How much time do you spend in your garden?

I love my garden but my enthusiasm does not quite match the flexibility of my joints . They are getting really painful.
My resident porter and heavy lifter just about works when needed.

I am running my industry rugler and rugler is the exporter of handmade rugs and carpets. I love to decorate my home and I think gardening is the best thing to do. Everyone should learn how to give a ravishing look to your home and garden.

I’m like you NfkDumpling - forever pottering and tweaking! I find it hard to dig now, so last week we bought lots of bags of soil improver (£2 a bag) from the recycling centre and covered the two borders with that ( I hope the bulbs fight their way through ).

I love gardening but we downsized our garden when we downsized our house. I’m a potterer, forever tweeking, cutting back, dead heading and moving plants - and impulse buying. This garden has completely different soil to our old one so I’m happily enjoying a completely new range of plants.

The problem is I’m not as fit as I was, and neither is Himself, we’ve given up on veggies and fruit now - just one prolific gooseberry bush which I’m rather fond of.

I love gardening! We have a smaller town garden now, having downsized from the country - but try and pack lots in

Too many “easily’s” there!! I’ll change the first one to “definitely”. ?

I’ve been in the garden this afternoon happily potting up some primulas and planting some spring bulbs. I was easily out there a couple of hours, but then my tum started to rumble and I realised it was way past lunchtime! ??
It’s meant to be another nice day tomorrow and I’ve still got some bulbs to plant and the grass to cut so hopefully that’s my job tomorrow. ? I easily get carried away once I start...

I love gardening and had to keep our fairly large family garden after divorce. I'd spend the whole day out there on the one day ex had the children. Very therapeutic. These days my OH sees the garden as his domain. He would live out there if he could. We have a beautiful garden but it's his. I get to do pots for the summer as he isn't a fan of annuals. When we moved in to our new house we both brought the contents of our old back gardens and replanted beloved plants we had nurtured over the years. We inherited a family back garden which was very plain apart from a few mature trees. Now it's a green oasis and absolutely beautiful. It's a pleasure to be in. I walk around looking at the borders at least once a day, have my morning coffee out there and on sunny evenings enjoy a G&T with OH. Right now, he is out there weeing on his compost heap. The compost bins at the back of the garden are his too.

He's a happy bunny when he's composting! All the kitchen food waste goes in. I often lose OH out there. I suppose it's a good thing we can find a bit of space from each other. I sneakily prune things when he's not around but I happily leave most of the maintenance to him. Couldn't be without a garden. They are good for the soul.

I'm with those who spend as little time out there as possible. I do like to see it looking tidy and plant pots up with bedding plants and cut the grass but other than that I would prefer to do the ironing! Come the autumn and winter that's it as I hate being outside in the cold. I used to have a gardener lady but she had a back operation last year and had to give it up. We used to have two huge poplars with preservation orders on them which made such a mess when the leaves dropped but thankfully we got them taken down a few years ago so the mess is mostly just the shrubs. I wonder if it's because I didn't have a garden growing up - just a back yard where my dad prepared the fish for the shop until I was 8 and then another back yard with a concrete balcony above it in the flat we moved to, and finally no yard at all as we moved to the hotel they bought. My parents were in business all their working lives so gardens never featured at all.

The front is needing weeding now but I keep putting that off for various reasons - my husband hates gardening and won't do anything other than cut the hedge once a year reluctantly. A lot of people down our road have had their front gardens dug up and paved for parking on which seems to be quite common now.

Emily thanks for the link!

Update to my first comment: at the minute I do as little as possible, the wind us howling and I'm curled up by the fire

We downsized our house but upsized our garden because we had always wanted a south facing garden that we could step straight into from the kitchen and dining area.Our previous houses had north facing gardens,and one was down steep steps to another level.So although it's large we love it and I happily spend any free hours I can snatch gardening,visiting nurseries and other gardens and planning a wish list of plants I would like.I do worry a little how we will cope when we are a lot older,but will cross that bridge when it comes.I'm trying to make certain areas lower maintainance,and we will get some help with hedges etc when necessary.I always liked gardening,but know it's my passion.Just as well !

We have a large garden which is my husband's hobby. he gets people who come to stay with us who in return for board and lodging and learning English help out in the garden. The internet site he uses is called work away.

www.workaway.info/

I like planting and pruning and sitting in the shade but i hate chores such as weeding and tidying up

I really enjoy my garden..gives me hours of work & empties my purse but hey ho..it is worth it. This autumn & spring I am replanting some areas so a bigger project than usual. I am often not ruthless enough in pruning and dividing..or just pulling up..so now places are overcrowded which is why I am digging up perrenials an overwintering them in the veg patch ready for repostioning in spring! Just need my back to get better!!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Beautiful pics lemongrove & Magicmaggie thank you.