I’m end of season – it was a hard season, so hot and so dry – and I’m so so tired. That would make anyone a bit moany?? So here’s a Rant.
But I’ll put up some pretty flowers so you can just ignore the wordy bits if you like. Though you may have seen some of the pics before and may see them again. I’ve not got an infinite collection of photos you know. (Just nearly)
Photo! A geranium! (Don’t ask)
OK.
- Why do people who talk about how to make a garden (there are so so many of them) seem to assume you have an empty space to fill? Don’t most people arrive somewhere new and find a full up garden? Full up of things they don’t much like but how to get rid of them? How do you shoehorn new, well recommended, essential plants – to create idea plant combinations – into a garden which is full to busting?
Triteleia Queen Fabiola in the meadow at Veddw
- And why can’t we get rid of plants we’re fed up of? They aren’t pets and some of them are a bit grim. Go on – you know you hate it and it’s in the wrong place…Even if it is a wild one.
Yep, tulips. Everybody’s favourite until dreadful dahlia time.
- Why do we never tell one another about dismal plants we’d like to get rid of. Or even ones that are quite nice sometimes but the rest of the time DULL? Send each other pics of horrid!?
Nectaroscordum siculum at Veddw – a white one. Never seen that before. But not horrid.
4. Why does everyone go on and on about tulips? Mine were a total failure last year, so that was no fun to witness. They went on about them for ages with more and more photos of the blessed things. Such show offs all over garden media!!
And then — dahlias?!! Sigh. I gave up on dahlias when I got fed up of deadheading them. And constantly forgetting which was bulb and which was defunct flower. (please don’t tell me) Never mind trying to keep them warm in winter. And you have one in a pot, then next year it wants five pots! They get huge.
I promised nice flowers. Crocosmia and a geranium? No idea which but they love each other, don’t they?
- Why do we have to be being taught things all the time? I know that I have been gardening for forty years and still don’t know stuff, or forget it. But there must be more to gardens and gardening than endlessly telling people how to do it? I get so fed up with being told what to do!!!!!! Stop it.
Anyway, there must by now be more garden lecturers, all lecturing each other, than plain ignorant gardeners.
Fabulous hydrangea – Miss Saori
- Is it hard to garden? No not really. Plants do want to grow if they can. Easy especially if you don’t feel required to justify your bit of Eden by having veggies rather than beauty. It’s not as if we can grow chocolate biscuits.
No idea but isn’t it cute?
7. Why are we supposed to be so enthusiastic and smiley every day?? Even when the squirrel has gnawed your new tree to death just as it was becoming a proper tree, or when the sweet Bambi (who was Bambi?) thing chewed it all up?
One of those Japanese anemones. Mark of arrival when you can say anemones without getting tongue tied.
- Why do people on various social media outlets think we want to see their smiley smiley grinning instead of a super plant or flower? They are never as beautiful as a plant or a flower. Or if they are, we don’t want to know.
Diascia and nemesia of some sort.
- Why are we always being told how to save the world from climate change all by ourselves with our own little two by two metre plots? This is ridiculous grandiosity.
This is not the same as looking after all the little creepy creatures and good things on legs and with wings. This we must do. (Even rats?)
Hyacinthoides hispanica. Disliked for the possibility it will spoil our native UK bluebells with its naughty ways.
- And why if we have a drought are we all supposed to pull everything up and plant drought proof plants in preparation for the following record rainfall?
Althaea cannabina. With long stems and a tendency to fall over.
- Why do we have to be garden designers to properly make and – heaven help us – curate our space? Do they look at your garden every day, anxious to make it damn perfect?
crocuses or crocii?
12. How come there are so many people who can somehow make a living while doing miserable research which makes people very unhappy? Like telling them they mustn’t feed their birds for the sake of the marsh tits? Or that slugs are good for the environment and shouldn’t be squashed.
What’s this? Another Japanese anemone?
- Why do so many plastic pots have to be a ghastly shiny orange colour? And hoses a bright green that has never been seen in a garden and shouldn’t be? Or yellow! I’ve got a yellow one! How did that happen???!!
Lilies, shouting at you.
14. Why do people think recycling is so important that they must endlessly recycle garden ‘tips’ which are often useless and mostly irritating? And nearly always involve unnecessary extra work.
Don’t tell me I can’t grow tulips. Sometimes.
- What on earth is good about making leaf mould? Let leaves moulder by by themselves. You are not a Victorian minion under the instructions of a brutal head gardener determined that you’re not going to start slacking just because there is (actually) less to do in winter.
A hellebore, feeling surprised.
- Please NOT more stuff about what to do with your leaves! Enough! Let’s shut up about them, shall we?
Iris in the meadow.
- And it’s very unlikely that you need to feed plants in the garden. They generally don’t like it, the soil doesn’t like it and the environment doesn’t like it. You want nitrogen heading off to the rivers? It’s complicated, problematic and mostly unnecessary.
Astrantia with geranium.
- And let’s stop imagining there’s such a thing as ‘winter interest’. The world is full of interest but it truly is not in a winter garden. Though beauty – is another and different thing.
Beauty
OH, ignore the numbers. They want to do it and get it wrong all by themselves.
- Stop staking things! It’s so ugly and unnatural. If you find a plant likes best to lie down, cut it to the ground in early summer and see if that doesn’t make it stand on its own many feet.
Cyclamen in a bucket. Don’t ask me why.
Oh, another one. Probably having a drink.
18. AND last: why do gardens have to be good for things? Bu…r your mental health, the bugs, the environment, the wonderful weeds, the Community and all that stuff. What is wrong with simple beauty?
Xxx
Thanks. I needed that.
Me too!
Great rant. Holding out for the chocolate biscuit plant. Should be fruiting about the same time as Charles paints that door.
You think? I’ll buy him some paint!
OK, here’s my rant. Why do so many houses these days (I’m in rural southern Michigan) have no landscaping at all? So ugly. Why do so many houses have acres of lawn and no trees? Just plant some $%^# trees!!! Why do all the parking lots plant the same few kinds of trees and shrubs? And why are so many invasive plants and shrubs still being sold!?? I’m tired of trying to get rid of invasive burning bush and barberry and Vinca minor out of my woods!!!
Phew! That’s grim.
I have privet, burning bush, honeysuckle, multiflora rose, Callaway pear AND vinca. It’s a constant effort to reduce the populations. Thank goodness I turned down the English ivy my mother wanted to give me. There are also random boxwoods planted in the middle of a patch of forest but at least they’re well behaved.
Invasives have such an interesting history. Some of the ones you mention, Susan, were brought to the North American continent for medicinal purposes. I am thinking specifically of the vinca, honeysuckle and the ivy your mother tried to give you! I cultivate ivy to take the cough I get from hypersensitivity pneumonitis (to molds). It is a potent bronchodilator.
I am curious if the random boxwood were once part of a settlement. Do you see any daffodils in that area in Spring?
I know, this is a website called Garden Rant. And as usual Ms. Wareham contributes mournfully unpleasant perspectives mostly about how she and her home garden are tragically under-appreciated. But I bet we could encourage joy in our garden-making experiences. I recognize the platform offers us a catharsis in venting our troubles, failures, and conundrums. But too much sourness leaves a really bad taste in our mouths
I’m sorry to have made you miserable.
Are you using the royal “we”? Because I found it delightful. To calle Anne a “home gardener” is like comparing the Mona Lisa to a paint by numbers!
And many many thanks for that. Cheered me up, if not everyone else.
, well said!
And my thanks to you too.
Oh, I did laugh my way through this one. You are so right. Sometimes we gardeners just need to get a grip and go with God’s flow. He has brought me some wonderful combinations I am sure I didn’t intend! Gardening for some 60+ years I have for the last 12 in my new house and 4 acres reveled in whatever occurs, be it planned by me or some other hand. This year has been mostly a disaster, with monsoons in Spring and drought all Summer. But the Fall I thought would pass without wonderful Fall foliage has been extraordinarily lovely. The roadsides are filled with colorful trees that we haven’t seen in a good many years. So, I am spreading cold needing seeds around willy nilly and shall await the tapestry I can only hope will develop!
I’m so happy to hear that you are having the same consolation for our hard summer: this beautiful and prolonged autumn foliage. It’s being wonderful when it’s not raining – and we’re grateful for the rain too.
19. “We” need to complain from time to time – it’s expected of us all – including gardeners – actually it’s part of living, I’d say! My complaint for 2025 – besides being dry, windy, dusty etc is this – why are all these animals eating everything in my gardens – mule deer, moose, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, marmots – I’m ok with sharing, but this year it’s gotten out of hand! Grrrr!
It sounds as if you have more of those greedy mammals than we do. Moose! Wow. Quite right to add no 19.
Agree agree. Good rant. So tired of “do this, don’t do that” and then the advice flip-flops.
Me too!!! And you’re quite right about the endless changes too…
#20
I decided to have a Fall themed party in my garden, which I have made, part through design and part through accident, to look like a summer camp, complete with mini cedar shake cabin, a canoe turned part planter, part wildlife pond, and the beginnings of a hugelkultur mound where there had once been an untidy brush pile, surrounded by what I like to think is inviting straw bale seating. I bought one of those copper looking fire pits, new Adirondack chairs, a gorgeous wooden arbor to offset the cabin. I decorated with pumpkins of all sizes and a few splashes of mums. My.husband help me string lights around our stairs and our cascading ponds so no one would fall in! I spent too much money, even accounting for needed seating and future lighting infrastructure. My orange and yellow cosmos and nasturtiums were still going strong, just gorgeous! With autoimmune disease, my energy was limited but I tidied and sort of weeded and laid down tons of mulch and just gave it my ALL!
For what exactly? I had been told to expect 50 people, we were lucky if there were 15, total! All that effort for not much glory. And that is my rant. However, every day I do walk though it and admire the hell out of it!
That sounds really awful. All that unappreciated effort and the sad disappointment. I’m so sorry to hear about that. Good on you to enjoy it for yourself!
I’m reading all these comments Jacqueline, and Anne’s article, and thinking about all the responses circling in my head (sign of a good post!) — but I absolutely had to pipe up and echo’s Anne’s sentiments on your disappointment. Good on you for making something special and shame on guests for saying they’d come and not showing up. Why do people feel that an RSVP is optional and/or breakable?!?!?!!? This trend has been going on for a decade now and it’s the surest way to drop off my guest list. –MW
Thanks, Anne, this was fun. “Adventure is not in the guidebook, and beauty is not on the map.”
True!
Loved this! Smiled through every number and was delighted by every picture. Thanks for brightening my day. I needed it.
Glad the flowers did their trick.
I love you, Anne! 🙂
Oh, and let us all talk about how garden books and magazines overwhelm us (well, me) and set off our monkey brains (well, mine).
Time to bin some of those bullying publications!
Thank you for your rant. I enjoyed so many points, but I loved you questioning this idea that our gardens have to benefit wildlife/mental health/fill in your cause. I guess just enjoying them is insufficient. Or selfish.
The world has gone so horribly puritanical. Let’s thee and me just indulge ourselves in the pleasure of the garden things that work out for us.
Amen. – MW
You post beautiful flower pics and I see a very crowded garden that I love. For my mental health it was helpful for and 80 year old man.
Delighted to have been some use! Thank you for telling me.
Anne, go further up to get the view. People as Gardeners, in real time, in the macro, across the globe. What’s the percentage? One percent seems generous.
Go back in time, be generous, go back well before Christ’s era. How many Gardeners across that macro? Again, one percent seems generous.
Our normal, being a real gardener, anything but.
Garden & Be Well……………………..indeed.
Adore your Garden, thank you for sharing generously XO T
True! And thank you!
“more garden lecturers, all lecturing each other” This had me laughing out loud! Love the random flower photos too.
It’s happening and it IS funny. Thanks re my pics.
Yes!! Please stop with the “winter interest” hectoring! In winter, l am interested in staying warm, while catching up with some of the chores that get neglected in gardening season. If the evergreens out there aren’t enough for the lofty, too bad.
Peace, we need peace…..
Winter Interest is a valid concept. I urge folks not to be too uptight about what is or is not included when that term is used. From evergreens, to shrubs like oakleaf hydrangeas featuring handsome branches with peeling bark; crape myrtlrs and Sycamores with showy pale silhouettes; untrimmed grasses like Calamagrostis or Miscanthus; low Pennisetum with plumes of seedheads. For some os us these are beautiful even when a coating of snow blankets our landscapes.
I know there is a great deal to love and appreciate in winter. It’s the term ‘interest’ which annoys me. I think it’s misapplied.
So what’s your suggestion? I agree “Interest” is a bit limp, not ever evoking passionate enthusiasm. But aren’t most of us gardeners imagining the first Galanthus leaves which herald the coming of Spring? Now Galanthophiles surely deserve a RANT of their own.
I’m surprised if they really haven’t had one. They seem to be inescapable come January and February.
I do have a lot of winter beauty because when I was working full time as a jobbing gardener, the only time I had to spend a lot of time in my garden was winter. So I did plant a lot of shrubs that excelled then.
I feel good now that what I write is not especially educational, more of a personal story of successes and complaints and projects.
Go you! Personal is what we need. And complaints it seems, are always cheering!
I thoroughly enjoyed this! I may not have agreed with all, but I absolutely positively enjoyed the journey. Thank you for a good cathartic Rant!
Thanks, Jenny. I’m feeling better for it. Though this may only be temporary!
The pictures were scrumptious, too.
I’m photo obsessed……
A perfect rant! Thank you! I read this blog for the rants!!
Heartily agree with the ranty issues you raised, Anne. And love the comments! Made my day to have a shared sense of pet hates!
Great photos. I enjoy your writing. Thank you
Great and thank you for all the encouragement. Working up for the next one!
Anne, I love you from afar!
My favorite: “ Why do people on various social media outlets think we want to see their smiley smiley grinning instead of a super plant or flower? They are never as beautiful as a plant or a flower. Or if they are, we don’t want to know.”
Even dear friends put their faces in the foreground. I don’t understand why.
I expect it’s what social media insist on.
I just read a piece about this on, I think, substack. The insta algorithm apparently shares posts with faces more widely than posts just with plants.
Depressing.
Great post! So tired of garden coaches (few too many self-taught “experts” who write here regularly oblivious to their air of unearned authority and strikingly common gardens).
Thank you.
yup. Why I haven’t written anything about gardens for ages…I haven’t added a blog to my website since lockdown. I can’t find a voice that isn’t a general moan, or spouting repeated advice with the required air of unearned authority (thanks B Smith, I shall borrow that), or forced enthusiasm, garnishing my deathly prose with ‘interesting’.
My planting advice to my clients now boils down to…dig a hole, stick the plant in, brown end down, green end up. Have more plants to suit your taste, garden, climate and aspect. If it gets too big or floppy chop it down. If it dies, plant something else. If it is wildly invasive and impossible to eradicate, it was on that list of plants I told you not to plant and serves you right. If you don’t get rid of nettles, brambles, thistles and docks, that will be your garden in 5 years time. Do gardening. Go to Veddw. Amen.
Right on, Kathy!!!