Moving abroad

well....most garden are for ornamental purposes. if we don't keep our houses dirty....why let the garden look like a wreck?

i know you should leave un disturbed places for wildlife....but most of us don't have space for that. i know i certainly dont.

And besides it all works itself in the garden anyway. works find other things to eat....like rotting manure, compost and leaf mould.

 

I used to be quite tidy in the garden but have learned to be more relaxed about it of late.

For instance I used to cut down all my perennials after flowering in the Autumn but have learned from this site that it's best to leave them and cut down in Spring, and the garden looks much better for it I must say plus the wildlife have some places to shelter.

The leaves I am just moving off my lawn and leaving on the borders for the worms to pull down.

I actually don't do much housework as that is my husband domain :D I work he doesn't !!
My area is the garden and that suits me just fine.

 

I still haven't got enough leaves to be able to contribute to this discussion on a personal level.... but when did that ever stop me?

I can say for sure that people vary a lot on this issue, in my experience, but the majority of people who pay for a gardener want it tidy - not surprising, is it?

 

No thats true, some people regard the garden as another room, everyone is different and that's fine it wouldn't do for us all to be the same.

My cousin who is very artistic has a very arty, natural garden eg. her sculptors are sitting in with the flowers, she lets the grass do it's own thing and has a lovely wildlife area, when my Dad was shown around he was horrified and said something like when are you going to tidy up, to which she replied it is supposed to be like this.

 

I'll admit to being a bit surprised to see all these comments about 'lazy' gardening and 'leaving the leaves' to do their worst. As we are all keen gardeners I think there is a bit of wishful thinking in some of your comments!

The damage from slugs and snails in the spring will remind all not to leave the leaves next time as well as those little dead patches on the lawn. I shall be looking at cutting back more of my trees and shrubs in aid of the cause and asking my neighbours to do the same as that is where most of my leaves come from..............

 

Disagree Chobart - I take the leaves off my lawn and reduce them in my border gullies - but thats all. Every winter, the blackbirds and thrushes scatter them as they find the snails/slugs and other beasties. The frogs and toads and visiting hedgehog in the spring add to the attrition.

The only plants that can suffer are my new young seedlings in if I'm foolish enough to put them on the ground, and removing them from harms way sorts that one + plus a little snail picking of an evening.

 

The great thing about gardening is that we can all choose to use our land and garden in our own way. We can each choose to be just as tidy or natural as we like. I cannot imagine a garden without leafy trees and shrubs and rarely cut them back at all. The autumn colours are such a bonus each year. I rake the drive and posh lawn only. Final lawn cut of the year is done with a hover mower and that finely chops and scatters any remaining leaves. That seems to please the lawn as I never feed it and all through last years drought, mine was green while the closely shaved and tidy lawns were seared and brown. Slugs and snails? Rarely see them before the birds and beasties gobble them up.

 

What is the point of cutting back trees and shrubs - they will only gtrow some more? I only trim them if they grow over a path or start swamping each other. I wish I had a neighbours tree that dropped leaves into my garden, particularly if it was an oak or beech. I sweep the leaves off the lawn and off some plants that don't appreciate them and put them in the bottom corner, where they rot down to make compost. I can't get enough organic material as far as I am concerned.
Some of my neighbours trim their trees to make them look 'tidy' or in the mistaken belief that it restricts root growth. So we end up with those pathetic lollipop trees. The worst are those Prunus Kanzan that makes a lovely spreading tree but ends up with stubby branches. One neighbour complains about a big mature tree, cause the leaves blow in his garden and the birds wake him up.

 

I so agree with you, Geoff! The mania for lollipop trees has spread from suburban street trees to gardens and even Epping Forest. They would be less keen if they had to lop with hand tools. Chainsaw boys' toys make it too easy.

 

.... but us with tiny gardens need to trim the larger trees and shrubs so they don't block out all the light and swamp other plants. And there is nothing more dangerous than soggy leaves on the steps......
but that said, my garden isn't manicured, the lawn's stripes aren't perfect, and its nice to have a casual look around the place.....
.... and as for slugs and snails.... we have mutant ones down here that even an ostrich would choke on!!!!!

 

Well surely we should choose trees and shrubs that suit the position. for instance i would not plant Kanzan unless I had a big open space for it. Though it is common it is a beautiful tree in the right position with its low spreading branches and lovely bark. I have a cherry that grows upright, I think it is called Spire, and it takes up very little room. Much of the beauty of trees comes from their natural shape.
I have taken out lower branches on a birch so I could grow other things underneath, but I was careful to keep the tree balanced and I took out whole branches, back to the trunk.
The only other tree pruning I do is if there is dead wood or it is to be pruned for productivity ie. fruit tree. I would rather take out a tree and replace with something more suitable than chop it about.

 

Talking about lollipop trees - theres a lane where I live where the trees are pollarded to within an inch of their life. Every shoot longer than a foot is cut. So all you see is a thick stem and a few fiddly twig like branches with leaves. This opposite a woodland - they're mad

 

If it's your local council doing the tree hacking, you could try asking them why and how much Council Tax it costs every year.

 

There's a street in my home town where everyone had lollipopped lime trees - absolutely horrible! I thought so even as a little kid. The same was done to a couple of horse chestnuts..... weird! And this definitely wasn't the council, it was the people who lived in those houses who did it, or had it done.

 

i collect any leaves for my leaf mould pile no point leaving them for the worms~don't have any :(
i've got new zealand flat worm instead