardening is kind of 'immortalised' . When gardening I feel it's very much living in the moment - the act of gardening itself is so wonderful that it exists almost independently of the garden that is created! And although so transient it seems paradoxically to be immortalised. This probably sounds daft, but it feels like that anyway!!
ReplyDeleteI've been sad to leave gardens when I've moved house, especially when the next owners have just block-paved over them. But then there's the excitement of creating the next one!
Not daft at all Ingrid, it makes sense and we agree. There's just so much to appreciate from the process.
DeleteIt's sad to let go of a garden but yes there's the excitement of creating a new one :)
Did you set out to write a sad morbid post? I suppose it won't matter now, to most of your readers, what happens to their gardens as they have all slit their throats due to severe depression :-) No garden can stay the same, with or without new owners. Things grow, die, go out of fashion or get banned. It is all part of life's rich pageant:-) xx
ReplyDeleteLol!! And to think I've toned it down already. The original idea was even more morbid ;)
DeleteHi Mark, I am asking myself that question from time to time and I have come to the same conclusion that you do. Most-likely, when we would stop tending to our garden it will die. Honestly this thought makes me rather depressed. We have left behind already one garden in which we put an insane amount of money and labor, assuming that we will bring it to a certain level and then enjoy it for the rest of our life. Turned out that life had other plans and we moved after three years. The lesson that I have learned from that is that I try to only garden as long as I am having fun and enjoying it. I am gardening in and for the moment. I am not killing myself anymore in terms of the garden labor, I still put too much money into the garden though... For me gardening has become much more about as you put it "enjoy it while it lasts" and I am feeling good about it. By the way, love that last photo with the moth!
ReplyDeleteWarm regards,
Christina
Something to ponder on Christina but as you've said it's mainly about enjoying the present :) if you enjoy every penny spent is worth it for the present
DeleteIt's a terribly sad situation. Maybe new owners will love the garden and maintain something of it. But a garden by its very nature is artificial and ephemeral. We can only pass it to the next generation of gardeners--what other choice do we have?
ReplyDeleteIndeed John. And it will be up to the next generation to maintain or make changes, it will be their garden then and no longer the previous owners one :)
DeleteI created a "Debsgarden" book to pass on to my children, but I am sure the garden itself will quickly revert to semi-tropical jungle. I joke, with all the terrible invasives I have fought, that sometime far into the future, shortly before a developer razes the place to put in apartments or a shopping mall, with a last great battle cry the bamboo will punch through broken windows as kudzu and English ivy fight for supremacy on top of the old dilapidated roof.
ReplyDeleteThat made me smile Debs :) it might just happen, plants are pretty powerful!
DeleteI hate to think of what happened to my old garden after we moved - I really wish I'd added a clause about getting access to dig things up if they leveled it to install a lawn. I'm anxiously watching the terraced garden up the street, the best one in the neighborhood, to see what happens to it now that it's changed hands. And, thinking beyond new owners, did you ever see the documentary "Life After People"? I think some episodes are available on-line now. It was very interesting and I'm wondering what would happen to my garden if I and all other humans disappeared. I bet the giant Yucca elephantipes would be back in no time!
ReplyDeleteGlad you mentioned that series Kris, funny enough we have all episodes on DVD and it very fascinating to watch. Yes more likely the yucca will be back. Fingers crossed about the new neighbours, may they be green fingered :)
DeleteWhen we put our place on the market we told the agent we'd fill in the fish pond, remove the hen house, etc because we thought, like you, that potential buyers would be turned off by the upkeep on such a large garden. In the end, the people who bought our house did so because they fell in love with the garden.... so you never know.
ReplyDeleteI have no intention of going back to see what they've done though. I want to remember it as it was when we lived there. Even if they improve it, it would no longer be the same. I have blogging to thank for all the photos I took over the years to remember it as it was.
You never know indeed and that's lucky to find new owners who appreciates what you have done :) best not to go back
DeleteEven though I left a much lighter garden footprint behind, at my garden in Spokane, I still couldn't bring myself to go back and see what the next owners had done. Finally, after some 8 years I finally did, and was thrilled! Everything I had planted was still there, and bigger! I had made good choices, and future owners (I believe there have been two) agreed and took care of the plants. Of course my current garden is much much much more intense. I will definitely have to dig and take things (depending on where we're going) and have a sale/friends come to dig. Oh and get this, Andrew says if something happens to me he's calling Sean to come get it all, since he won't know how to take care of it and Sean can make sure it all gets a good home.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear of the positive turn out of your old garden Loree, must have been heart warming to see that your old garden went into good and green hands. And it's handy to have Sean around too :)
DeleteThere are gardens that always live in our minds and hearts: our parents and grandparents' gardens, for example. We think of them while creating our own gardens and see their reflections in our gardens.
ReplyDeleteThat's true Tatyana. Some gardens make an impression on us that a little bit of them lives on in our gardens :)
DeleteLike a fragile piece of glass art or the performance of a piece of music, our gardens are ephemeral, existing for a fleeting moment of time but resonating in our hearts and minds much longer. This is what makes the every day enjoyment of our gardens so important and special. I've gone back to my former gardens. Sad. When we moved to this house from another part of town, I brought a lot of plants from my former garden, including three trees that are now quite large.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Peter, ephemeral is a good way of describing this gardening experience, best enjoyed to the full now :)
DeleteGreat, thoughtful post, Mark. I'd take as much with me as possible, but since this garden has been my Zone 8 botanical learning lab, there are also many things I wouldn't mind leaving behind, as they were more stepping stones along the learning curve. It's always fun to start anew, and I've seen some horrid examples of beautiful gardens leveled, so I'd probably try my best to avoid returning. I made the mistake of looking at our old place in Sweden on Google Earth. The two 250-year old oaks that framed our view over a field had been removed. My heart almost stopped...
ReplyDeleteOh my, sad to hear such old trees removed. Funny your mentioned leaving some things behind deliberately, a sort of positive aspect of leaving and moving on, to start afresh.
DeleteVery well said. It is something I think about. One thing that interests me is the "survivor" plants--like the pair of enormous Arbovitae that overwhelm the front of a house nearby. Obviously planted by the original owner circa 1960, and still there. Another property has absolutely huge and ridiculously healthy Camellia japonicas on the north side, and that house is over 100 years old.
ReplyDeleteSo while the whole garden may vanish, some perfectly placed, long-lived plants may survive, even if the whole garden does not.
I hope the not-so-little-anymore oak I planted from an acorn turns out to be a survivor for some decades, until the homes with gardens are all removed and replaced with massive apartment blocks.
Same here Gail, thoughts also went on plants that are vigorous and likely to just get on and take over. So many properties here have towering monkey puzzle tree right in front of the house (which I find attractive mind you). I reckon our bamboos will colonise the block given the chance....
DeleteOne man's Eden is another's WWTT, so it makes sense to please ourselves and indulge in whatever quirky garden style gives us joy. It might make sense to cultivate the friendship of someone with a BIG TRUCK.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Ricki. How often we've seen too that things gets ripped out even when relatively new as soon as new owners move in.
DeleteNoooo, what a horrible thought! It's a tough subject to think about, that's for sure :(
ReplyDeleteIndeed Amy, not the easiest of subjects to explore :)
DeleteA very interesting question posed in your blog. Years ago as a teenager I created my first garden and then my parents moved. I returned a couple of weeks later to collect something left behind and the new owners proudly told me they had completely cleared the rear garden - I was saddened and didn't want to see. Over the years as a professional horticulturalist I have been involved with various garden restoration projects and often wondered about the gardeners that had lovingly laboured in these gardens, often many year before. One thing that often survives when a garden is abandoned are the trees. I love the quote' it is a wise man that plants trees under whose shade he will never sit.' I guess most of my gardens will disappear but I like to think that one day someone will admire and enjoy a tree I planted many years before.
ReplyDeleteHopefully that will be the case. Trees are easy legacies to leave behind Ian :)
DeleteI was so glad you visited Will Giles' garden recently. The photos you took are priceless now. And your garden, whatever becomes of it, will live on in all who read your blog -- if that's any consolation!
ReplyDeleteHah! Yes, it is a thing to ponder. My old garden is being looked after by Peter's parents, as they bought the house, but they have a very different approach to gardening than I do and like different plants. The bare bones are (mostly) still there but a lot of the plants I love are gone, and it feels a very different place. My only regret is in leaving so many plants for them that I assumed I would be able to get divisions of later. As life has worked out this just hasn't been possible. Interesting what you say about putting a clause in if you come to sell, an excellent idea, we had intended to offer to fill in the pond and the border behind it and replace it with grass but then sold to mil and fil instead, who love the pond. It was funny, I know looking at my old garden many people would have been horrified at all the work involved in looking after it, and yet I know only too well that it was much less work than it had been when there were far fewer plants and loads of grass to take care of!
ReplyDeleteCreating a garden is pretty much an analogy for our life as a whole.
ReplyDeleteNice article. I do sometimes think this to myself as well; gardens aren't completely immortal, but in our eyes they are because they are with us throughout the duration of ourselves, we won't know what happens to them afterwards, but we hope that they will last long enough to bring joy to another gardener.
ReplyDelete