Re: leaving your garden behind
- Subject: Re: leaving your garden behind
- From: E*@aol.com
- Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 17:21:42 EST
In a message dated 12/7/02 3:39:09 PM Eastern Standard Time,
corgilover@wi.rr.com writes:
> I went by the old house less than a year later and EVERYTHING
> (INCLUDING SOME MATURE TREES) was plowed under and planted with grass.
I had the same experience, quite a few times, I made some kind of garden in
every house we owned. One new owner mowed down a just maturing yew hedge.
That takes many years to make some size in NY and I had purchased large
plants. Being a gardener, I knocked on the door and asked him why he did it.
He did not want anything he had to clip.
There were a lot of houses for me until the farm. We owned this farm for a
few years before we lived here permanently. I brought plants and when I would
return they were eaten to stumps by deer. The electric fence followed. I
lost a large collection of Hosta which had interested me at the time. Every
daylily went the same way. I never saw a lily bloom. The deer designed the
new garden.
The previous farm owner was a loving longtime gardener. She died and the
garden was uncared for by the adult son for ten years. Then we arrived. A
lot of plants survived and seed in the ground all those years came to life.
Her name was locally "Aunt Mary" and I call unknown plants, dianthus "Aunt
Mary," etc. What survived the long neglect taught me what does well in my
part of the country.
After the first garden, I never went back and looked. As I become a better
gardener, I wanted different plants. Also the new location may have clay
when you had sand, shade not sun and other changed site differences. Don't
grieve over a lost garden, only a true gardener will appreciate it and very
few of those exist a house sale time. I understand water features are not an
asset.
Regarding the removal of plants, many new owners now stipulate that you
remove beds and grass over areas they do not wish to garden. I think with
the exception of trees and shrubs you would have little difficulty taking
along any plants. If you sell a house in NYS there will be so much paper
involved, the garden is of small interest and settled on the side by
gentlemen's agreement. There are so many forms, so many structural
inspectors, bug guys, radon men, lead meter people, investigators for
underground tanks, banks, attorneys, agents and buyers that a seller and his
precious plants are not causing much interest. In NYS it is a wonder any
houses are sold.
Whoever mentioned filling in the holes has a great idea there. That should
satisfy any buyer. Almost everybody moves in America, there are statistics
for this so the chances are all of us will have a second and maybe a third
garden.
Even the finest gardens of history disappear, take pictures.
Claire Peplowski
NYS z4
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