Neighbouring gardens

[Nannysally99]

My neighbors have paved over front gardens and small lawns with more paving st the back. There is a lady next door but one, it’s the most lovely garden in the summer (out back, because front is paved)
A joy to see
A lot of the houses along the road are rented out and people don’t appear to bother I’m afraid
Do in at least 10 or more houses either way there are only two gardeners.
Shame

[bramble]

Nobody around me grows any fruit or veg..
Both my neighbours grow flowers, shrubs and hanging baskets in summer.
They have grass in the front and back gardens and so the mower can be heard every week or two.
I grow as much as possible with the space available to me.
We have His shed, my greenhouse, a decking area and a Roman circle with a fountain in the middle.
Raised bed runs down the whole side of the garden.
Half barrels and large containers share the deck with a table and chairs.
A balcony built outside my French window holds window boxes and pots of lilies, fuschia and other flowers.
A wire fence deciding the decking area from 5he rest of the garden supports the sweet peas in summer.
On the far side of the garden the border houses the dahlias.
It may sound crowded but it works for me.
My greenhouse is never empty.
My neighbours say, arnt you great growing your own fruit and veg.
And sent you great making jams and sauces.
But they could do the same.
It's just a wonderful way of living life in the great outdoors.

[Snadger]

In my head, we would have grown enough of one thing for everyone, then done whatever we liked with the rest. At the time we kept bees, so we would have produced honey for everyone, maybe eggs and apples and a veg of some sort. It was crop rotation across 12 gardens!
I still think it could work if I could persuade a few of them to join in.

Sounds too much like Farming to me!

[Snadger]

I have a large garden but no veg in it at the moment and no greenhouse as that's why I got my allotment so close by. I do have a substantial herb bed close to the door which I always wanted. I have a couple of fan trained apples on a fence and have just received some dwarf fruit (pear, plum ,cherry and mulberry to grow in pots.) on patio.

I eventually aspire to a Geoff Hamilton inspired mixture of flowers fruit and veg all growing together in the garden,but I will still keep a small lawn for sun bathing!

[bikermike]

I eventually aspire to a Geoff Hamilton inspired mixture of flowers fruit and veg all growing together in the garden,but I will still keep a small lawn for sun bathing!

7'x2'6" with a raised lump at one end?

[Snoop Puss]

I'm in here: surrounding gardens are patches of forest, olive and almond groves, fields of cereal crops and areas of abandoned land, given over to wilderness.

[1Bee]

Our main neighbours run a couple of hundred head of dairy cattle on their 'garden'. ;-) The only bit that really could be termed garden is the donkey paddock for the grandchildren and the front garden which they mow occasionally.

Opposite is a dillapidated house with a fabulous garden which is now turning to wildnerness as the owner is in a home. I love it. I also badly covet it, but we could never afford it if it came up for sale.

Next to him is a bungalow with massive lawns and a few rose bushes, but the owner is a single guy with a garage business in his back yard, so I can't imagine him having time or inclination to garden.

To be honest, we don't have a garden anyway, just a courtyard with a few pots and corner beds.

At the allotment, I've only one neighbour, who hasn't really made a go of it yet, but I'm holding out hope she gets stuck in this season.

[Bacchus]

Thankfully my nearest neighbours are about a quarter of a mile away. There's one neighbour that lives about a mile away who has a large pollytunnel but I don't know of anyone else who really grows much.

Like everyone in the countryside here I know all my neighbours for a 2 mile radius and am probably related to most of them...

[Scarlet]

I've no neighbours either side of me but opposite they all interested in gardening of some sort! One dabbles in a little veg but his back garden is full of to die for shrubs, all carefully considered with some amazing growing structures. His daughter is a gardener and has done her RHS courses...currently doing a dissertation. The next one has a greenhouse so does veg and flowers, lots of sweet peas for cutting and as she does the Church flowers, lots of shrubs to cut. The one next to her is an older lady, her garden is stunning. I think she lives in it! it's so perfect...

[veggiechicken]

I think you take the prize for having the most neighbours who garden, Scarlet

Don't know why but I thought that most of us would be part of a gardening neighbourhood but it seems that we growers are the odd ones out.
I find it quite sad .

[SarrissUK]

I don't know VC - I think we can positively influence people by sharing our produce, talking about it, showing the gardens to people, sharing it on social media... Several people have already said to me they've been inspired by my pictures and my progress relatively quickly on my plot and my back garden, and a few are taking their first steps back into it.

Even just a couple of weeks with my family and talking to my sister (who grows veg anyway) and my mum (who used to, but not any longer) and how that has inspired my mum to think maybe she should grow something too this year. Sending seeds to her and other family members will probably help too.

I think we can influence people, and that's great, but we also have to accept that so many people work at breakneck speed these days to just afford a mortgage, that growing veg might not fit in with their schedules even if they'd want to. Those that totally lack the knowledge or experience are more inclined to be positively affected by our influencing skills I think

[Scarlet]

Our little group of houses are all old, dated from 1710 with odd shaped large gardens, neighbours have a couple of wells. I don't think "non" gardeners would buy here. There's more outside space than in. When I pop over for coffee it's regular thing to sit outside with our coffees with our coats on
Or wander round, cup in hand checking out what cuttings can be taken

[Small pumpkin]

The few distant neighbors we do have don't seem to do much. One grows a few tomatoes and another grows a few things from plug plants ( that I grow from seed ). Everyone else just seem to keep on top of there gardens. None of them are overgrown, unkept jungles.
We're booked in to help put up 2 polytunnles this summer. One either end of the island.
Apparently we know what we're doing because we've done 3 of our own.

[Squingy]

We're a semi detached in a small town that's growing fast. There are fields behind, currently with sheep. My neighbour on the other half will probably throw a fit if so much of a branch is out of place. Their lawn is always pristine with a few shrubs trimmed all block-like. He chewed me out a few months ago for not scraping off the remnants of dead ivy on our wall of the top floor. When I said politely we don't own the house we're just renting, well he almost bust a vein snapping at me on how I should scrape it all off because one day we might decide to own there.

The gardens that are tended are all the same - nice ornaments, low maintenance ornamentals, one's got a cute little pond with a fountain. No one grows edibles, gravel instead of a lawn is common.

I plonked a polytunnel on our back garden, grow stuff in a little un-grassed strip along the fence. I let beans run over the landlord's shrubs and squash trail along the lawn. Loads of pots and troughs and some huge pots with dwarf trees. Also one big shady spot with just weeds on the side. Grew perennials, potatoes and sunchokes there last year, fortunately the neighbourhood pets left it alone. The back garden looks wild and unkempt but that's deliberate. I can't stand a cut lawn. I like to weave through grass when I walk.

I don't think it's sad growers like us are far in between. I think given a fair chance nearly everyone can take to gardening, to a certain extent, but people have different loves which they put first... art, baking, music or whatever else. For us it happens to be gardening.

[JanieB]

Mine is still a work in progress but it is getting there. I’ve divided into 3 non equal parts. The part by the house and the bottom of the garden are nearly there. The top has a patio surrounded on 2 sides by a small lawn. There’s also a small block paved area with a small shed for garden tools and a log store. I need to plant up the borders round it and am going for perfumed shrubs and flowers. There are 5 hanging baskets with geraniums, fuschias and lobelia in, but they also grow strawberries, tumbler tomatoes and chillies. The last 2 years the patio was covered in containers with more plants in as I haven’t yet been able to put up my poly tunnel. Last years plants were a bit of a disaster but i’ll try again this year.

The bottom of the garden has, what my daughter calls, the summerhouse which is intended as a hobby shed. It will have a small paved area, barbecue and bench in front of it.

The middle part of the garden is for growing food. Unfortunately it is overwhelmed by saplings that are growing from the roots of trees that have been taken down.

Taking the neighbours gardens as I can see them. The neighbour 3 doors up has a totally paved over garden covered in various fairy lights and a Victorian street lamp. 2 doors up is his daughter and her boyfriend who recently bought the house from my nfh who covered the garden with plant suppressant and laid AstroTurf. My immediate neighbours have been there just over a year and seem to be keen gardeners. Apart from the owner before them, the other owners were also into gardens.

On the other side my next door neighbour has a double width garden as it used to be 2 cottages and it is now 1. A gardener looks after it and it looks like a small town park with a lawn, specimen trees and ornaments. After that is an Indian takeaway whose garden looks like a shanty town.