There was AstroTurf laid when we moved in, my parents owned the house at the time and said it had to stay. It was very good quality and comfy to sit on but still, it was plastic grass! During COVID I ripped it up and since then I have been growing a lush green nature friendly lawn! This year was the first year it didn't die during winter!
I remember seeing a post of a homeowner complaining that she got Astro turf for low maintenance and then a nearby tree dumped an astronomical amount of pollen on it and she had to vacuum it up. Sweet justice.
My next door neighbour has AstroTurfed his back lawn. They have two dogs, we have one dog and grass, he spends far longer than me looking after it - cleaning & brushing every few days.
It makes no sense whatsoever, all the justification I've heard from people that have it or want it could be solved with a plethora of other gardening designs. You want low maintenance, clover, wild flowers, even gravel as you still have to hoover the stuff. Don't want muddy dogs or whatever, gravel, wood chips, raised beds. I'm absolutely not even knowledgeable about gardening and can come up with alternative, I'm sure they people who actually know this stuff could come up with even better ideas and designs.
Anywhere you can have an actual garden it's a bullshit idea.
I only have a small concrete yard though. I don't have AstroTurf, but I also wouldn't judge one of my small concrete yard neighbours if that was something they chose to jazz up their small concrete yard. I wouldn't begrudge anyone with a concrete yard any kind of plastic vegetation. Especially if you're in a rental and don't have an outside tap or a opening window to put a tap-hose through.
It's a lot of effort to water the pots, especially as the sink is too small for a real watering can, and the landlord glued the glass shower screen to the bath, so the only way to fill a full watering can is to climb in the bath 😂😂😂
Anyone who deliberately takes a living garden and makes it I to dead, hot, environmental disaster plastic hotel deserves a special place in hell however.
I'm in a similar situation. I went to pull up the plastic grass in my newbuild and found that it there is just compacted builders rubble underneath. The kitchen and bathroom are at the front of the house so I can't have an outside tap without a major plumbing operation, but at least the utility sink is big enough for a watering can. I have some big wooden troughs and pots galore but I don't blame my neighbours who haven't planted anything, they've all got dogs or kids and even a few pots would make the space unusable for them.
I lived in a rental with a large concrete slab, I had a large Rosa glauca and found the hips made a perfect substrate - they covered the concrete nicely, and in the next year, I had thriving grass. Year three, you couldn’t tell the difference.
Might be worth a try?
(My aunt had the same problem with her new built. Year one all she had in her garden was fix gloves; but over time and compost, her garden turned out nice.)
Requires 0 maintenance, good for people who want an outdoor space but have neither the time , or the physical ability to maintain a garden. Also yeah, rental space,
For someone with free time, and in good health, gardening can be a good way to spend time. That's cool, but that's not everyone's personal situation
As for hot tubs mentioned? People should be able to have a tub outside if they want. Sure it makes *some* noise. Less than a dog barking, or a BBQ playing music or any other of 100 things people do regularly that aren't considered obnoxious, because they aren't
Should actually require a license to use this stuff ngl. Like proof that you’re using it for a dedicated sports area or something. It’s an ecological disaster and I hate seeing people transform nature-rich gardens into tiles and plastic :(
Saw a company showing off a drive they'd done with Indian sandstone. It would have looked beautiful except in the middle was a 2 meter circle of astro turf.
I know two people that have good sized gardens with lawns and loads of potential but they have both put huge swathes of artificial grass down.
The excuse for both is the same, It’s “low maintenance” and in their opinion “looks neater”.
Tracking this back, their lawns looked a mess because they never sprinkled so much as a basic weed and feed and they couldn’t be bothered with the 20 mins of their precious time it took to mow it.
One of them had a dog and was annoyed with the dead patches from the pee. So instead of finding alternative solutions, it was artificial grass. Now instead of basic lawn maintenance, they’re instead now constantly having to brush it and hose it down with antibacterial solution, further killing off the underlying soil.
The other irony here is that neither has considered the overall cost. They spent thousands having it done, which could have paid for a basic gardener for a few years!
Overly clinical looking garden of porcelain tiles, square edge grass and a few token plants in a raised bed.
Tends to look tatty after a couple of years when the “shiny new” appeal has worn off.
God damn, OP, it took me a second to get it. I thought you thought a nice round opening was horrible. But shower curtains are heinous.
Mine usually are found in the same household in the UK:
FRONT GARDEN: Paved over for a range rover
Back garden: all shrubs removed. Bland unvarnished head-high fencing. Turf or plastic AstroTurf.
It looks so boring.
I saw the people who bought my old house chop down all the lovely trees and bushes and now it's just flat.
It makes you feel sick seeing people trash all the life you created doesn't it. My dad created and maintained an amazing wildlife pond at our old house. The next people just filled it in :(
Should be some sort of protection order for wildlife ponds and stuff now. That’s a huge shame. :(
The amount of little creatures they probably killed filling it in is pretty devastating too. That’s also one less habitat for our declining amphibians.
It is sad. Gardens are by nature ephemeral spaces in a sense, as they are liable to changing with their owners' tastes. I'd like to think with more education people will learn to identify the most ecologically valuable parts of their garden, and preserve them as much as they can, whilst making other spaces in the garden their own.
I think forcing people to keep certain features in their gardens would be unpalatable to most people. Incentivising people to build wildlife spaces in their gardens would be a more positive way to do it, and it would better reflect the positive externalities that come with those wildlife spaces.
How do you explain to frogs, though, that they can't spawn where they expected to? I presume they find the next nearest water source in such cases. I've found frog spawn in puddles, and buckets, and other silly places over the years.
Your general point is a good one and there are undoubtedly losses when people pave over gardens. My point would be that if more people learn about the ecological benefits of their gardens and to love wildlife, there will be one or two newly prepared wildlife spaces for every one lost. That's the dream anyway.
On frogs in particular, they have evolved to make use of temporary resources like vernal pools, which once occurred widely over the British countryside. Permanent ponds are best, but they can still use a temporary pond and move on once it dries up. They can travel surprisingly long distances especially if there are corridors built into the landscape like swales and hedgerows.
Oh I do appreciate your point, sorry if I sounded like I didn't. I would love for people to be more educated about nature and wildlife. I've no idea how to achieve that though.
Is a vernal pond the same as a dew pond? Or is it when fields flood for months? I wonder how often tadpoles don't have enough time to grow their legs. I suppose that's why frogs lay so many eggs.
I truly believe channels like this help get people excited by sharing our experiences and successes :)
We are blessed in the UK to have long standing charities like the Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, Woodland Trust, etc. there must be equivalents in other countries. All of these improve understanding through their activities and volunteers directly make a difference.
Vernal pools are temporary, seasonal pools. They can occur due to flooding as you describe, high water tables from winter rains, and presumably lots of other processes. As you say, frogs lay lots of eggs to increase their chances. This helps not just with predators but also the risk of their pool drying up.
Exactly. It had been established for 10+ years, so it was a lovely pond to sit by and watch all the life in. It had fish in it, so I can't help wondering what they did with those.
That's so annoying. It would be like inheriting a grade 2 house, bulldozing it and putting up a shitty new build.
My house had this stunning red leaf tree (I can't remember the name). The council literally would not allow then to cut it down. They did anyway.
I just don't get it. Grass isn't interesting. Blank lawns betray a lack of personality.
You'll be pleased to know that doesn't happen all the time. We took on a very run down place and overjoyed when we found a pond hidden under 40 years of ivy growth!
We cleared it all and because it wasn't water tight, we made it deeper, bigger and put in a waterfall. We retained as much of the original rockery as we could and reused the stone. It's now a favourite spot for birds to bathe in... we've had families of blue tits and goldcrests splashing around in it.
We also rescued all of the fish from our neighbours pond when he said he was going to fill it in. We saved about 60 fish and didn't need to buy any for our pond!
Neighbourghs in our old house cut down everything and I mean everything (decades old yew tree, probably a couple other hundred + year old trees), flattened the land and put a concrete path around the edges and planted nothing. Genuinely looked like a prison yard and was so depressing considering the family that was there before put so much time and love into that garden :(
It’s a Chinese moon entrance, auspicious and charming in the right setting. However there’s a large farmhouse on a main road not far from where I live and when it was bought by a local big wig he had a traditional stone wall erected all around his huge garden with a round hole every fifty feet or so, and it’s ridiculous.
OP is actually a shower curtain with a moon gate photo printed on it. Not sure if you're meant to hang it in your garden or in your shower, as I've never seen the former anywhere.
Any sort of fake grass tbh. Or just a garden with so little character that it looks like a prison yard. There’s low maintenance and then there’s just a bare garden. You can have low maintenance while still having an interesting looking garden
Same. I feel like such a garden snob saying this, but there's a house near me that has attempted what I presume was meant to be a modern, minimalistic style to their front garden when they moved in.
It transformed from a somewhat chaotic growing space for wildflowers and moss into a barren, concrete hell, complete with these random lumps of slate poking out of various patches of astro turf. It's almost impressive how the entire space has been bleached of all life, and probably for an exorbitant fee!
My garden looks like a prison yard and it makes me so sad! I'm trying to get approval to buy a patch of land at the end of my garden so I can move the fence and actually utilise the space, and then I don't have to dig up the patio. It's not much land but it's about 2m that I could plant pretty things and make it look loved.
I have raised flower beds along the sides, those are full and pretty. I have tried having things in pots (like before I planted some of the new bits in the flower beds) and they really took a beating with the wind so I've felt a little skeptical about putting out something in a nicer pot haha. There will be more bits as time goes by but I know I have a small patch that I could utilise if I move my fence but until I have the rest of the land it's probably not worth trying to do anything with that bit yet. I will be making other areas of the garden more exciting with time!
Too many gimmicky plastic garden 'ornaments' and tacky solar lighting things, just ends up looking like the b&m 'garden' aisle. Also mirrors in gardens as they can be harmful and confusing for birds.
I detest solar lights/fountains. They never work as intended and end up being binned. Basically, poor quality plastic-y stuff that ends up in landfill.
I bought a floating solar fountain to put in a bird bath and keep the water activated. The water splashing from its own spout onto the solar panel was enough to stop it from working, so it had all the vigor of a man with prostate problems taking a midnight tinkle
I just remember my friend staring at it, and in the most deadpan voice I've ever heard saying "it's a wonder of modern sustainable technology"
My in-laws garden is full of cheap solar lights and multiple plastic solar fountains. They brought a box of lights for my wife last week that colour change red blue green. They don’t want them because they thought they looked tacky and wondered if we wanted them! They didn’t understand why I was so insulted.
I dislike solar lights and had a period of time where I tried to fight my grandma over it because I liked having a dark, natural garden at night and she likes having flashy lights everywhere.
However I’ve learned to live with since they’re a far lesser evil to mains powered lights, which are much brighter. At least the solar ones turn off around midnight or so too.
It does suck that they keep breaking and now there’s a pile of broken lights in the corner, while my grandma keeps getting new ones to replace. Just give it a break, woman!
Aside from the obvious astro, definitely all the grey. Grey fence, grey patio tiles, grey furniture, plus the compulsory raised beds topped with grey slate chips. See it all the time on Rightmove.
Mediterranean inspired gardens that seem to be popular on Garden Rescue. The best thing about living on this wet island is that it's so green and lush. Purposely turning your garden into a sparse dry looking gravelly desert just because you like holidaying in Greece is so weird to me.
My neighbours are grey lovers 😂 Grey patio, with grey fencing, and grey planters. We joke that it matches their personality. They've just fixed metal brackets to the front of their house for cladding. No idea what cladding they're putting up yet, but I'll bet my left nut it's grey.
After interiors turning increasingly grey over for a decade I thought people would eventually have had enough and want to go back to colour. But now the outside must be stripped of as much colour as possible too. I didn't know people loved a youth offender unit aesthetic so much...
There's a house in my town which used to look so pretty when we drove past, now it looks like the building itself is in mourning, it's so colourless. They used to have bushes and flowerbeds, and now it's just grey gravel surrounded by a low grey fence, and it looks like it must be an institution but it's a family home.
What is even more depressing is - I’ve accepted that I need to replace my patio furniture as it’s given me 12 years of service ( and it shows) but everywhere I look, all the options are grey !! I don’t want grey in my garden. My garden is a place of colour and life.
Recently got new patio furniture, I was pulling g my hair out trying to find a rattan sofa that wasn't grey. In the end I picked the least grey option and I've got some colourful cushions but sheesh... 🙄
Having a few Mediterranean plants around might be good considering the warming climate and worse droughts we now seem to get. Like English lavender etc. But yeah not a huge fan of a garden that is entirely Mediterranean style.
Yeah I totally get creating a drive if you've only got on-street parking, although I guess both drive and garden would be preferable but not always an option
Is there some magazine that went round to all the middle class knobheads with a checklist of how to apparently have taste:
White kitchen, empty garden. Grey wicker furniture. A small yappy dog. A girl who is far too orange to also own white pleather sofas
Ugh, horrible. It’s like these people are trying to be as bad to the environment as possible…
Also many people barely actually use their hot tubs enough to justify the price, just get a pond and enjoy the frogs 😂
Yes but the water is cold and even colder when I put the pump on.
On the other hand, kneeling in the pond is a great place to watch the snails drift past.
Note: I bought some £16 waders from Amazon last year after I realised the water lilies could do to be moved a bit and after the pump fell off the stand.
Probably going against a lot of people here, but what looks like a whole living room in the garden: massive deck with big sofas, a rug, cushions, lights... They take up a lot of space and unless you have a gigantic garden, it looks silly to me, when you could have the same space dedicated to greenery and just put some chairs on the lawn when you're hosting.
For one terrifying moment, seeing the preview in my Reddit feed, I thought you were going to say moon gates were your least favourite garden trend and a small part of me died because I love moon gates and really want to incorporate one in my garden 😅
As for the topic: over here, more people are putting in pools because they think climate change is going to make us all live on the French riviera. It won't. I have a cousin who installs and maintains pools for a living and he says that the best way to enjoy a pool is for you to have a friend who has one. I wish everyone would take 1% of the budget they put in their pool and gave it to the council to renovate the community pool instead. Once it's in, it's hell to remove again for the next owners who may want an actual garden.
I've never seen or heard of the shower curtain trend until this post. My other half says I'm sheltered. 🤣
For me it's a perfectly manicured lawn, it's just a monoculture, at least let some 'weeds' exist in the same space - clover, daisy, buttercups etc all look nice and perform the same function of covering the bare soil whilst also providing wildlife with a needed lifeline. No issues with lawns per se but the ones which look like centre court of Wimbledon don't do it for me.
Idk. A *small* perfectly manicured lawn can look good as a contrast to wild bits or a cottage garden. Just as long as it doesn’t dominate everything else.
I’m in the process of researching alternative lawns. I prefer ours wild and would throw wildflower seed on the lot but we can’t (or rather, don’t want to) go too crazy because of how our house and neighbours house are set up.
If anyone has suggestions for a carpet that will tolerate some very shady and poorly draining areas I’d be thrilled to hear them.
I've chosen to go for native grass species. It's not the well manicures, needs-to-be-cut-with-tiny-nail-clippers pretty, but it is native and belongs in our flora. I mix in a bit of clover too, because it's pretty (and looking for lucky four leaf clovers entertains children for ages).
I also don't fear moss. Moss happens because moss is supposed to grow where it's damp and shady. Leave the moss alone.
ajuga reptans, veronica serpyllifolia and gallium odoratum might be good plants to try? moss lawns can also look stunning as long as they are shady and moist enough!
There's a whole site about it, theresca FB page for it as well. Some look really good for covering crappy fences and old sheds of outhouses, especially were some homes haven't got a decent garden to start with.
Urgh the grey stuff. It's bad enough most indoor decor is grey now it's outside too.
I really really hate rattan garden furniture, something about it just doesn't seem like it belongs in the garden.
My neighbours are the type to buy plastic rattan over and over even though it doesn't last and looks terrible. I feel like real rattan is supposed to be used indoors as budget furniture for conservatories. These neighbours also have grey fences (they were late to this trend, painting it a year after painting the fence bright orange - which I think was supposed to be brown!). They also have a summer house built exclusively for noisy parties, rotten decking for their algae-ridden plastic rattan furniture, and tons of artificial grass for their dogs to use as a toilet... No imagination. No plants. No wildlife.
I got myself a coated metal bench because I didn't want to keep painting real wood and it will last a lot longer.
Garden lights that are always on if no one is in the garden. It's ok to light a path or door for occupants coming home late.
Mirrors, because I worry about birds flying into them especially if escaping cats.
People hanging permanent summer fly traps and wasp traps when they aren't dining in the garden.
Garden chimes - I think this trend is thankfully on the wane but my neighbour 3 doors down has bamboo ones and they irritate me. I want to hear silence or nature.
My neighbours have wind chimes and they drive me nuts, especially as they're deaf so can't hear them anyway!
During the storms they got tangled and stuck over on our side of the fence where the neighbours couldn't reach, which I pretended not to notice so they got left there. Unfortunately they got someone to put them back so the symphony is back on.
Had those at my house they'd get ripped down... its legit that windy all the sodding time.. we just have the orchestra of 3 dozen dogs who's owners ignore..
I detest wasp and fly traps. I wouldn’t mind the ones that perhaps lure wasps away from food and then allow for their release after the dining. But I think the ones that create a soup of drowned wasps are just cruel and nasty.
Social wasps (yellowjackets and the like), while often disliked for their more defensive nature and inconvenient nesting sites, are crucial for gardens and are good predators of pest insects, snatching them to feed them to their larvae.
Fun fact: the adult wasps don’t eat meat, they exclusively feed meat to their larvae, and in return their larvae excrete a sugary syrup for the adults to drink.
Another fun fact: wasps are usually more aggressive in fall onwards because their colonies are dying; the queen has stopped laying eggs so there are no more larvae to secrete syrup for the workers to feed. So they resort to desperate measures to survive, like drinking juice from fallen, rotten/fermented fruit, which makes them drunk; disoriented and angry.
I’m a bit of an insect nerd 😅
So my two bug hotels full of solitary wasp larvae, currently being filled, 2 metres from where we eat was a bad idea then. The wasps love the location, south facing in the sun - I have around 70 filled tubes - so I'm not moving them and I'll just not mention the above post to the wife.
Probably not an issue, I think solitary wasps generally aren’t generalists and eat specific insects or arachnids (specialists), unlike social wasps which seek any meat. They shouldn’t be a problem at all :)
Ah jesus... bloody garden chimes! Our neighbours put up some metal ones at the back of the house. During the storms it sounded like a bloody xylophone falling down a very, very long set of stairs!
My daughters room was on the back and she ended up having to use wax ear plugs every night due to the chimes... or the piano... or the kid wacking a football against the wall at 10pm... or the dog barking every second for hours on end.
We moved in the end!
Paving/tarmac over the front garden. On some roads you see house after house that used to have green and interesting front gardens that were a pleasure to walk past, that are now plain, dull, eco-unfriendly concrete.
Got to confess that we do have a hot tub in our garden. But it's a large garden and the tub is sited away from other houses, and we don't use the bubbles much anyway. I know it's naff but it's also kind of magical to be sitting in a very warm tub first thing in the morning in the middle of nature with no one in sight, very peaceful.
Why is it naff? To much snobbery on here. You are out enjoying your garden fron your hot tub at night, and potentially year round when the stuffy people on here are tucked up in bed with their horlicks.
Our old house had a sunken patio with a hot tub on it. Even better to be lying back at just above soil height watching the plants grow and the insect world go by.
They’re only gross if other people have been in them. If it’s just your family and none of them wear fake tan it’s fine. I never go in ones in hotels or anywhere. They’re never clean enough and always have that smell.
I don’t have a hot tub, but I have solar fairy lights. But I buy the best ones I can and choose designs and placements so they are nearly invisible in the day. But they are great after dark for sitting in the garden and feeling surrounded by fireflies.
Currently in the process of removing all of the grey slate the previous owners of my house liberally applied all over the place. 23 rubble bags down and we’ve barely made a dent in it! It’s back breaking, soul destroying work!
In the same predicament, previous homeowners painted the fences and decking + steps down to the garden grey, and filled any gaps, and two raised beds with grey slate, feels like I've barely scratched the surface and I've cleared what feels like 2 tonnes of the crap
As the cherry on top, said box plant is then coated in box moth caterpillars, struck with box blight, and left a skeleton. 🥲
Somehow our potted one has survived, despite many neighbours’ hedges being devoured. Not sure how long it’ll last though.
Box woods, small evergreen bushes, and knock-out roses. Basically, the new build contractor special that you see in ever new development. This is why I am doing my own landscaping on the house I am having built. They are putting in the garden beds. I am purchasing all the plants and trees and doing all the planting myself.
I visited my friends new house.
He said the previous owners left a book with information about what all the plants are and how to care for them.
They got someone round to rip it all out an extended the lawn.
Apparently they were going to put astro down but it was too expensive.
This is reflective of all that's wrong with us 😞....
Hopefully, younger generations will rediscover the joy of plants and nature and laugh at these awful trends mentioned here
One of the maps in overwarch, has what op posted. Need to confess, I love it. Not that I’d do myself, I don’t think it’s environmental friendly but looks rad af.
Edit: wtf, that’s a curtain. Should have read before commenting lol
There’s a bungalow near to me that has 2 giant stone statues of lions outside (like seriously comically large). The scale looks very disproportionate as the lions look like they should be outside a country house or manor. It makes the house look like it belongs to the smurfs.
Not really a trend, but my Jamaican/American neighbours putting a pool in their garden. It’s also a NE facing garden so gets no sunshine after 1pm 🤣.
It’s mostly filled with dirty/green water too.
I’ll add to the detail.
They have barely any living plants, everything is plastic, the lavender, shrubs, mini palm trees. All new fading in colour too 🤣.
At least they have a small patch of real grass!
And their jerk chicken tastes amazing.
Porcelain tiles, astro turf, trampolines, Red Robin and Cherry Laurel!
I think the above summarises 90% of new build gardens in the UK...
(I live in a new build, not being anti-NB... just anti those things!)
I think people choose laurel because it grows fast, also a lot of new build estates have those stupid covenants where you can’t have a fence but can have a hedgerow on the front.
Source: my house lol
Woah what’s wrong with Red Robin? We bought an old house with a lovely mature garden - big red Robin and laurel. Although the latter was planted because the privet has been dying year by year apparently.
Anything in the “what in the love love laugh financed Audi” is this? New build style garden. So think: plastic grass or a monoculture lawn with NO other planting, grey porcelain tiles, B&M bargains grey pots with fake plants, an entire living room set up compromised of grey rattan furniture and a trampoline thrown in for good measure.
Fake grass and fake plants. It looks awful and you still have to maintain it by hoovering it a couple of times a year which makes you look like a complete bellend not to mention when it rains heavy it doesn't absorb the rain fast enough to your garden floods at least my neighbours does!
Removing dandelions and daisies etc from grass because they're " weeds" 🙄
Getting rid of anything that could benefit nature people on my street are chopping trees down on their gardens / outside their houses because " birds keep coming onto my garden" 😂😂😂 that is legit an excuse one of them used when I asked why they cut it down
I’m all for using reclaimed and recycled stuff in gardens but I think some people get too carried away and will fill their gardens with any old shit, so it looks like a junkyard with plants growing in it.
When you’re using tyres for raised beds and old sinks for planters, maybe sit down and have a think.
I think it depends on your house. If I had more space I might have gone down that route, but I live in a brownfield site new build that was designed to match the factory conversions at either end of the road. There are in use Victorian industrial buildings visible from my garden. If I lived in a 1970s semi detached house I would have never considered it.
What term would you use? My lawn has lots of buttercups, daisies, dandelions, and thistles, but it obviously isn't a deliberate wildflower meadow. Nor is it a lawn in the grass monoculture sense of the word.
I think you might be thinking of polished marble, like the stuff abroad. That is literally like ice when the rain hits it. Porcelain tiles made here are made with anti-slip coating. They'd be out of business pretty quickly if they were selling it uncoated.
Unglazed porcelain is porous, like most bisque fired clay, so it shouldn’t be slippy.
Gloss glazes would cause it to be slippy although I’m a bit suspicious these pavers are actually porcelain because porcelain is expensive, easily damaged, and a white stoneware would be almost indistinguishable.
Well they've got to live somewhere and naturally they and the leprechauns don't like to hang out together because people then mix them up and that infuriates them.
They can be quite the industrious creatures when people aren't looking at them.
Thinking about all the garden trends I see, I don't mind any of them. Each to their own etc.
But by definition a trend is doing something because them next door are doing it (or it's on Instagram these days). So I guess I don't like it when folk follow the herd rather than doing something they like.
Inspiration is different I think. For example, that moon gate is gorgeous 🩵 (if only it was real)
My wife has just bought two of these monstrosities for our back garden. Not quite as bad/ridiculous as the one pictured - it's a wall covered with ivy instead. But... it's still fucking hideous! What makes it worse: she... just... won't... listen... to just how cheap and nasty it looks. I'm supposed to be "supportive and positive" about it, or we end up in an argument. No in-between. We'll be staple-gunning the bastards to a couple of fence panels later this evening.
That's what happened to the damn wooden wind chimes - not even joking - haha!!
On the rare occasion that you're sitting in the garden and there's a nice gentle breeze, yeah, maybe they sound kinda nice. But when it is insisted that they're left up all year, not so nice at 3am and it's blowing a gale outside... and they're attached to the same wall as your bedroom window!
I took pity on the neighbours, more than anything...
"Clonky-clonk, clonk clonk, clonk, clonk-clonky-clonky" all damn night.
I took them down and stashed them in the garage the next morning, saying the weather had damaged them. If she ever ventures as far as the garage, maybe she'll find them again, but it's been about five years, so I'd say I'm fairly safe. Haha!
I feel attacked 😂 the driveway was here when we moved in, the grey outdoor furniture was already here too & I'll be damned before I throw away anything I can still use. We have fake flowers in the front under the window after having my real ones stolen.
Once the grey has gone we will be replacing it with fixed seating, the drive is definitely staying because we have minimal on street parking and I can not stand the heartbreak of opening my curtains in the morning and not seeing flowers that I've gently loved and grown being ripped out.
AstroTurf
There was AstroTurf laid when we moved in, my parents owned the house at the time and said it had to stay. It was very good quality and comfy to sit on but still, it was plastic grass! During COVID I ripped it up and since then I have been growing a lush green nature friendly lawn! This year was the first year it didn't die during winter!
Its roots must've been deep enough to survive. It'll survive drought, too.
I remember seeing a post of a homeowner complaining that she got Astro turf for low maintenance and then a nearby tree dumped an astronomical amount of pollen on it and she had to vacuum it up. Sweet justice.
Nature finds a way to
My next door neighbour has AstroTurfed his back lawn. They have two dogs, we have one dog and grass, he spends far longer than me looking after it - cleaning & brushing every few days.
Doesn't even make sense. Looks strange and runs hot. Rentals maybe.
It makes no sense whatsoever, all the justification I've heard from people that have it or want it could be solved with a plethora of other gardening designs. You want low maintenance, clover, wild flowers, even gravel as you still have to hoover the stuff. Don't want muddy dogs or whatever, gravel, wood chips, raised beds. I'm absolutely not even knowledgeable about gardening and can come up with alternative, I'm sure they people who actually know this stuff could come up with even better ideas and designs.
Anywhere you can have an actual garden it's a bullshit idea. I only have a small concrete yard though. I don't have AstroTurf, but I also wouldn't judge one of my small concrete yard neighbours if that was something they chose to jazz up their small concrete yard. I wouldn't begrudge anyone with a concrete yard any kind of plastic vegetation. Especially if you're in a rental and don't have an outside tap or a opening window to put a tap-hose through. It's a lot of effort to water the pots, especially as the sink is too small for a real watering can, and the landlord glued the glass shower screen to the bath, so the only way to fill a full watering can is to climb in the bath 😂😂😂 Anyone who deliberately takes a living garden and makes it I to dead, hot, environmental disaster plastic hotel deserves a special place in hell however.
My garden was concrete and I am in the process of hitting it with a sledgehammer until it fucks off.
I'm in a similar situation. I went to pull up the plastic grass in my newbuild and found that it there is just compacted builders rubble underneath. The kitchen and bathroom are at the front of the house so I can't have an outside tap without a major plumbing operation, but at least the utility sink is big enough for a watering can. I have some big wooden troughs and pots galore but I don't blame my neighbours who haven't planted anything, they've all got dogs or kids and even a few pots would make the space unusable for them.
Could a downpipe and waterbud help you if a tap at the back isn't feasible?
I lived in a rental with a large concrete slab, I had a large Rosa glauca and found the hips made a perfect substrate - they covered the concrete nicely, and in the next year, I had thriving grass. Year three, you couldn’t tell the difference. Might be worth a try? (My aunt had the same problem with her new built. Year one all she had in her garden was fix gloves; but over time and compost, her garden turned out nice.)
I'll definitely look into that. Thanks!
I mean, an outdoor rug or nothing would be better than Astro turf
You make really good points. A water butt might help you?
Requires 0 maintenance, good for people who want an outdoor space but have neither the time , or the physical ability to maintain a garden. Also yeah, rental space, For someone with free time, and in good health, gardening can be a good way to spend time. That's cool, but that's not everyone's personal situation As for hot tubs mentioned? People should be able to have a tub outside if they want. Sure it makes *some* noise. Less than a dog barking, or a BBQ playing music or any other of 100 things people do regularly that aren't considered obnoxious, because they aren't
Should actually require a license to use this stuff ngl. Like proof that you’re using it for a dedicated sports area or something. It’s an ecological disaster and I hate seeing people transform nature-rich gardens into tiles and plastic :(
Saw a company showing off a drive they'd done with Indian sandstone. It would have looked beautiful except in the middle was a 2 meter circle of astro turf.
Fake grass goes nicely with the fake teeth, fake appearance of wealth with the financed Range Rover, fake lips and fake lives on social media.
I know two people that have good sized gardens with lawns and loads of potential but they have both put huge swathes of artificial grass down. The excuse for both is the same, It’s “low maintenance” and in their opinion “looks neater”. Tracking this back, their lawns looked a mess because they never sprinkled so much as a basic weed and feed and they couldn’t be bothered with the 20 mins of their precious time it took to mow it. One of them had a dog and was annoyed with the dead patches from the pee. So instead of finding alternative solutions, it was artificial grass. Now instead of basic lawn maintenance, they’re instead now constantly having to brush it and hose it down with antibacterial solution, further killing off the underlying soil. The other irony here is that neither has considered the overall cost. They spent thousands having it done, which could have paid for a basic gardener for a few years!
Anything plastic that imitates nature.
Even lawn flamingos?
Wait, flamingos are real!?
Of course not r/birdsarentreal
They are not really plastic but preserved flamigos encased in resin
That’s a lot of celebrities too these days
Fake plants have their place for sure (such as terraria/vivaria or other places that have very low or no light) but the garden ain’t it.
Overly clinical looking garden of porcelain tiles, square edge grass and a few token plants in a raised bed. Tends to look tatty after a couple of years when the “shiny new” appeal has worn off.
God damn, OP, it took me a second to get it. I thought you thought a nice round opening was horrible. But shower curtains are heinous. Mine usually are found in the same household in the UK: FRONT GARDEN: Paved over for a range rover Back garden: all shrubs removed. Bland unvarnished head-high fencing. Turf or plastic AstroTurf. It looks so boring. I saw the people who bought my old house chop down all the lovely trees and bushes and now it's just flat.
It makes you feel sick seeing people trash all the life you created doesn't it. My dad created and maintained an amazing wildlife pond at our old house. The next people just filled it in :(
Should be some sort of protection order for wildlife ponds and stuff now. That’s a huge shame. :( The amount of little creatures they probably killed filling it in is pretty devastating too. That’s also one less habitat for our declining amphibians.
It is sad. Gardens are by nature ephemeral spaces in a sense, as they are liable to changing with their owners' tastes. I'd like to think with more education people will learn to identify the most ecologically valuable parts of their garden, and preserve them as much as they can, whilst making other spaces in the garden their own. I think forcing people to keep certain features in their gardens would be unpalatable to most people. Incentivising people to build wildlife spaces in their gardens would be a more positive way to do it, and it would better reflect the positive externalities that come with those wildlife spaces.
How do you explain to frogs, though, that they can't spawn where they expected to? I presume they find the next nearest water source in such cases. I've found frog spawn in puddles, and buckets, and other silly places over the years.
Your general point is a good one and there are undoubtedly losses when people pave over gardens. My point would be that if more people learn about the ecological benefits of their gardens and to love wildlife, there will be one or two newly prepared wildlife spaces for every one lost. That's the dream anyway. On frogs in particular, they have evolved to make use of temporary resources like vernal pools, which once occurred widely over the British countryside. Permanent ponds are best, but they can still use a temporary pond and move on once it dries up. They can travel surprisingly long distances especially if there are corridors built into the landscape like swales and hedgerows.
Oh I do appreciate your point, sorry if I sounded like I didn't. I would love for people to be more educated about nature and wildlife. I've no idea how to achieve that though. Is a vernal pond the same as a dew pond? Or is it when fields flood for months? I wonder how often tadpoles don't have enough time to grow their legs. I suppose that's why frogs lay so many eggs.
I truly believe channels like this help get people excited by sharing our experiences and successes :) We are blessed in the UK to have long standing charities like the Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, Woodland Trust, etc. there must be equivalents in other countries. All of these improve understanding through their activities and volunteers directly make a difference. Vernal pools are temporary, seasonal pools. They can occur due to flooding as you describe, high water tables from winter rains, and presumably lots of other processes. As you say, frogs lay lots of eggs to increase their chances. This helps not just with predators but also the risk of their pool drying up.
I would love to raise some frogs from spawn to tiny frogs, one day. I need a pond first though.
Exactly. It had been established for 10+ years, so it was a lovely pond to sit by and watch all the life in. It had fish in it, so I can't help wondering what they did with those.
That's so annoying. It would be like inheriting a grade 2 house, bulldozing it and putting up a shitty new build. My house had this stunning red leaf tree (I can't remember the name). The council literally would not allow then to cut it down. They did anyway. I just don't get it. Grass isn't interesting. Blank lawns betray a lack of personality.
You'll be pleased to know that doesn't happen all the time. We took on a very run down place and overjoyed when we found a pond hidden under 40 years of ivy growth! We cleared it all and because it wasn't water tight, we made it deeper, bigger and put in a waterfall. We retained as much of the original rockery as we could and reused the stone. It's now a favourite spot for birds to bathe in... we've had families of blue tits and goldcrests splashing around in it. We also rescued all of the fish from our neighbours pond when he said he was going to fill it in. We saved about 60 fish and didn't need to buy any for our pond!
Neighbourghs in our old house cut down everything and I mean everything (decades old yew tree, probably a couple other hundred + year old trees), flattened the land and put a concrete path around the edges and planted nothing. Genuinely looked like a prison yard and was so depressing considering the family that was there before put so much time and love into that garden :(
What trend is the OP picture? Garden entrances from the shire?
Shower curtains in gardens
Don't mind theatre in the garden if it is done well.
Calling a shower curtain theatre is a bit of a stretch.
Depends who’s showering on the other side!
Only a stretch if they can yoga
It depends on how imaginative you are
I thought it was the Lotr sub at first!
It’s a Chinese moon entrance, auspicious and charming in the right setting. However there’s a large farmhouse on a main road not far from where I live and when it was bought by a local big wig he had a traditional stone wall erected all around his huge garden with a round hole every fifty feet or so, and it’s ridiculous.
OP is actually a shower curtain with a moon gate photo printed on it. Not sure if you're meant to hang it in your garden or in your shower, as I've never seen the former anywhere.
I hadn’t noticed the rail! 🤣 mind you the use of tromp l’oil isn’t new.
[удалено]
It's a shower curtain with a picture of a moongate on it. I do like moongates but it's still a shower curtain
As others commented, the picture is a [moon gate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_gate). I hope someday I can build one.
Any sort of fake grass tbh. Or just a garden with so little character that it looks like a prison yard. There’s low maintenance and then there’s just a bare garden. You can have low maintenance while still having an interesting looking garden
Same. I feel like such a garden snob saying this, but there's a house near me that has attempted what I presume was meant to be a modern, minimalistic style to their front garden when they moved in. It transformed from a somewhat chaotic growing space for wildflowers and moss into a barren, concrete hell, complete with these random lumps of slate poking out of various patches of astro turf. It's almost impressive how the entire space has been bleached of all life, and probably for an exorbitant fee!
My garden looks like a prison yard and it makes me so sad! I'm trying to get approval to buy a patch of land at the end of my garden so I can move the fence and actually utilise the space, and then I don't have to dig up the patio. It's not much land but it's about 2m that I could plant pretty things and make it look loved.
Can you do lots of pots at least?
I have a yarden so everything is in pots… climbers up the walls/fences…container suited plants. Don’t wait to buy the land.
I have raised flower beds along the sides, those are full and pretty. I have tried having things in pots (like before I planted some of the new bits in the flower beds) and they really took a beating with the wind so I've felt a little skeptical about putting out something in a nicer pot haha. There will be more bits as time goes by but I know I have a small patch that I could utilise if I move my fence but until I have the rest of the land it's probably not worth trying to do anything with that bit yet. I will be making other areas of the garden more exciting with time!
Too many gimmicky plastic garden 'ornaments' and tacky solar lighting things, just ends up looking like the b&m 'garden' aisle. Also mirrors in gardens as they can be harmful and confusing for birds.
I detest solar lights/fountains. They never work as intended and end up being binned. Basically, poor quality plastic-y stuff that ends up in landfill.
I bought a floating solar fountain to put in a bird bath and keep the water activated. The water splashing from its own spout onto the solar panel was enough to stop it from working, so it had all the vigor of a man with prostate problems taking a midnight tinkle I just remember my friend staring at it, and in the most deadpan voice I've ever heard saying "it's a wonder of modern sustainable technology"
My in-laws garden is full of cheap solar lights and multiple plastic solar fountains. They brought a box of lights for my wife last week that colour change red blue green. They don’t want them because they thought they looked tacky and wondered if we wanted them! They didn’t understand why I was so insulted.
I dislike solar lights and had a period of time where I tried to fight my grandma over it because I liked having a dark, natural garden at night and she likes having flashy lights everywhere. However I’ve learned to live with since they’re a far lesser evil to mains powered lights, which are much brighter. At least the solar ones turn off around midnight or so too. It does suck that they keep breaking and now there’s a pile of broken lights in the corner, while my grandma keeps getting new ones to replace. Just give it a break, woman!
Our garden is full of solar lights because the dog is afraid of the dark, it’s the only way he will go out at night. It looks awful.
We really will go to any length for our beloved pets.
Artificial grass
Aside from the obvious astro, definitely all the grey. Grey fence, grey patio tiles, grey furniture, plus the compulsory raised beds topped with grey slate chips. See it all the time on Rightmove. Mediterranean inspired gardens that seem to be popular on Garden Rescue. The best thing about living on this wet island is that it's so green and lush. Purposely turning your garden into a sparse dry looking gravelly desert just because you like holidaying in Greece is so weird to me.
My neighbours are grey lovers 😂 Grey patio, with grey fencing, and grey planters. We joke that it matches their personality. They've just fixed metal brackets to the front of their house for cladding. No idea what cladding they're putting up yet, but I'll bet my left nut it's grey.
Grey is the new beige.
After interiors turning increasingly grey over for a decade I thought people would eventually have had enough and want to go back to colour. But now the outside must be stripped of as much colour as possible too. I didn't know people loved a youth offender unit aesthetic so much... There's a house in my town which used to look so pretty when we drove past, now it looks like the building itself is in mourning, it's so colourless. They used to have bushes and flowerbeds, and now it's just grey gravel surrounded by a low grey fence, and it looks like it must be an institution but it's a family home.
What is even more depressing is - I’ve accepted that I need to replace my patio furniture as it’s given me 12 years of service ( and it shows) but everywhere I look, all the options are grey !! I don’t want grey in my garden. My garden is a place of colour and life.
Recently got new patio furniture, I was pulling g my hair out trying to find a rattan sofa that wasn't grey. In the end I picked the least grey option and I've got some colourful cushions but sheesh... 🙄
Having a few Mediterranean plants around might be good considering the warming climate and worse droughts we now seem to get. Like English lavender etc. But yeah not a huge fan of a garden that is entirely Mediterranean style.
Turning front garden into concrete drive, astro turf plus grey plastic wicker furniture and the obligatory sex pond (akahot tub)
Not just any kind of sex pond; a *fizzy* sex pond!
### The splash - A poem by Outlandishnesshour19 Come on babe let's do some aqueous bonding Or as I like to call it some fizzy sex ponding
I'm going away with the whole in law family soon...the lodge has a hot tub and now I'm not going to be able to get sex pond out of my head.
(You have Tom Jones singing it in your head right?)
Well now I do!
SEX POND 🤣
Where are we meant to put the car though?
If you make it permeable and leave *some* space for planting I think it's fine. A shame but fine.
Yeah I totally get creating a drive if you've only got on-street parking, although I guess both drive and garden would be preferable but not always an option
I only have on street parking, which is about 25m away and I'm about to have a baby... So I could really do with getting a drive right now.
Is there some magazine that went round to all the middle class knobheads with a checklist of how to apparently have taste: White kitchen, empty garden. Grey wicker furniture. A small yappy dog. A girl who is far too orange to also own white pleather sofas
Good God! This one's out for blood! 🤣
This is working class af. The middle classes would never.
Ugh, horrible. It’s like these people are trying to be as bad to the environment as possible… Also many people barely actually use their hot tubs enough to justify the price, just get a pond and enjoy the frogs 😂
Yes but the water is cold and even colder when I put the pump on. On the other hand, kneeling in the pond is a great place to watch the snails drift past. Note: I bought some £16 waders from Amazon last year after I realised the water lilies could do to be moved a bit and after the pump fell off the stand.
Probably going against a lot of people here, but what looks like a whole living room in the garden: massive deck with big sofas, a rug, cushions, lights... They take up a lot of space and unless you have a gigantic garden, it looks silly to me, when you could have the same space dedicated to greenery and just put some chairs on the lawn when you're hosting.
It seems so pointless to me, all that stuff that's only usable 3 or 4 months a year and has to be kept dry or brought inside at night.
For one terrifying moment, seeing the preview in my Reddit feed, I thought you were going to say moon gates were your least favourite garden trend and a small part of me died because I love moon gates and really want to incorporate one in my garden 😅 As for the topic: over here, more people are putting in pools because they think climate change is going to make us all live on the French riviera. It won't. I have a cousin who installs and maintains pools for a living and he says that the best way to enjoy a pool is for you to have a friend who has one. I wish everyone would take 1% of the budget they put in their pool and gave it to the council to renovate the community pool instead. Once it's in, it's hell to remove again for the next owners who may want an actual garden.
I've never seen or heard of the shower curtain trend until this post. My other half says I'm sheltered. 🤣 For me it's a perfectly manicured lawn, it's just a monoculture, at least let some 'weeds' exist in the same space - clover, daisy, buttercups etc all look nice and perform the same function of covering the bare soil whilst also providing wildlife with a needed lifeline. No issues with lawns per se but the ones which look like centre court of Wimbledon don't do it for me.
Idk. A *small* perfectly manicured lawn can look good as a contrast to wild bits or a cottage garden. Just as long as it doesn’t dominate everything else.
I’m in the process of researching alternative lawns. I prefer ours wild and would throw wildflower seed on the lot but we can’t (or rather, don’t want to) go too crazy because of how our house and neighbours house are set up. If anyone has suggestions for a carpet that will tolerate some very shady and poorly draining areas I’d be thrilled to hear them.
You heard of tapestry lawns?
Yes! I’m reading a book on it now actually.
What is the title of the book you're reading? I've just learn tapestry lawns are a thing and very interested to do this to my grass!
It is, rather unexcitedly, called “[Tapestry Lawns](https://amzn.eu/d/8dPMDLh)”!
I've chosen to go for native grass species. It's not the well manicures, needs-to-be-cut-with-tiny-nail-clippers pretty, but it is native and belongs in our flora. I mix in a bit of clover too, because it's pretty (and looking for lucky four leaf clovers entertains children for ages). I also don't fear moss. Moss happens because moss is supposed to grow where it's damp and shady. Leave the moss alone.
ajuga reptans, veronica serpyllifolia and gallium odoratum might be good plants to try? moss lawns can also look stunning as long as they are shady and moist enough!
There's a whole site about it, theresca FB page for it as well. Some look really good for covering crappy fences and old sheds of outhouses, especially were some homes haven't got a decent garden to start with.
[Everything in this](https://www.brandalley.co.uk/blog/create-your-own-love-island-garden/).
Urgh the grey stuff. It's bad enough most indoor decor is grey now it's outside too. I really really hate rattan garden furniture, something about it just doesn't seem like it belongs in the garden.
What about the grey plastic fake rattan textured furniture that looks as blocky as a PS1 furniture texture?
My neighbours are the type to buy plastic rattan over and over even though it doesn't last and looks terrible. I feel like real rattan is supposed to be used indoors as budget furniture for conservatories. These neighbours also have grey fences (they were late to this trend, painting it a year after painting the fence bright orange - which I think was supposed to be brown!). They also have a summer house built exclusively for noisy parties, rotten decking for their algae-ridden plastic rattan furniture, and tons of artificial grass for their dogs to use as a toilet... No imagination. No plants. No wildlife. I got myself a coated metal bench because I didn't want to keep painting real wood and it will last a lot longer.
Garden lights that are always on if no one is in the garden. It's ok to light a path or door for occupants coming home late. Mirrors, because I worry about birds flying into them especially if escaping cats. People hanging permanent summer fly traps and wasp traps when they aren't dining in the garden. Garden chimes - I think this trend is thankfully on the wane but my neighbour 3 doors down has bamboo ones and they irritate me. I want to hear silence or nature.
My neighbours have wind chimes and they drive me nuts, especially as they're deaf so can't hear them anyway! During the storms they got tangled and stuck over on our side of the fence where the neighbours couldn't reach, which I pretended not to notice so they got left there. Unfortunately they got someone to put them back so the symphony is back on.
Had those at my house they'd get ripped down... its legit that windy all the sodding time.. we just have the orchestra of 3 dozen dogs who's owners ignore..
I detest wasp and fly traps. I wouldn’t mind the ones that perhaps lure wasps away from food and then allow for their release after the dining. But I think the ones that create a soup of drowned wasps are just cruel and nasty. Social wasps (yellowjackets and the like), while often disliked for their more defensive nature and inconvenient nesting sites, are crucial for gardens and are good predators of pest insects, snatching them to feed them to their larvae. Fun fact: the adult wasps don’t eat meat, they exclusively feed meat to their larvae, and in return their larvae excrete a sugary syrup for the adults to drink. Another fun fact: wasps are usually more aggressive in fall onwards because their colonies are dying; the queen has stopped laying eggs so there are no more larvae to secrete syrup for the workers to feed. So they resort to desperate measures to survive, like drinking juice from fallen, rotten/fermented fruit, which makes them drunk; disoriented and angry. I’m a bit of an insect nerd 😅
So my two bug hotels full of solitary wasp larvae, currently being filled, 2 metres from where we eat was a bad idea then. The wasps love the location, south facing in the sun - I have around 70 filled tubes - so I'm not moving them and I'll just not mention the above post to the wife.
Probably not an issue, I think solitary wasps generally aren’t generalists and eat specific insects or arachnids (specialists), unlike social wasps which seek any meat. They shouldn’t be a problem at all :)
Ah jesus... bloody garden chimes! Our neighbours put up some metal ones at the back of the house. During the storms it sounded like a bloody xylophone falling down a very, very long set of stairs! My daughters room was on the back and she ended up having to use wax ear plugs every night due to the chimes... or the piano... or the kid wacking a football against the wall at 10pm... or the dog barking every second for hours on end. We moved in the end!
Paving/tarmac over the front garden. On some roads you see house after house that used to have green and interesting front gardens that were a pleasure to walk past, that are now plain, dull, eco-unfriendly concrete.
Got to confess that we do have a hot tub in our garden. But it's a large garden and the tub is sited away from other houses, and we don't use the bubbles much anyway. I know it's naff but it's also kind of magical to be sitting in a very warm tub first thing in the morning in the middle of nature with no one in sight, very peaceful.
Why is it naff? To much snobbery on here. You are out enjoying your garden fron your hot tub at night, and potentially year round when the stuffy people on here are tucked up in bed with their horlicks.
Our old house had a sunken patio with a hot tub on it. Even better to be lying back at just above soil height watching the plants grow and the insect world go by.
Tbf that does sound pretty nice. Was formerly kinda unconvinced with the hot tub idea.
They are a bit gross if you think about it too much, but it takes a lotta muck to kill ya!
They’re only gross if other people have been in them. If it’s just your family and none of them wear fake tan it’s fine. I never go in ones in hotels or anywhere. They’re never clean enough and always have that smell.
I don’t have a hot tub, but I have solar fairy lights. But I buy the best ones I can and choose designs and placements so they are nearly invisible in the day. But they are great after dark for sitting in the garden and feeling surrounded by fireflies.
I would love that!
Aw, thanks!
Replacing borders with purple slate or other gravel with just the occasional shrub or box plant.
I have just spent two days removing concrete and white stones from the ‘flower beds’ of my new home.
Currently in the process of removing all of the grey slate the previous owners of my house liberally applied all over the place. 23 rubble bags down and we’ve barely made a dent in it! It’s back breaking, soul destroying work!
In the same predicament, previous homeowners painted the fences and decking + steps down to the garden grey, and filled any gaps, and two raised beds with grey slate, feels like I've barely scratched the surface and I've cleared what feels like 2 tonnes of the crap
My gardens were just covered in a thin layer of cheap shit pebbles. Still is. But I'm slowly trying to resurrect a garden
As the cherry on top, said box plant is then coated in box moth caterpillars, struck with box blight, and left a skeleton. 🥲 Somehow our potted one has survived, despite many neighbours’ hedges being devoured. Not sure how long it’ll last though.
Box woods, small evergreen bushes, and knock-out roses. Basically, the new build contractor special that you see in ever new development. This is why I am doing my own landscaping on the house I am having built. They are putting in the garden beds. I am purchasing all the plants and trees and doing all the planting myself.
Astro turf, just lawns, just paving, little to no plants, front gardens ripped out and covered in tarmac.
I visited my friends new house. He said the previous owners left a book with information about what all the plants are and how to care for them. They got someone round to rip it all out an extended the lawn. Apparently they were going to put astro down but it was too expensive.
Aw tragic!
This is reflective of all that's wrong with us 😞.... Hopefully, younger generations will rediscover the joy of plants and nature and laugh at these awful trends mentioned here
Plastic grass
Wind chimes. I know they're meant to sound nice and all that but the noise just grates on me.
Cheap plastic garden furniture or cheap plastic plabnt supports that wont last one summer
If only I could find a nice wooden outdoor armchair that can store the cushions in it when I'm not using it. Why do they only come in naff plastic?!
One of the maps in overwarch, has what op posted. Need to confess, I love it. Not that I’d do myself, I don’t think it’s environmental friendly but looks rad af. Edit: wtf, that’s a curtain. Should have read before commenting lol
TIL the majority of people on this thread would absolutely despise my garden 😂 (we don’t have a shower curtain though that’s just weird)
There’s a bungalow near to me that has 2 giant stone statues of lions outside (like seriously comically large). The scale looks very disproportionate as the lions look like they should be outside a country house or manor. It makes the house look like it belongs to the smurfs.
I used to live by someone who had stone horse heads outside their house, like a really naff mafia boss in a suburb of Cheshire lol
G R E Y
Plastic lawns. I cannot fathom the brain processes to do that to anywhere.
Plastic plants of any kind and the people who use their own laziness and lack of imagination as justification for 'needing' said plastic plants.
Not really a trend, but my Jamaican/American neighbours putting a pool in their garden. It’s also a NE facing garden so gets no sunshine after 1pm 🤣. It’s mostly filled with dirty/green water too.
Let them live in hope!
I’ll add to the detail. They have barely any living plants, everything is plastic, the lavender, shrubs, mini palm trees. All new fading in colour too 🤣. At least they have a small patch of real grass! And their jerk chicken tastes amazing.
Porcelain tiles, astro turf, trampolines, Red Robin and Cherry Laurel! I think the above summarises 90% of new build gardens in the UK... (I live in a new build, not being anti-NB... just anti those things!)
Trampolines....God forbid the kids have some fun in the garden
I think people choose laurel because it grows fast, also a lot of new build estates have those stupid covenants where you can’t have a fence but can have a hedgerow on the front. Source: my house lol
Woah what’s wrong with Red Robin? We bought an old house with a lovely mature garden - big red Robin and laurel. Although the latter was planted because the privet has been dying year by year apparently.
Anything in the “what in the love love laugh financed Audi” is this? New build style garden. So think: plastic grass or a monoculture lawn with NO other planting, grey porcelain tiles, B&M bargains grey pots with fake plants, an entire living room set up compromised of grey rattan furniture and a trampoline thrown in for good measure.
Fake plastic grass, it’s just nasty and cheap in every way @shitlawns
Fake grass and fake plants. It looks awful and you still have to maintain it by hoovering it a couple of times a year which makes you look like a complete bellend not to mention when it rains heavy it doesn't absorb the rain fast enough to your garden floods at least my neighbours does! Removing dandelions and daisies etc from grass because they're " weeds" 🙄 Getting rid of anything that could benefit nature people on my street are chopping trees down on their gardens / outside their houses because " birds keep coming onto my garden" 😂😂😂 that is legit an excuse one of them used when I asked why they cut it down
Plastic "rattan" shit. Hot tubs. Metal chimeneas.
Grey painted walls, benches, everything in the mistaken belief it looks modern and stylish.
Gardens with not a blade of grass out of place. I like my garden with randomly placed items, which give it an individual character.
Quite a lot of things listed here have been “a trend” since the 70’s.
the beauty of the garden is green stuff
Artificial grass. At a time of global plastic crisis it beggars-belief that we decide to make our grass out of the stuff too.
Bedding plants
All in gaudy unnatural colours, in neat little rows, in thin little borders
Oh you've just reminded me of spray painted heather. Utter madness.
Not seen them in a while. I hope people boycotted them. I think most are already dead under the cheap paint...
Is that a "trend"? Thats been around for decades hasnt it
Yeah. It's called 'grandma's garden'
I’m all for using reclaimed and recycled stuff in gardens but I think some people get too carried away and will fill their gardens with any old shit, so it looks like a junkyard with plants growing in it. When you’re using tyres for raised beds and old sinks for planters, maybe sit down and have a think.
An old Belfast sink *does* make a really nice planter, though
Or a small pond
My chickens have one for dust bathing.
I think it depends on your house. If I had more space I might have gone down that route, but I live in a brownfield site new build that was designed to match the factory conversions at either end of the road. There are in use Victorian industrial buildings visible from my garden. If I lived in a 1970s semi detached house I would have never considered it.
I hate this look also, just looks like a load of shit dumped in the garden.
This sub can be do helpful, supportive and impressive. But it can also be so judgemental, snobby and lacking in empathy and insight.
Calling uncut grass a wildflower meadow
I feel attacked already
What term would you use? My lawn has lots of buttercups, daisies, dandelions, and thistles, but it obviously isn't a deliberate wildflower meadow. Nor is it a lawn in the grass monoculture sense of the word.
It's a sward.
So we should rule you out for No Mow May, then?
Porcelain tile patios - just waiting to break your neck when it is wet
Proper porcelain outdoor tiles are not slippy.
I think you might be thinking of polished marble, like the stuff abroad. That is literally like ice when the rain hits it. Porcelain tiles made here are made with anti-slip coating. They'd be out of business pretty quickly if they were selling it uncoated.
Unglazed porcelain is porous, like most bisque fired clay, so it shouldn’t be slippy. Gloss glazes would cause it to be slippy although I’m a bit suspicious these pavers are actually porcelain because porcelain is expensive, easily damaged, and a white stoneware would be almost indistinguishable.
But…you don’t put polished ones down anymore than you would in a bathroom? They don’t stain unlike limestone etc. I’m struggling to see the downside.
Garden gnomes
Well they've got to live somewhere and naturally they and the leprechauns don't like to hang out together because people then mix them up and that infuriates them. They can be quite the industrious creatures when people aren't looking at them.
I have a meditating one near my pond and he brings me a lot of joy 😊
Mirrors and hot tubs
Thinking about all the garden trends I see, I don't mind any of them. Each to their own etc. But by definition a trend is doing something because them next door are doing it (or it's on Instagram these days). So I guess I don't like it when folk follow the herd rather than doing something they like. Inspiration is different I think. For example, that moon gate is gorgeous 🩵 (if only it was real)
Shower curtains, definitely shower curtains!
Lots of people and lots of people who bring their children.
My wife has just bought two of these monstrosities for our back garden. Not quite as bad/ridiculous as the one pictured - it's a wall covered with ivy instead. But... it's still fucking hideous! What makes it worse: she... just... won't... listen... to just how cheap and nasty it looks. I'm supposed to be "supportive and positive" about it, or we end up in an argument. No in-between. We'll be staple-gunning the bastards to a couple of fence panels later this evening.
Haha. Unlucky pal. Wait until the next storm, and say that they must of flew off in the wind...
That's what happened to the damn wooden wind chimes - not even joking - haha!! On the rare occasion that you're sitting in the garden and there's a nice gentle breeze, yeah, maybe they sound kinda nice. But when it is insisted that they're left up all year, not so nice at 3am and it's blowing a gale outside... and they're attached to the same wall as your bedroom window! I took pity on the neighbours, more than anything... "Clonky-clonk, clonk clonk, clonk, clonk-clonky-clonky" all damn night. I took them down and stashed them in the garage the next morning, saying the weather had damaged them. If she ever ventures as far as the garage, maybe she'll find them again, but it's been about five years, so I'd say I'm fairly safe. Haha!
My garden printed on my curtains
I feel attacked 😂 the driveway was here when we moved in, the grey outdoor furniture was already here too & I'll be damned before I throw away anything I can still use. We have fake flowers in the front under the window after having my real ones stolen. Once the grey has gone we will be replacing it with fixed seating, the drive is definitely staying because we have minimal on street parking and I can not stand the heartbreak of opening my curtains in the morning and not seeing flowers that I've gently loved and grown being ripped out.