How much time do you spend in your garden?

I have been a gardener since I was a small child, growing simple flower seeds in a garden the size of a pocket handkerchief! I have always tried to grow things in every country I’ve lived in. I loved our last garden but it had large hedges on three sides which took up far too much of our time. The present one is much lower maintenance but not nearly as attractive as the last, and never will be, so I don’t lavish a lot of time on it except to keep it tidy. I now have problems getting down to weed and plant, so my favourite bit is the lovely rockery wall we established which I can work on standing up! In my mid thirties we had an allotment which demanded almost daily visits most of the year - not always easy when you are working and running a house, but we loved growing vegetables. Now we have the time, we don’t have the fitness or the energy!

As little time as possible. I hate gardening but do like to see it weed free and with lots of colour. I dislike being outside in the summer when its really hot.
Given the choice I would rather pay someone to look after my garden than to clean my house.

I really like and enjoy my garden and these days the only gardening required is weeding and pruning but I enjoy that too. I enjoy having a garden that always looks good. I often eat my breakfast out there too.

I love my garden and spend lots of my free time trying to restore order, parts of it has a jungle theme when first planted seven years ago, has evolved into quite frankly an overgrown mess, I try to blame the spaniel who goes through and not round anything, but some serious work is now needed, fortunately am fit enough to do it myself with a little help from sil, I have bamboo, mahonias eight foot tall, banana plants, all need sorting, grow calla lilies and other lilies in pots which are dotted around to give lots of colour. Am spending couple of hours a day at moment but then spend ages queuing at dump to recycle it all, hard work, but am not ready yet for manicured lawn and neat bedding plants. There is nothing better than large rhubarb gin sat on garden bench with slobbering spaniel in late September sunshine, yesterday, surveying slightly tamed jungle. I’m now looking for the voltarol?

I am with Sodapop on this one, I like the garden to look good but I don't want to do it. I have friend who definitely has green fingers and I love her enthusiasm for her garden

There is nothing I admire more than a beautiful garden. However, I have neither the inclination nor the fitness to tend ours. Fortunately DH has, and as you may know does gardening for other people too.
I spend time in my garden sitting in the shade.

Oh dear I'm hopeless in the garden. I used to have a huge garden, but now I have just a balcony with pots. Even now things don't flourish. In fact, a group of friends is coming round this evening to sort it out for me. I'm providing the pizza and wine, they're providing the enthusiasm and expertise!

I love my garden
When I was little my dad who was a great gardener gave me a little patch to grow lettuces radishes and spring onions in
I love to weed I find it really therapeutic and I love seeing things grow I don’t have a big garden about 25ft sq and then a smaller one at the front but I spend as much time as possible in it Whenever i m not at work or busy I m in my garden if I m not gardening I m sitting with a coffee and the radio I m often picking out weeds before breakfast ?

I don’t much like weeding but I find digging very therapeutic! Many places have been dug up in order to calm my temper/ cheer me up!

I loathe gardening and leave it to OH but I do love housework. I've never been able to understand why I hate one and love the other.

Today DH and I spent about 4 hrs today. We have inherited a very large, beautiful garden and it is a lot of work to keep it so. Not that we mind. We have lots of large trees and soon the battle with fallen leaves will begin. ?

Yes I feel the same way Littlepinkpiggy it's hard to understand isn't it. You would think the satisfaction would be the same seeing a well tended garden or a house.

I only go in the garden when the weather is fine in order to sit on the patio or to give the gardener a cup of tea. I was brought up in a flat and have never caught the gardening bug.
I have been known to plant up a patio tub , but that’s it.

Not enough

Our garden is large. Over the years I've tried to make it more low maintenance but I'm my own worst enemy - always creating new borders, planting schemes and growing veg. Today I'll be off to my favourite nursery to see what they have in their autumn sale.

Unless the weather is bad I spend an average of four hours a day gardening. DH takes care of grass cutting, hedge trimming etc., and we have somebody to help one afternoon a fortnight.

I bought two very posh wooden sun loungers in June. They have yet to be used.

I'm a fine weather gardener but love it, always have. My (farm worker) father used to laugh when I retreated inside if it began to rain. It relaxes me, if I'm cross about something a bit of pruning restores good humour, its my measure of the seasons and where I feel closest to the world.

Our garden is tiny now, the right size for me to manage and I'm happy with it. Mr C does the labouring. we spent two days recently moving shrubs around, but he leaves what he calls the technical stuff to me.

When we've moved, which we have a lot, I have been able to leave the houses without a backward glance but have always been sad to leave 'my' plants and garden behind. Its hard to say how much time I spend out there, some weeks about 10 minutes, other weeks a few hours split into manageable chunks.

Not enough
I have to be in the right mood even though the weeds are nodding their heads defying me to remove them.

Before I moved to my current home 5 years ago my gardens were always for kids and dogs, nothing really much to do in them. But since I moved here I have loved gardening, my garden is scruffy but very productive, I grow all sorts of fruit and veg and have planted some fruit trees, apples, pears, plums, cherries, quince, hazelnuts and elderberries. There are all sorts of flowers and shrubs and I have a resident hedgehog, robins nested in an old teapot and I get all sorts of birds feeding on my feeders. Everything I've learnt has been by trial and error, most plants bought from the Poundshop or the 'dead' section at B&Q

By the way my garden is about 7 metres long by bout 14 wide with a bit more down the side of the house, just wish I could have taken more interest when I was fit enough to enjoy it more.......

Half an hour - not a fan of gardening really

I love the garden and gardening including growing annuals and tomatoes etc from seed. The perennials take care of themselves except for a bit of pruning. I like mowing the grass and have a 80 ft x 40 front and side too. I would not call them lawns. The back is a small courtyard garden with own little micro climate. I haven't a clue how much time I spend there but it's time well spent.

Gardening feels too much like housework, but it has to be done. I enjoyed every minute of this lovely long hot summer (just sitting out there of course).

Ha Ha, cornergran. Farmers and gardeners have a whole different take on making things grow.

On my first day at horticultural college the lecturer asked if anyone was married to a farmer. I shot up my hand with a big smile on my face thinking she'd be impressed. She just gave me a sympathetic look and mumbled, 'Good Luck!'

I'm forever hiding the hoe when hand weeding is required, trying to ignore his teasing about getting the knapsack sprayer out (we're organic), shrieking at him for trampling on self-seeders at the edge of the lawn, pleading with him not to plant enough potatoes to feed half the village and begging him not to 'harvest' everything at once.

Such Fun!

Love gardening, only have a small garden but have filled it with as many perfumed shrubs, roses, and flowers as possible. For me it is a little sanctuary sometimes just to sit in and relax. The longer I spend in it pottering about, the more I enjoy it. Everything we have planted in it is for its perfume, and depending where you sit you get a different mix of fragrances. The annual flowers we grow from seeds always seem to be a bonus as they are a bit hit and miss as to whether they will come through. This year I made a little trellis of honeysuckles, sweat peas and rambling roses and the scent from it was a heady. It also gives you more exercise than you realise and all the fresh air helps towards a good night's sleep.
We go to quite a few " open day gardens " in our area as well as garden centres, always looking for other little ideas to incorporate into ours.

Me too Sodapop I would willingly do what little housework I do and pay someone to weed and generally look after my garden. I'm not afraid of heavy work in garden... I'm reasonably fit even with two prolapsed disks. But I just have a 'black thumb'. I read the instructions ...do the digging...do the planing...do the watering... stand back and watch them die off. It's disheartening! Just haven't got what it takes to 'build' a garden. Give me re-wiring a plug or changing a car wheel any day or decorating , laying a wooden floor ...I can and have done it all....but that 50x30ft of Earth at the back of my house just defeats me. Lol