Been somewhat harrowing round here of late. We finally decided to move into town to our little house. Five acres is just becoming too much to cope with.
Having put it on the market, one more time, we took one look and realised quite how much housekeeping we haven’t done of late! Heaps of crap everywhere. It took spousal unit 10 days to clear the office, to one’s horror, no filing had been done since 2009, oops!
The garage and barn are equally heaped with god knows what, we tackle those slowly! No sooner was the house habitable than people started calling. Here in the USA it is customary for the realtor to show the house, we have to depart with the three dogs to anywhere but here. Leaving the bloody place immaculate, not like the UK at all! All well and good when they can go walkies by the river but not much fun in the pissing rain! We go walkies in Petsmart so they can shop for bones instead. We have had to evacuate the last three days in a row, hence Easter being cancelled!
Of course there has been large logistic implications for the garden in all this. No point in putting in veg here and no room for veg at our new place. So I have planned to put everything in my plot at the community garden and polytunnel this year. Now, having wasted time cleaning the bloody house I am scrambling to plant out all my greenhouse starts up in town. Equally I have been lifting various portions of plants to go, potting up etc. I have more plants in pots round here than the average nursery. The new place does not have a greenhouse, that will have to be remedied, ‘toot sweet’. One plant I stole complete, no point casting pearls before swine, a rare yellow hybrid paeony, that is going with me to the grave! Spousal unit is bemoaning the loss of the asparagus bed, we are eating it one last time right now. You really cannot in all decency decimate an asparagus bed of such munificence, unless of course the buyers declare an anathema on such a veg—-then all bets are off and I’ll take it whether it wants to go or not!
I suppose this move represents jumping before we are pushed so to speak, I can maintain this no longer to the level that I find acceptable, where we are going is only a pocket handkerchief garden, house is roughly the same size. One good thing, we shall dispense with a spare bedroom. If anyone is stupid enough to want to visit they can pay their own hotel bill! Wonderful! The bad– the garden is full of dreadfully vulgar pink and red prosaic plants. Most will have to go! Fluorescent pink rhododendrons and ghastly bright red hybrid tea roses are SERIOUSLY not my thing!
Boadicea's Chariot 
Good luck with this all! I quite sympathise, I’ve had to move house 4 times in the past year and will have to do it yet again before the summer is out! Fortunately, I can fit all my possessions into 3 suitcases and store most of them in my grandparents’ attic! It will be fun next year when the Chinese see fit to toss me back to Europe backed with gifts.
Use the gifts to bribe the pilots not to crash the thing.
There is a lot to be said for minimalist living, no furniture and a bunch of cherry blossom in the corner. My mother in her later years refused to accept gifts she could not consume, food and flowers were about all she would have. I have adopted the same regime, who needs all that ghastly crap that has to be dragged hither and thither?
I do envy some of my Welsh friends, one still inhabits the same bedroom in which he was born and intends to die there, totally brilliant. He is over 60 now.
Perhaps I should avoid telling you that I will fly to China with al-Qatariyah?
Of late, I’ve increasingly been embracing the Japanese aesthetic. Absolute minimalism. In fact, I may forswear a bed and sleep on a thick futon bed on the floor in the future!
A three inch block of memory foam does the trick nicely. Straight on the floor.
I’ve actually done that — a guest bed. The guest was usually Chinese so it wasn’t unusual for him.
Good Luck with the move, Christina. I’m delighted to hear that you will have some small plot of land to cultivate – I can’t quite imagine you without a garden.
CO, i fear a ittle for your adopted village! All that kinetic energy, the dreaded jacks and spousal unit almost unemployed! Look out! 😃
….but here’s an idea:
Open a wordpress Agony Aunt blog for gardeners! 😃
PS how fitting that your Easter was harrowing! 😳
I’m sorry that you have to give up your beautiful garden, Christina. But the move will make life easier and at least you have the challenge of a new garden to bring up to scratch. Good luck.
I do think that once a garden becomes a bore and a chore rather than a pleasure it is time to go! Once you get to the point that you can no longer maintain it at the peak of condition that pleases you it really is quite definitely time to go as advancing weeds become quintessentially depressing! It now irritates me beyond belief so it is really a good thought to be out of the place as soon as possible.
I shall never drive down this road again. I make it a rule that I never revisit places I have previously lived, a seriously bad idea!
Onwards and upwards!
Good luck with the move, Tina, and the sale of your current abode. Yes, it’s time to go when you no longer feel able to cope with the work involved.
Still, it must be a wrench to leave it, but it sounds as though you are doing the right thing.
Best wishes for the move Mrs. O. After some consideration over the long and difficult Winter I have decided to die here (all in good time of course).
This place has always been part of the wilderness and I have finally abandoned the taming, the bit around the house is tamed, grass, ground cover and a small vegetable garden, the rest is reverting to the wild, natural plants grow under the trees and I do not clear the leaves in the fall. I think it looks fine, The stuff that grows does not require care except in extreme cases and attempting to change that is unrewarding and ultimately futile. I did have a singular success last year, my neighbour gave me a ten foot tall fig tree, I planted it in late fall against all advice and it is growing like a weed, it must like the soil or the sunshine or maybe it just likes me.
Excellent move regarding the spare bedroom, ours has long since become “the library”—– pretentious ain’t in it!
LW, ditto. Most of our acre is ‘meadow’, subdued by the ride-on every week or 10 days. The garden around the house is tamed, with a dozen roses climbing the outhouses.
Akshully we plan to allow a third of the meadow to go wild, encouraged by wild flower seeds. Back to nature is the watchword. 😊
Trouble is round here the natural meadow is 5′ high! We saw it when we first came here. Kept losing the dogs and provided far too much cover near the house for coyotes, mountain lions and bear!!! Not to mention the bloody mosquitos!
No thanks, rather live on the pocket handkerchief I like to see whatever it is coming!
I shall be able to escape to the community garden with a deckchair right next to the library and pizza joint.
The dogs have declared territorial rights over that area and ‘meet and greet’ all comers to the pizza joint, nobody seems to give a damn just lets them get on with it I suppose they have been around for so many years they have become part of the scenery. Perhaps I can get them on the payroll!
I suppose the village has been ‘hi-jacked’ then? Excellent! 😃