Manageable garden size?

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Manageable garden size?
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Claire70

Joined: 22 Aug 2006
Posts: 144
Location: Surrey

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 11 9:00 pm Post subject: Manageable garden size?

My partner and I are planning on buying a house with just under a third of an acre of garden - much more than we have now. The garden is really the reason we would want the house (we don't like the house so much!) but my in-laws think it is too big and would be too much work. We both have full time jobs, however we have no kids, don't have *hugely* busy social lives, and gardening is one of our main hobbies.

Do you think this size garden is manageable? If anyone has a similar size plot, how do you find it?

Mustang

Joined: 15 Jul 2005
Posts: 768
Location: Sunny Suffolk

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 11 9:11 pm Post subject:
Surely it rather depends on what you intend doing with it? Lay it all to grass and get a mini-tractor with grass-cutter, then it's not such a problem. But planning to put in a natural swimming pool, japanese garden, fernery, veg patch, tropical area, beds, topiary and a formal area is quite a lot of work. What are your plans?

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18420

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 11 9:16 pm Post subject:
You don't need to have it all laid down to vegetable plots - some could be fruit trees or fruit bushes, which is less work. Some lawn, paths, patio/paved area to sit out on, shed, greenhouse..... Plus space to plant 'wild' stuff like sloes, an elder tree, rosa rugosa for rosehips.... I think you'll be fine with that amount of ground.

john of wessex

Joined: 18 Jun 2007
Posts: 2130

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 11 9:27 pm Post subject:
Having had a big garden I found it a terrible bind - it's a lot of work keeping on top of it. If you wanta 'productive' garden, you may find that you can get more output from a smaller area that you work hard.

Sally Too

Joined: 14 Sep 2006
Posts: 2511
Location: N.Ireland

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 11 9:34 pm Post subject:

One third of an acre? You love gardening! You'll out grow it in no time!

Seriously, I am a lucky devil - I live in the country on our own 25 acres. Ten acres are trees, and then some in fields. Our house sits on an acre and a half and I'm still contemplating turning a bit more field into garden!

Gardening is such fun - I love it and spend loads of time planning planting and growing.

No way will 1/3 acre be too big. Go for it!

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18420

Posted: Thu Apr 28, 11 9:46 pm Post subject:

john of wessex wrote:

If you wanta 'productive' garden, you may find that you can get more output from a smaller area that you work hard.

I'd agree with that, actually. I used to have a south-facing garden of the size that comes with a terraced house, and I grew all my summer salad stuff, spinach beet, beetroot, strawbs, rhubarb, herbs, tomatoes, chillis, and purple sprouting broccoli.

What I wasn't growing was spuds, onions, carrots, other root veg, and the bigger brassicas. I also had no fruit trees, currants, rasps. Or lawn.

Claire, how much garden have you got at the moment, what do you grow, and what else would you like to grow ?

Sally Too

Joined: 14 Sep 2006
Posts: 2511
Location: N.Ireland

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 6:35 am Post subject:

gil wrote:

Claire, how much garden have you got at the moment, what do you grow, and what else would you like to grow ?

Gil - you've hit the nail on the head. We've (or at least me) have all been thinking of our own situations and not quite listening to the OP.

Space needed really does depend on what you want to do.... or what you might one day want to do..

We have been here 20 years. I didn't garden the whole area round the house when we arrived as we had 2 small children and 2 more were born here. Gradually I brought small areas back into play and left others "wild"

.

A few years ago we extended the tiny strip of space south of the house into the field to make a nice bit of garden on the sunny side of the house and I have populated it with flowers grown from seed, cuttings and the odd plant from the garden centre.

There has never been an overall destination "plan" rather the garden has grown and evolved with us.

If you have more space then you have that option.......

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19862
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 7:03 am Post subject:
You have to live in the house as well so I hope you like it. There are nice houses with big gardens and whats it got to do with your in-laws? Perhaps they are saying wait and get both?

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 7:03 am Post subject:

As has been said, it depends on what you do with it. I think we have around 1/5 an acre and although it flows from one part to another you could view it as various sections. The smart front, the smart patio area, the less formal borders, veg beds, fruit trees and wild-life garden.

What takes most time is the smaller smart areas, the much larger wild end and fruit trees take much less time.

If you don't intend to be there that long I would suggest you don't pay too much extra for the large garden. What might seem strange to people here is that many people these days don't want a large garden so it can actually count against you when selling.

Claire70

Joined: 22 Aug 2006
Posts: 144
Location: Surrey

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 7:49 am Post subject:

Thanks for all the interesting replies! I'll try and answer some of the questions.

Our existing garden is about 60 ft long by 15 ft wide. The new garden has quite a few fruit trees in it at the bottom, but is otherwise mostly lawn and small-ish ornamental beds. I'd want to have a much bigger veg patch (we currently have about 4 square metres), and more ornamentals. Probably also a wild / meadow type area around the fruit trees. Maybe a polytunnel eventually. But I'd probably build it up slowly, by gradually removing the lawn, rather than trying to do everything at once!

In our price range we can basically either afford a big (well, big-ish) house with a small garden, or a small house with a big garden.... This is definitely the biggest garden we've seen! The house is not awful, it's just a bit small and not really our taste, but we could live with it, and could build an extension eventually. Oh, and the garden is south-facing, and backs onto a common!

shopgirlsue

Joined: 26 Jul 2006
Posts: 197
Location: Nr Shaftesbury

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 8:04 am Post subject:
Sounds ideal As you said you can always change the house in time and a 1/3 acre garden laid mainly to lawn will be reasonably easy to maintain especially if you don't insist on a bowling green lawn with perfect edges .

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 11:37 am Post subject:

We have a small house and a big garden and sometimes the house feels frustratingly small, always in a mess as we have too much stuff. And the world's smallest kitchen, if you tried to swing a cat in it you would break your elbow before you could get a good swing together!
Another room would be really handy.

But we love the garden - me for growing fruit and veg, keeping chickens (and its too small already) and my partner for sitting on the decking sipping white wine admiring the view.

If you both love gardening then go for it!

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19862
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 12:43 pm Post subject:
It sounds very niceand it also sounds like you want it.

Mutton

Joined: 09 May 2009
Posts: 1508

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 11 5:43 pm Post subject:

There is also space for several big sheds for the stuff that won't fit in the house.

If it were me, I'd seriously think about losing the collection of small beds in the lawn as soon as you get there - they need weeding and you have to mow round them. Move all perennial plants to one big bed with a nice straight edge and use plenty of bark mulch. We did that while we were working and it did keep weeds much more under control.

If you haven't already, look into agroforestry. I'm a great fan of bushes and trees.

Oh and if the apple trees are productive you will need an apple store. When we were doing a lot of vegetable gardening, boy did we need storage space for the apples, marrows, root crops etc. They finished up everywhere - under the beds, under the coffee table, loft etc, etc.

Vanessa

Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 8324

Posted: Sat Apr 30, 11 7:54 am Post subject:

I'd recommend starting by cultivating an area only slightly bigger than you're currently cultivating. Cutting a lawn isn't too onerous, however big it is; however, if you try to cultivate too much (for you) in one go, you WILL be swamped with the weeding ... and of course, you won't know what's too much for you until you get to that stage

It's far easier to cultivate a little bit more each year than to admit defeat and turn chunks back to lawn

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