Examples of bad gardening

Nope! I have been gardening/growing plants for 30 years, and haven't gotten any better.

I think it is just how your mind is "wired". Some people are more creative than others.
If I see a gap in the soil, I plant something in it. Without much thought to how that particular plant will fit in with the others around it.

Or, although I try and have a tropical looking garden, I do plant some annuals for colour to keep the Mrs happy. But then she asks me why I bought some orange (Marigolds) and pink & red (petunias). Apparently these colours clash! Or so I am told!

 

Well, sometimes in my mind i have great ideas, to do with form, the elevation of the form, etc etc, the problem is I can't adapt that to the space I have.

 

I don't think you learn a lot about gardening until you yourself make mistakes first.

 

My mum once poured lawn fertiliser on her grass in the middle of summer and wondered why it had all gone brown.

 

This is pretty horrendous. I really hate gnome anyway. Pure evil..........

 

My garden went a bit of a disaster this year because i had just planted to many different plants at random - not even knowing what some of them did. So i have startred to dig every single plant in the garden up and from now i will only plant delphinium and foxgloves and similar herbacous perennials, hopefully that way i can propagate all of the extra stock i need by cuttings and self seeding. If i go to a garden centre and get carried away i will just have to keep anything i buy in pots and resisit the tempation of planting it. I also have a really bad habbit of moving plants around just after they have been planted...an inch to the left, no an inch to the right, no three foot back, no in the other boarder at the back yes that will do. 1 week later maybe it would look better next to the mock orange

I think the key is Sirius, to have a plan and stick to it - but il let you know next year haha

 

Contact the garden gnome liberationists at once!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_gnome_liberationists

What a cracking bunch of people!

 

Hydro just stop by mine after you go mad at the garden center....... I can look after those plants you get carried away buying.........
I've got an ASBO out on gnomes......

 

I live in a back to back terrace house, high number of renters in the area. I always like nosying to see what people have done with their gardens, and how it works out. I have got lots of ideas about what does and doesn't work from this!

My garden is a bit of a 'oh dear' example because really, when you have a tiny garden in a rented property why would you put a crappy lawn and privet hedge in? And a delightful concrete path. I rent so landscaping not an option but really? So many better ways to use the space.

Likewise, why plant what I might hazard a guess to be leylandii in a tiny terraced garden? Not my garden but up the road.

Why lay concrete patio paving on a patch of ground you haven't levelled? (another one up the road).

Rubber tyres as planters in a tiny garden: maybe not a good look.

Using fancy gravel, probably best to use enough to fully cover the area.

I should point out there are some people who've planted really cleverly. One garden relies on the shrubs/hedges for interest. It gives privacy and looks a really pleasant place to sit. Another I covet their herbaceous perennial borders. Others work well with a blank template they clearly are limited in how much they can alter.

But hedges, in tiny gardens where people mostly rent are not a good idea. Our road is full of privet hedge gone wild, with overhanging branches etc

 

I turned a corner of the field next to the house into a border for perennials. Bought a lovely book called Best Borders. Chose plants I liked the look of, planned, for colour, height, etc. that was 3years ago. Tall plants are growing in front of shorter ones, some things flower when they shouldn't, the cold winter decimated the new ones, the rabbits ate the phloxes, forgetmenots springing up everywhere.

But it's all experience, and I know that gradually I will learn what to protect,what to stake, and get my heights and colours into something approximately decent!

 

I have what I call a 'mini jungle' at the front of my house, Aprox 4m square though not actually a square, in the middle is a 7' acer with a clematus growing up it, next to that is a 'brusie bush' (forsythia) the other side is a flowing shrub that I can't remember the name of. in front is an 'obylisk' with another clematis, at ground level I have loads of mumbreshia and geranium (this is there to stop the mare's tale that was impossible to remove or kill) i also have a burberus, a lilac and a yukka (as you can tell I can't spell plant names) this 'design' 'evolved' over 13 years mostly from nessessity and poverty (ususlly no spare money for plants).
But amazingly it seems to work, the garden looks quite nice most of the time and lovely at some times through the year, and most of all provides a 'privacy screen' for my very large box-bay front window. (maybe I'll post pictures sometime for you to see) DESIGN is just happenstanse if you like it your design was right, if others don't they can always look elsewhere. now can't they?