How much time do you spend in your garden?

Our garden is also large, it was our main reason for buying the house. When we moved in it was just an empty field and a small orchard, we have dug and planted extensive borders, hedgerows and thousands of plants. I do enjoy gardening - when my asthma will allow me to, sometimes I can't walk to the other end of the lawn. I like mowing the grass (Oh that wonderful smell of cut grass...!), deadheading, planning and planting borders. I draw the line at weeding (tedious) but fortunately DH finds that quite therapeutic. He also does all the digging and heavy work. In the winter months we spend more time in the greenhouse nurturing plants for the following year. We're going to a plant fair this weekend and I know I will come back with something!

....sorry my latest acquisition is a honeysuckle that I've planted at the foot of a new fence( to cover it really) . So far-so good! Well it's still alive anyway!

I dislike gardening and don't really have the strength for serious digging. I mow my lawns once a month in summer and am planting as many perennials as possible in the front flowerbeds to minimize the amount of weeding.

Planning an easy to keep front garden (paved with two flower borders and lots of flowering bushes) to be put into effect when DH gets his pension and money will be less tight.

Like Saggi and Sodapop I happily spend time on all sorts of housework in preference to gardening.

I love my garden. I designed it myself and got a landscaper to build it for me. That was 11 years ago and all went well until I got arthritis in my knees and couldn't get "down and dirty". For the past few years i've been unlucky with gardeners but now have found a lovely lady gardener who is going to put my garden right. It'll take sometime as it's had nothing done for a year but i'll be spending more time out there in future.
Big plans for replanting one bed and for replacing plants, mainly shrubs, that the last incompetent gardener killed. It'll take quite a bit of work but then I'll be able to do it myself - especially after my second knee replacement op in August.
Can't wait until Thursday when the work starts.

I’m another who enjoys gardening. I like to spend as much time out there as possible.
I like weeding and pruning because I can quietly think about things or take my annoyances out on the pruned shrubs.
I love sowing seeds and seeing then through to fully grown plants.
Our current garden was an large empty space when we bout the house and now it has veg and flower beds, a greenhouse and a large courtyard with a water feature.

My small garden doesn't need much time in it to keep it reasonable. The last one was around three times the size and dear late husband could spend all day out there - we had loads of herbaceous plants to dead-head. I do a little bit each day, weather permitting and it only takes ten minutes to mow the lawn - the only garden job I dislike.

Oh I just love gardening...I wouldn't call mine a 'neat' garden...that's not my style, it's got wildlife areas, beautiful herbaceous borders, grass.. not lawn because the grandchildren play football, acrobatics, boules etc, we have a dog!!!! I go out first light with a cuppa,a d last light with a glass of wine..if am stressed/worried..it 'stills' me a bit....Hate housework though..

I love gardening and have really enjoyed reading all the posts on here about it.I don’t really time myself and don’t garden every single day as we have got it to the state that we wanted, which is that much of it takes care of itself, with lots of shrubbery. There is always room for one more plant mind you.
I would quite like a small rose garden, but they look so bare in Winter.
Why not post pics of your gardens on this thread, or of your plants in pots, or individual shrubs, trees?

I'm pretty much with farview on this apart from the dog. What amazes me is that I can go out to do a specific small job and TWO HOURS later I can still be there pottering. I seem to lose myself and it not been unknown to find some very crisp 'object' still doing away in the oven. My formative years were spent in cities and tenements so I don't know where this pleasure in gardening came from but it certainly is here and much satisfaction flows from it.

Easy and a bit wild looking borders are my favourites.

I too love my garden, and luckily I have a husband who although is not particularly interested, will patiently dig holes for me even when I change my mind about where
to put a particular plant.
Most of all we love sitting out in the gazebo with a nice
bottle of wine on a warm evening enjoying the view.

I'm not a keen gardener and spend the minimum time to keep the garden neat. A lot of things died this summer in the extreme heat but at least I didn't need to cut the grass or weed in the heat. When I was younger I had more interest but can't be bothered much now. The hot summer this year with a south facing shadeless garden it was unbearable to be outside in the garden.

..that's my kind of border lemongrove!
Beautiful view Magic Maggie!

Farview
Thanks,
It’s so apt that your name reflects what we have.
We are so lucky to have been able to have lived here for 32 years. And incidentally I too hate housework?

I could live in the garden. Even though at the moment I'm under the weather (nothing serious, just a cold I can't throw off, slightly sore throat, tired, catarrh) I've just spent the afternoon in the garden. Planted lots of spring bulbs, moved some plants around, cut down some shrubs. Yesterday re-planted the garden behind the pond. Sometimes I go out in the dark with a torch to water the over-seeding on the lawn. Rasp canes cut back last week. Everyday I go up the garden at least once, I love it so much. Unlike the house it never needs dusting or polishing.

Beautiful pics lemongrove & Magicmaggie thank you.

Another who loves the garden although neither DH or I can do as much nowadays. DH is the veggie man but I am the flowers lover and planner and am fortunate to have a gardener friend who 'does' for us.

We have a communal garden as we live in a flat. We have a Gardner of sorts bit useless but he does a good job of cutting the grass.
We have put a few pots of plants in the garden.

I love gardening. The flower and lawn half of the garden get just enough attention but my love is for growing all sorts of vegetables (with varying success) and we don’t have to buy many through the Summer. We had an allotment until 30 years ago which was wonderful and grew enough veg and fruit then to take our family of 5 through the year but it’s only me now and a non-gardening DD and budding gardener little DGS now. I can’t go out on sunny days so Summer gardening often happens from 5 to whatever time it is too dark to see or the midges start to bite.
I go to a rheumatology clinic where the consultant sighs at the state of my hands and says her patient numbers would halve if so many of us weren’t gardeners.

I miss having a garden or balcony or indeed any outside space. Would never dig anything but like growing herbs and pruning.

So I'm not alone Sodapop! To me gardening just feels like outside housework which comes with lots and lots of extra dirt, plus bugs etc. Also, if I totally clean my house, lock the doors and go away on holiday when I get back it will still essentially be the same. If I do the same with my garden by the time I return the weeds will be back, the flowers will need dead heading and I have to start again.

I love my garden, - although my back doesn't,- and spend lots of time either sitting or, more often, working in it. There are three little seating areas to choose from, depending on where the sun is.
The back garden is quite private with large shrubs all round, and bird feeders. I grow lots of flowers in pots as they are easier to deal with.
It's nowhere near as tidy as I would like it to be, but I quite like a slightly wild look.
I can't cope as well these days, so a gardener is coming to prune all the shrubs soon.
I'd be lost without my garden.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201809/medium-175752-path-border-2018.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201809/medium-731356-fidwell-cottage-garden-2013.jpg

Lovely pics, lemon and Maggie - What a view!

I like wild looking borders as well, especially as I seem to spend my life yanking out fen nettles. The path in the pic needs replacing but I'm reluctant because of the disruption so I'm hollowing out the crevices and encouraging Erigeron karvinskianus to self seed. They don't seem to mind being stepped on!

For the 3rd time this year my delphiniums are in full bloom. In all my years of gardening, I've never had delphiniums flower this late in the year.

In retirement we now have a small garden back and front which is great. The back is south facing and is totally private and very quiet as we live in bungalows and our neighbours are also retired.
I don't keep the back garden as tidy these days as I am encouraging hedgehogs into it we have three at the moment. I built a hedgehog house this year and we now have a resident.
I guess I do about 4 hours a week, generally tiding up some pruning I do the borders hubby the lawn. I tend to wash the bird bath out twice a week.
We do enjoy sitting out on a sunny days sometimes have meals outside wonderful.
I've had an interest in gardening since my early 20s, in my 30s started growing plants for my hanging baskets and tubs from seed. Now in retirement mainly over winter half hardy tub perennials in the garage and this year for the first time for ages have a few trays of seeds started.
I do find it therapeutic thank goodness I am still well enough to garden.