AIBU. Public flogging for garden taste misdemeanors

Plastic grass becomes unbearably hot compared to the real lawn which has a cooling effect.

I have a rowan and a plum and an apple tree and loads of large shrubs .The landscaper said the Leylandii were the best option.Sadly not! Now its going to cost an arm and a leg to have them removed and then we're back to square one .The land around our house ..outside the garden belongs to the street and we pay for its upkeep so any damage done to it with diggers etc will have to be paid by us too.Honestly I'm fed up to the back teeth of it all.The FAKE grass has reeds growing through it now as well...if it wasn't such a worry I'd laugh .The plan was to move this year but the house we were buying fell through ,still looking for somewhere else .

Amagran My sympathy about the union flag...we have a lot of naval families here who fly them on large flag poles too

I hate hydrangeas don't know why but it's the only flower I can't stand. We have one in the front garden but we're moving soon so I've told OH
If there's any in a house we choose he has to dig them up!

Sorry to come late to the party, so I'm afraid that I haven't read all the other posts, but I'm going to bet than no one else has posted the pet hate which has been erected in my neighbour's garden: A full-size flag-pole and Union Jack - with twinkling fairy lights wound round the pole. I kid you not!

What about a willow tree paddyann, they will soak up a lot of water?
Leylandii roots tend to be fibrous.

I really don't mind if our neighbours at the back put down artificial lawn - it would be better than their huge leylandii and the general mess their garden is in.

notanan2 thanks for ruining this hopefully lighthearted thread. You are entitled to your opinions but not to be nasty about other people's choices.

I dislike plastic balls instead of hanging baskets, I have no opinion on artificial lawns as I don't have a lawn myself just raised beds & concrete paths which were here when I bought this home. I dislike small lawns & hate using a Flymo no strength for other types of mowers

Windchimes I don't mind provided they're not too intrusive. I have a few solar lights & gnomes plus some garden ornaments.

One of my pet hates is decking & I hate to see front gardens totally paved over, please leave some garden to allow "run off" after rain. Lelandaii leave me speechless - why, who thought they were a good idea

I was thinking the same thing MissA as judgemental ranty posts aren’t helpful.
Everybody has to do what is best for them, you can get artificial lawn that the rain goes through into the earth, and it’s far better than hard paving over the garden.You can still have borders in the garden, filled with insect friendly plants.

put me at the top of your list IF we can get grass to grow or maybe they'd like to contribute to the drainage fund as the latest estimate is close to £5K .

Notanan I do know children dont need level lawns to play on but a swamp with mud they'll sink into and reeds isn't ideal .Currently we've spent over ten thousand pounds on drainage firms had fences taken down so diggers can get in and even planted the dreaded Leyllandi as advised by the landscaper ...to soak up the water !! It didn'tw work I now have 12 foot trees along the back fence that I dont want,with another bill for thousands to take them away .Some of us dont lay fake grass because we're lazy OR dont care about the environment !

Day6 windchimes are lovely ( I try them in the garden centre too) obviously you have to site them in a neighbour friendly way though, and take account of where you live ( on a windy hill!) etc.
Our garden is very sheltered and away from immediate neighbours, also the windchime is melodic not a tinny chime.

I hope everyone is going to knock at the door of those with plastic grass and offer their services to cut and tend to a natural lawn if they promise to remove the offending stuff.

I'm with ya granny4hugs. I'm not a violent person, but will be happy to adminster some light slaps with said strips of synthetic lawn.

Trouble is it doesnt last long , we put some on our family graves two years ago. It was expensive but the backing has rotted

....as an adjunct...if I hadn’t any grass, I would have a beautiful memory of my 3 year old son making a daisy chain all those years ago. I’d mow any amount of kawn to keep that memory.

Artificial grass....what the hell is that all about...not even a daisy sprouting to break up the overpowering ‘greenness’ . Yuk..Yuk...Yuk!

Gillybob, I am complaining and I have to say our home is as environmentally friendly as it can be. You use this stufff to clean the lawn for who, the sake of the children. Well keep on using plastic instead of natural and you will find your gc living in a terrible world without wildlife and anything natural. Its not for us that we are trying to rid the place of plastic but the next generation so they have the nature that we had.

For every patch of plastic my friend and I are distributing poppy and California poppy seeds.
So if you still have some seeds take them out with you and just shake them all about but obviously not in someone's front garden?

Lully you can get "outdoor carpets" in all colours (for some reason????) Google it!

Dot thats horrible! And in my experience the people who harp on about things devaluing their homes have no intention of selling anyway (theyre the types who waste agents time by getting regular valuations to see what theyve "made" on their house )

I bet its just one nasty sole ranger trying to sound like its "the neighbourhood"

I am waiting for them to produce plastic grass in a variety of colours. Why only green????? ?

DD rents and her back garden is paved and gravelled so she bought some fake grass so that DGD would have somewhere soft to play - she doesn’t like it much but, like Paddyann needs must. She also has lots of plants in tubs.
I have bamboo wind chimes too Lemongrove and a cat called Colin and a gnome called David who are both practically hidden in the lavender. Each to his/her own.

This really caught my attention as I received an unsigned letter this morning from the 'Residents' of my road complaining about our 'overgrown' lawn (it was mowed last week), having enough fairy lights to furnish an Indian restaurant (don't have any lights in either the front or back garden at all) which should, according to the author of the letter, have been 'taken down after Christmas' and of having a 'dump of a front garden' - garden is tidy with flowering shrubs and containers. However, my next door neighbour is currently caring for his wife who had a very bad stroke just before Christmas last year and is still in recovery from it. Their garden is overgrown (we did cut it back for them but he said he would be able to deal it with it so we didn't ask again). He put up the icicle Christmas lights around the front windows and garage of his house just before his wife became ill and they are solar lights so switch on automatically at dusk. He does have two cars full of assorted bags of things on the driveway and bits of wood lying around in front of the garage, so I am presuming they got the house number wrong and it should have gone to them instead. All the letter harps on about is how it is having a detrimental effect on the value of the houses - not one word about offering to help or do you need a hand. It has really annoyed me - especially because who ever sent it didn't have the guts to sign it.

I feel I have to admit to being a fan of wind chimes.

I was given a tiny silver tinkling one, from Glastonbury many years ago. Then OH made me a larger one from metal (he had to cut it so the tubes chimed properly) and handed it to me as a birthday surprise many years ago. It's in the back garden and chimes softly and gently in a breeze. It doesn't clang.
You know that woman in the garden centre who has to set off all the wind-chimes to hear what they sound like? Well, that's me.

We have a lovely, green lush garden with trees, lawns, a pond, arbours shady nooks and flowering borders thanks mainly to the efforts of gardening fanatic OH. I too think artificial grass looks (yuck) wrong but I can understand why some people use it.

Ponds sometimes do better out of direct sunlight too

"Oh I couldnt grow a lawn there so I HAD to fake grass it" is disingenuous. People get it because they want it.

I’m sure plastic grass will fall out of favour along with single use plastics and plastic bag use. I’m sure it’s convenient for some but a big fat no in the long term. I saw a garden in Scotland where the owner had used all sorts of junk as planters in the garden- I did laugh at 2 old toilets planted up with geraniums labelled “his” and “hers”

Plastic grass is allright on a football ground, but not in a garden.Plastic flowers, why bother,as for gravel without pots of flowers around,its an eye sore and waste of time IMHU.