Thoughts were all over the map at the time about how easy or hard it would be to sell a house with a complex garden. Many people thought it would be relatively hard, some easier, and the rationale varied too.

We listed out house in late March or early April I think, planning to move in late June. Many realtors recommended we start earlier, given a slow market. But I knew, with 3 kids and a dog still at home, that keeping the house showable would be very hard. Also that I wanted the garden to show at its best.

Many people coming through the house (which is beautiful, and would be considered 'high end' in our market), thought the garden was just too complicated and too much work. There were clearly some, however, who were excited about the garden, which is well known in this area, having been on lots of tours and partially well visualized from the street. The garden has lots of good hardscaping, which I think is critical for the garden to really be an asset to the house. The unfortunate thing is that the best season of the garden for most of us (May through July, mine maybe into September), is somewhat later than the best season for the real estate market (February through April or May). And in really northern gardens, March is often the peak of the real estate market and is a rather ugly, bare time in gardens with a lot of planting space devoted to perennials.

When the comps are done, which is the basis for appraisals and sales prices, gardens really don't seem to count for much except for "patios" and "ponds". Of course, they may well make an individual buyer fall in love. But ultimately, they probably won't add much if anything to the sales price of your house, which is mostly going to be based on the house. And the garden may be a liability if people see it as too much work. It can clearly limit the buyer pool.

There can also be major problems selling to another "gardener", which we did. In fact, a couple from Chicago who looked at the house the first weekend it was on the market, ultimately bought the house and the garden within 6 weeks. They were attracted to the garden and the lady was an "avid gardener". One of the things that I wanted to do was to move plants. I had a complex garden, probaly with 1000s of plants, including lots of rarities. Like any gardener, some of these were my babies I was not going to part with. Most of them I moved the previous fall, but a few not till that spring. We did end up moving some plants after the people first looked at the house -- most of these were completely dormant. The realtor told me to just go ahead and do it, it wouldn;t be a problem. But when the couple came back, the lady was ballistic that any plants at all had been moved from the garden. Ultimately I had to appease her by leaving some garden benches and by drawing a "map" of everything that I had removed. What a sham -- I have never had a map of my garden. She insited that she knew what every plant I removed was (they were dormant perennials mind you, "oh brother"). Overall, what a fiasco. Though we did sell the house fairly quickly.

We did live in the house through late June last year. It was very, very sad for me. The garden, still lovely then, was a ghost of its former luxurious self. The bones were still there, any visitor who had not seen it before would never know that 100s of plants had been removed. But the large clematis were all gone, the hellebores, geraniums, some specimen trees (though because they were so packed in, the woodies were probably of appropriate density). I think it was one of the saddest experiences of my life. And on the final day I left that garden, I cried for hours.

I drove by the garden a couple of times last summer. The garden was mostly a weedy mess. In fact, the "avid gardener" who knew everything I removed I suspect did not know a lot of weeds, since some were growing like specimen perennials. Weeds did that in my wonderful soil. I doubt I will go back again.

So, overall advice --

*Good hardscape and basic good bones probably do enhance a property and make it sell better, but may not add that much to the sales price
*Extremely complicated gardens definitely limit your market.
*If you are moving plants, do it All BEFORE you start to sell.
*Better to sell to a nongardener who likes gardens than someone who is a "gardener". They may not really be, and if they are hyper, they can make your life difficult.
*It may well be better to consider the word "garden" as a VERB and not a noun. Gardens are about gardening, the making of them, more than anything. There was a great editorial in Horticulture last year by Lauren Springer, to that point exactly. It may well be better to walk away from your old garden, as it is, without moving a thing (well, maybe one plant), and to really start afresh on a new place. It depends on scale. I actually spent a fair amount of money on moving plants, lost quite a few, created a huge amount of work for myself in doing so

The biggest revelation of all for me was that moving to a new place may completely change the way you feel about gardening. The kinds of plants which do well may be different. The amount of time and energy you may want to devote to it may change dramatically too.

I think Lauren was actually right, that it is better, easier, and maybe cheaper to really start from scratch.

When I can finally re-find my pictures from the old place, maybe I will post a couple of pictures of my garden as it looked on its very last days in my hands.

So what have your experiences been like, selling a garden?

You really do need to move or pot up any plants you want to save before putting the house on the market. If you can't get all this done ahead of time, make sure the buyer knows exactly what else will be removed before agreeing on a deal. When we bought our first house, the seller wanted us to agree to his removing a mature green gage plum tree from the backyard before the closing. Fine by us. He never showed up to take the tree.

You'll hear otherwise from some folks, but I agree completely with David that elaborate garden designs, even with hardscaping, are unlikely to add much to the price of a house. You will probably not recoup their cost at sale time. Beautiful landscaping may help the house sell faster, though there's that problem of scaring off non-gardeners who see a lot of maintenance work in their future. Install landscape features to please yourself, without the expectation of increasing property value. And if you plan to sell within a few years, keep any projects relatively simple.

Try not to go back to an old property where you once gardened, as the garden is likely to be in a depressing state of decay. Walk away and start over.

Here's to David's new garden, which will probably be a beauty within a relatively short time.

It makes sense just to pick and choose what you want to take. After Elizabeth Lawrence moved to Charlotte from Raleigh she continued to regret not taking some iris that she couldn't replace, but iris are easy to move and store.

I moved a bunch of plants from my first house to my current house. I wouldn't do it again. There wasn't anything I moved that couldn't be replaced, and it was just too much headache to dig all those plants up, pot them up, hold them for a couple months until the ground was workable in the new place, then try to find placed for all the plants. Guess what? The majority of plants I took have long since left my garden. They either didn't fit in with my design plan here, didn't have the right growing conditions for them in terms of light/soil, I just didn't have room for them, they didn't "fit" the style of the house I have now, my tastes evolved, whatever - you get the point.

The only things I still have are two Japanese maples. When I move again, I will probably take one of those (the other is now about 15' tall) and another laceleaf one my dad gave me for sentimental reasons. Other than that, it stays.

The garden is a reflection of the gardener. Once the gardener is no longer there, the garden changes into something else - it becomes a reflection of the next gardener who tends it. We may or may not like what it changes into, but it is no longer ours to change.

I learned a great deal in that small garden. My love of clematis began there, antique metal structures suited the place well, dividing the space into different areas was a good exercise. I knew every plant well.

Woody is right though. This is miles better for me than what I left behind! I was fortunate to have saved much of what I loved and parked it at a friend's farm before showing the house. This was of course mostly clematis, but also hellebores, ferns and other sentimental things.

The only comment I received from the new owners was the spring following the move. "You sure do like yellow, don't you!" Sigh. She got my Waterer Laburnum and certainly didn't care for it.

Leaving this place will break my heart. No one will care for it after I go, even a "gardener". I've tried to scale things down, make things more natural and easy, but for an addict, that's not possible. If I must move from here, I certainly don't want to hear what has become of the property I have loved for the past 9 years. All former owners have loved this spot and returned with children and grandchildren to visit. I loved that! I think if it has to be, that I will put on blinders and focus on starting something completely different and new...that I will love too. I certainly have learned a great deal in the past 40 years about what I like and what works well in certain conditions. Good memories.

I have very few plants that are expensive or have sentimental attachment, so it is likely that most things will stay. I like the theory of showing up at my new house with a load of plants, but I can understand where it would be a lot of work babying the plants and prepping spots to plant them. I am hoping that the timing works out such that most of the plants are showing themselves and at least something is blooming. We shall see. I added some more bulbs in early winter to help with the early market.

On the flip side, I have looked at a number of houses that were "professionally landscaped" (the real estate agents sure like to throw in that phrased). There was only one house I thought had a nice landscape but most often I am wondering how much work it will be to rip out what is there and start from scratch.

- Brent

I think we have to just garden for the sheer love of it and consider that our payback. I think you did right taking some of your favorite and rare plants. Sometimes those can't be replaced.
I hope by now you are recovered from the ordeal and I would not drive by again.

How I loved your posts and pictures from the previous garden. I took notes on some of your combos and because of you, decided to grow some clems through shrubs and small trees. You influenced many of us. If you are now gardening in the new place (with lots of shade), please keep us posted. I have a great deal of shade in my yard and huge trees which make planting difficult and know you will be a big help.

Stacie

Ultimately, I think it is important for me to remember that I garden because I love the process and the results, and it has given me great joy and solace in my life. That itself is the reason and the reward. I think if I ever leave again I will just say goodbye, and walk away. And not have any delusions about the garden adding significant (or any) value to the house. I doubt that any of the devoted gardeners who post here would choose to stop gardening because it won't help their resale too much. That isn't why we garden anyway.

There is one other important reason, I think, NOT to remove many, if any plants, from your old garden. And that is to spare yourself the painful memory of seeing and *being responsible for* the destruction of your own garden.

That is something I never anticipated until it was substantially done and I lived with it. I moved a lot of plants in the fall, just as the garden was going to sleep, and in the early spring just before the garden awakened. So when the garden really did awaken, it was like it had gotten very sick or had died during the night. Maybe those kinds of things are not a problem for people who do not have much emotional attachment to their garden. But I certainly did, and I suspect that many others out there do too. It is one thing for somebody else to buy your garden and to change it themselves. But it is quite another to dismantle it yourself -- you then become responsible for its downfall, and may have to watch the effects too. I think this was maybe the saddest thing of all.

Better to leave it as you remember it, and will want to, at its best.

DD and I thought long and hard about moving about eight years ago and finally came to the conclusion that we couldn't bear to leave what we've created here so added on to our existing very small ranch house, added a whole second floor and a 16' x 20' room off the kitchen with windows all around so you feel like you are in the gardens when you are in this dining/family room. It was the best thing we really could have done. Our outdoor and indoor space is a joy and we're very lucky that we are able to stay here.

I'm looking forward to seeing your new gardens evolve. Anyone who has your passion for gardening will make the land bloom again.

Deanne

But hopefully I will be so busy planting trees at the new place that I won't have time.

There is one other important reason, I think, NOT to remove many, if any plants, from your old garden. And that is to spare yourself the painful memory of seeing and *being responsible for* the destruction of your own garden.

The work wasn't the problem; even leaving plants behind wasn't the problem.... but the deconstruction (ie destruction) of carefully & lovingly planted beds was downright painful. When I was done I stood there for the longest time just feeling awful. I have decided that when this house is done & we move on, I'm leaving the garden in its entirety. Of course, there will be much less done here, because it is a temporal situation, but still.... I'd rather start fresh & just surrender what is done.

Anyway, I was just peeking in here & caught your thread & wanted to tell you that I feel for you. Peace & many happy gardening days in your new garden, my friend.

In fact, I think it was only today that I really remembered the day of leaving the garden, the memory was so painful. And it was indeed the sense that I had caused the ruin of my own garden that was the worst part. It felt like a major violation, a lack of respect for what I had created, just for the 'gain' of being able to move some plants with me. Like you, I will never do that agin.

One of the wonders of making a garden, if it is really effective, is that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts. And as a gardener, one has to marvel at, and respect, that whole. That is why I won't ever do that deconstruction again.

I hope you will stop by and post and let us know how you are faring.

'bug

I have no intentions of moving at this time, but I know that in order to even sell my house I would have to dismantle a large portion of the garden and probably seed it as lawn or plant alot of common shrubs. The average person does not have the time, inclination or experience to maintain a large, complex garden even if they can appreciate one. As a gardener, if I were looking to buy, layout and existing hardscapes, perhaps the existence of unusual, mature woody plants would be the selling features.

At any rate, I'll be looking forward to seeing pictures of your new garden as it evolves. I'm sure the process will be both educational and entertaining for us all. Glad to see you back on the forums!

Sue

When I moved from Michigan to Ohio in the year 2000...I told my realtor that all my plants were "reserved". That I could take what I wanted. It was stated right up front - so that I didn't have to leave anything I wanted. People knew it and could take it or leave it.I ended taking about 350 things. The lady that bought our house was so excited about what I left. Believe me it was plenty for her to have a nice garden. Well, she never did ONE THING to the garden. In fact, she never even bought a lawn mower. She sold the house to a young couple that loved the flowers and restored it it - until they got a dog that tore most of it up.

So the moral of this story is...don't go back if you don't have to. What's done is done. Noone can care for your plants like YOU did. It hurts the heart to see those plants not cared for or gone. I wouldn't go back except that my closest friend still lives next door to my old house.

I wish you well in your new home and happy hunting for your precious new plants that will fill your garden with beauty and your heart with joy.

For more than 5 years, I rented an enormous brick antebellum farmhouse that had existing interesting plants, plus lots more I planted. About 2 years ago, I realized I couldn't afford the time and money to pay the rent and try to keep up the house and garden, so I moved out. I was lucky enough to end up in another rental where I can garden.

I'm still in contact with the landowner at the old farm, and I stopped in yesterday to pick up some grass fed beef. The current farm manager and his wife (who moved in last fall) were very interested to know what what was growing there. They had pruned back a little on unfamiliar plants that were out of bounds (the interim tenants apparently didn't do much), but had not dug out anythign they didn't definitely recognize as a weed. They allowed me (as I'd hoped) to cut scions from the apple trees I'd planted, and take cuttings from some curly willow and red twig dogwood. I can also go back to get cuttings of anything else I want. If there are some garden plants they don't care about (i'm hoping that will be the hellebores and epimediums...) I can take them too.

Best of all, I got a cutting from the rugosa rose grown from a cutting from my childhood home. The plants of sentimental value like that are the hardest to leave behind.

I did want to share a little story with you though that I thought might be amusing. Years ago, I worked for this lady, who was such a terrible boss, but that's not the story. She told me the story of how she bought a house with her equally terrible husband (those are my words!). According to her, the house came with a beautiful garden with tons of perennials, shrubs, and trees. When they bought the house, the previous owner gave her a map detailing all the plants in the garden. Although my former manager loved the house, she didn't care for gardening, so as soon as they bought the house, she had a crew come in and tear everything out. I often think of this story and tell myself that if I ever move, my plants are coming with me!

I know that you'll have a beautiful garden once again. You love plants and it showed in your garden pictures. Your gardens inspired me and I look forward to seeing pictures of your new garden in the future. Take care.

Funny, when I started on this new house and garden project, I thought that leaving the garden would be tough, but never anticipated how tough. Because I never anticipated all this other change on top of it. One thing I learned from this is that it is better not to change too much in your life at once..........DUH. But we all also know that that isn't how life works, that change comes when you don't expect it, and you have to ultimately play the hand you are dealt. Or you ain't livin'........

My life is so different now that there is a big part of me that wonders if I will ever have a garden like that again. It was beautiful, but also absorbing, and a dam* awful lot of work. I suspect I will have another garden, but it may not be the garden I had expected when I bought this property and moved to this new house. But I suppose that is OK, even good.

I have found that it can actually be FUN to do something besides garden every weekend. :o)

From an aging gardener who had a family experience similar to yours.

Best wishes.

We considered many plants to take to the new house, but since the old house's yard was full blazing sun, and the new house was much shadier, we finally only took two plants. A Rose of Sharon that my wife had gotten from her deceased grandmother's yard and a poppy plant that was the first plant we had grown from seed and planted ourselves. The poppy died, almost immediately. The Rose of Sharon has done well, though it has been moved around the yard a couple of times.

We told the new owners that if they wanted to get rid of the Ginkgo tree in the front yard to just call and we would dig it out, and replace the hole with soil. They said they would consider it, and now they love the Ginkgo as much as we did. We planted Queen of the Nile tulips and bright pink hyacinths around the base of the tree the year before we moved and each year the new owners email us pictures of them in bloom and wish us a happy spring.

I debated moving more plants before we had moved. Would I find another japanese Larch? That about the vines or the herbs? I'm glad in retrospect that we didn't as the new owners really enjoy what we left and they have added and made the yard into something we didn't consider.

That being said, I'm also going to state clearly that in no way will we ever move again. I couldn't imagine leaving what I have planted here. Especially the fruit plants as so many of them require years of waiting for fruit, years that I am not willing to wait again, not after having done it for this house.

If I won the lottery this weekend, I wouldn't move...I'd just have a realtor visit my neighbors and make them good offers to sell their properties.

~Chills

And every weeknight, holidays...You know I've actually heard that before...you're talking about after dark, right?

Sue

For a few years I resisted selling my house for a better planned house, because of the decade old garden I planted and loved. Then I decided to sell the house in order to quiet some long held desires. My experience up to closing was that it was painful to be in the garden, as looking at each plant was like saying goodbye to a family member! Permanently. For that reason, I didn't want to meet with the purchasers to discuss plant lists or layouts and didn't leave any. I also felt that the purchasers would not have the time to keep it as it had been.

The new garden has a landscape which is utterly different, filled with natural (and somewhat impersonal) drama overwhelming the human hand. Had I brought a lot of the old perennials, it would not have made the garden more personal or help overcome the adjustment to a new site. What is missing is the history, the decisions, the time, the intimate familiarity with the plants through the seasons in their site. For some, like me, it is also the knowledge of the identity/nomenclature of each plant, so that I can measure how different varieties perform relative to each other. These are the things that, surprisingly, turned out to be more important than the physical plants in creating a satisfying garden. This is why it is so hard to sell a garden, no matter how much you look forward to a new challenge. It is closure on a huge endeavour and part of a lifetime (and raises disquieting questions such as what is the purpose of it all, if it is so ephemeral). Also, if you change zones, your earlier achievements may mean very little!

Today, I look at plants in books and journals and relate them to a virtual garden (the garden I used to have that I carry around in my head), since I don't have those plants any more.

Today, I experience the plants in the new garden in the way I would if I were visiting a public garden. As the new season progresses, I may find some of the plants ravishing, but I don't think a sense of enchantment really develops in year one. I hope that connection does develop, because I don't want to be solely a maintenance gardener.

The few plants I did bring had a rough time despite every bit of care taken. It takes time to get them in the ground, in the right place, and they were divided before transport and are relatively weak. Once on site, context, suitability and growing conditions are factors that may not favour transplanting. It is surprising how early impressions can change on arrival and with a change of seasons.

I think I am doing what needs to be done. She had better design instinct than I do so I'm tryin to follow what I think were her original intentions, although I think I might be a better technical gardener. In a sense what I am trying to do is renovate because I think after that many years maybe you just garden yourself into a corner and can't see the changes that need to be made. There is some evidence that maybe in later years some of the manual labor got away from her. I didn't mention the over 400 saplings I dug by hand out of the leach field - some must have been 3+ years old. I do however acknowledge that she would never see it that way I am quite sure.

In the meantime several members of my family have had serious health problems and my time is no longer completely my own. We grow and move on and do either what we have to do, or find other things we are also interested in pursuing and learning about. Doesn't mean I'm giving up gardening, just moving over to make room for other things. For me that is translating into more flowering shrubs and bulbs. And in some instances replacing shrubs with newer smaller varieties that don't need to be pruned several times a year to keep them in bounds. All that hand-pruning to keep natural looking shapes is REAlly time consuming. Those are things I didn't see when we bought the house. The neighbors told me that she gardened from 6 am till dark during the season and was out all winter long doing things. With a family that is impossible, but I am hoping that this will be the year that the gardens come back together and the last few years of changes begin to blend in as they are more mature.

So - long post, but I think the great thing is that you have this wonderful new garden to develop. Good luck and best wishes as you plan and plant.

Gldno's comment above is, in fact, right on the mark for me, though this is getting a bit personal. But the comment

"Maybe the gardening was filling some part of your life that you needed then and don't now......"

For me, that is probably true in a major way. Apart from my relationships as a father to my children, in many respects the relationship to my garden was the most important in my life. A *classic sublimation*, as I have come to realize. And though most of you don't know the story because I have not told it, I found another relationship in my life that has given me happiness I have never known before. Ultimately, I think having a "relationship" to my garden that felt rich and even spiritual helped me do that. And so yes, I have evolved, and that is good. Change in life can indeed be wonderful, as it has been for me.

I know I will have a garden in my future -- it wasn't just a sublimation. But it may be smaller, simpler, less complex, less work. The hard thing is that I had a garden before that was richly layered, very densly planted, way too crowded for most people's tastes. But I loved it, and I know from working on it for 20 years that that kind of layering takes time and work over years. And I suspect that that kind of garden will not be again for me. And I know I still grieve that loss. Also part of life.

So it means being open to whatever evolves, right? That's the whole point. And it is ultimately one of the "lessons" we learn from gardening -- that gardens, like life, are only partly under our control, that things happen and change and we live and adapt to and learn from them.

Oh well, way too much philosophy BS for today ;o)

One thot that came to mind, tho, is that a garden evolves as we evolve and at any given moment it's a reflection of it's creator at that point in time. Had you not moved, the other changes in your life would've come about anyway, perhaps not as abruptly. And you may have made drastic changes in your beloved garden, too, in reaction to those changes and to develop other dimensions of yourself. Perhaps your sense of loss is as much about life as it was in that home, all it's joys, sorrows and memories of raising your children there, etc. Becoming an empty-nester is traumatic, too, expecially on top of everything else. You may need to "mourn" for those losses as well.

On a related note -- developing a new garden -- if your ears were burning this weekend, it's b/c Laura and I were thinking and talking about how you would've enjoyed Dan Hinkley's lecture at Goldner Walsh. He spoke at length about developing the new property and gardens on a challenging property completely different from the former one. And part of the design is less maintenance. We were treated to a slide presentation showing befores and afters of the home and property, which has breathtaking views of Puget Sound and Mt. Ranier. What a charismatic and entertaining speaker he is. Wish you couldn've joined us.

The people who bought the house are lovely, but not gardeners. I had potted up LOTS before the house went on the market (fortunately I knew we were moving in Sept. of 2004, and not moving until my dd finished school in 2005). After the idiots backed out, I bare rooted a bunch of other stuff. My garden was so packed, most folks didn't even miss it, and in most cases I left divisions. I'm glad I did, even though it took my dh a moving van full of Jap. maples, evergreens and special variagated stuff...and fortunately, the neighbor here watered them for me daily from May until I go there in June. It was a lot of work.

It broke my heart to see the place go to weeds when I wasn't there to take care of it. People also stole stuff from the garden. One of my neighbors confronted a guy who was making off with choice iris and dianthus and peonies.... I thought I was ok with the new buyers doing whatever they wanted with it....until they said they were going to bulldoze it. I asked her if I could have my friends who knew the garden come and take what they wanted and help in the "destruction/filling in." I emailed everyone....and then the MIL came over and saw it and said to the dil, "you know, there's a lot of unusual stuff here and it will be gorgeous in the spring." So....it has a reprieve.

Since my garden here was non-existent (ok..I lied. 6 icky un-named red or white rosebushes, three clematis and several white daylilies), I was glad I took every start, slip, pot up that I did, however it was a lot of work to keep things alive, and I did lose some stuff....I didn't get some poppie roots in the ground fast enough and they dried out.....

I'm glad it is someone else's house now. I don't want to go back. It is a bitter sweet thing. I will say, however, it looked spectacular for the people who were looking at it, and I enjoyed every blossom and creation moment.....I think I can even fairly said I enjoyed pulling weeds. Did it add value to the house? Well, it did for me, and that was good enough. Others really enjoyed it, and I got a kick out of when they came into the back yard and their mouths dropped open. One of my friends used to call it the Garden of Eden....and that's fine.

I know in one case, the garden a friend of mine created for her dil actually added value...and she too took things from it before the house went on the market....The guy who bought it was a gardener which led her to wish she had left behind the variagated pine for him....but that's fine.

Gardens are by nature transitory things, changing from season to season and year to year. My attitude now it to get it the way I want it for me, and devil take anyone else. It is hard. and No, I try NOT to keep track of how much I spend. I'd bee really sick then.

You are also right that when change comes all together, in one big hit last year as it did for me, it is tough to sort out what losses you are really mourning. In fact, I know only too well that much of the loss I feel is having the last of my children leave home. I had devoted 25 years of my life to raising them, almost exactly concurrent with time in which I became a devoted gardener. And I also mourn the loss of my marriage too, of course -- one cannot be married for 26 years and not feel a major loss, regardless of what the relationship is like. I know that having my daughter ready to leave home was much of what led to all these changes anyway, even on a barely conscious level. Part of the richness of life is that, one does not need to sort out how these various things interact with each other. They are all comingled and intertwined.

It is just a major chapter of my life that is ended, garden, family, who I am, all of it. And a new one has begun. As you say, our life evolves, our gardens with them.

Denise

My sister noticed this thread & emailed me to look at it. Which I've just done. I'm rarely over here, perennials, as most of my gw time has been on the cutting forum, irises, or one of the rose forums.

And lately, I've just about abandoned ALL gardening forums and activities because I've rediscovered knitting, and am spending way too much time either knitting or reading one of the several zillion forums devoted to it.

But I too am moving, and your post & all the followups are both "moving" and helpful.

I've been a so-so commercial cut flower farmer, kind-of, for a few years, w/ only limited success. I'm the only employee, and I never had enough money or help or rain or sun or freedom from weeds or bugs or, most importantly, customers!!!!! to make a real go of it. So last summer we found out we were probably going to move, and in the middle of the drought, I gave up.

It felt weird not to be pouring over bulb catalogs w/ pencil and paper in hand, making my wish lists. The same w/ all the other seeds & perennials I wanted to grow.

I had way more space than one person can handle, but not nearly enough if I'd been going great. But, each minute I spent at my "farm" (maybe? 1/4 to 1/2 acre), were minutes not in my OWN garden, which I one day realized I missed. And, much to our family's dismay, those minutes did not also produce a clutter free perfectly maintained home! Which I now am in the S - L - O - W process of remedying. (It's SO much easier to peruse the web than declutter a room! LOL!)

We've never had a definite "move-by" date, because the DH's new job is w/ his folks, and he's staying at their home, til ours is ready to market & has sold.

I have no idea what kind of new place we'll get; hopefully something w/ 1-5 acres for my still wistful hopes of a small iris nursery or a renewed cutting garden, but I'm also thinking I might (MIGHT) be content w/ a cookie cutter house & yard. (I'm leaving 1.5 acres of woods, plus the little "farm" spot behind my neighbor's house).

I've been trying to pot up my irises, and I even dug up some of my daffodils. All of these from the "field". I'm guessing I'll try to dig up some of the irises & daffs here at home, because they were expensive, but I may just let the roses be.

As I read the comments about the trials of potting up & moving plants, I was nodding my head, and then a light bulb went on. Unless we get NOTHING for this house, we'll surely have SOME leftover money, and surely I can carve out 1-5000 of it for a huge wish list of new & replacement irises, daffs, roses, & other things! MUCH easier!

I'm way behind on the potting up chores, and if I work on them, I can't declutter inside. And, now that DH is in the new location, I'm sure he's getting antsy to have this house gone and both of us there.

I'm going through grief right now. I've been by myself for a week and a half and have done NOTHING!!!!! All the times I was anxious to have everyone "leave" so I could get something done, and here I sit. I do know a lot more about yarns and knitting patterns, now, tho! LOL!!

And, I've been grieving since the drought and the grasshoppers killed my dahlia crop and baby sunflowers & zinnias transplants last summer, and I knew my days as a flower farmer were about over, even before I knew we were going to move.

There IS this sense of loss, and despair, and unshed tears. There's an ache in my chest, a "why bother" malaise that has probably encouraged way too much internet time and not nearly enough packing/decluttering time.

Plus, against my will, I'm AGEING!!!! Dang it all! I'm getting arthritis in my shoulders and hands, which eventually will limit my gardening abilities. My DH doesn't garden, so ALL the work is done by me. And I'm getting tired of lugging bags of soil ammendments and digging in the clay.

Sooooooo, as many have said, time changes, events change, and suddenly, the spigot is turned off. Almost, as if it were never even on.

My big concern now is what to do w/ my basically Plant-less landscape. We live in an oak forest, so for years, I've concentrated on my roses, perennials, & bulbs, eschewing the common "green meetballs" as beneath my dignity. Plus, the budget went to roses. So, as a result, I have absolutely NO foundation plantings, (the gardens are farther out in my large front yard) and I'm wondering if I should add some (maybe a few azaleas?), or leave it as is and let the new owners do their own. There are 8 houses on my little culdesac, all upscale (ours isn't as fancy as theirs). Five of the families have Professionally Landscaped homes and lawns, 3 of us have mostly our oak trees, leaves and a few plants at strategic places. So, my lack of foundation plantings aren't THAT big of an undesirable or unusual. But there is a lot of slab showing, so I might need to get a few!

I think one of the things I'm going to miss the most about this house & yard is the "great expanse" of my 1.5 acres of oak forrest, sapplings, and brush, most of which is still in it's natural shape. We've never had the money to "fix it up", which is a good & bad thing. But randomly over the years I've thought of how neat it would be to do a "lush woodland planting/trail" just over "here", and another one "over there". I even got started on some of those paths last winter about this time. Got called inside to take care of a kid, or work in the cutting garden, or whatever, and of course, haven't made it back out to finish! Thought I could, anytime, because we'd been here for years and had no plans to leave.

Ah yes.

Now back to decluttering and packing!

Susi.

Life is change, whether we want it or not. And gardens are so closely tied to the gardener that even if a "real" gardener were to follow, the garden would be a different garden.

In any case, it is very good to see you back,and I hope you will put a new and good life together for yourself as you build a new and different garden.

Re the Dan Hinkley at GW, I emailed you and asked if you were interested and didn't get a response. Laura pointed out that my email address changed recently and perhaps you or your 'puter didn't recognize the note was from me. Ennyhoo, Tony Avent will be at GW on Mar 31 and Laura has offered to make reservations for us if you're interested.

Thanks for this thread. I, too, want to make changes to my garden for less maintenance and perhaps make it more appealing to prospective buyers if we sell. It's interesting to hear everyone's perspective which leans toward leaving most plants behind. Hmmmmm, guess I'm saving all those black pots in the garage for nothing, lol!

The big question in my case is what happens to the garden when I die. The front of the property is a woodland garden with a stone wall separating the woods from the small lawn. Some grassaholic might tear down the wall, get rid of all the azaleas, trillium, ferns and wildflowers and try to grow grass. He might remove my deer fence and feed the deer on all my rhododendron and laurel. But hopefully someone who has an appreciation and love of native plants will buy it and enjoy perhaps as much as I do now.

I have intentionally kept from turning my entire back yard into gardens, but barely so. The gardens extend around all the borders and the patio. I've also avoided overly fussy plants. That choice partly reflects my personal preference, but it was also a conscious decision to avoid scaring away a garden-challenged buyer.

I will miss my gardens, but I tell myself I'll have bigger and better ones later. Compared to some of you, I'm fairly new to gardening. After dabbling a few years ago in someone else's yard, I dived into gardening in 1999 as a way to distract myself from what turned out to be a disappointing home purchase. So, now I have a great yard and a so-so house. The house will be the sales problem; the realtor pronounced my yard "spectacular." I am assuming the house will be slow to sell, and thus, planning on two more gardening summers.

All this long-term planning has allowed me to divide plants at my leisure, taking the excess to my sister's new property and my mother's new property. It is comforting to think that parts of my garden will live on somewhere else. Eventually I will retrieve some of my favorites to plant on the new property I will buy some day.

I'm more distressed by the thought of no gardening for a while, which will be the case if I move into a condo. The move is necessitated by job demands that will interfere with maintaining a full yard and free-standing house. If someone has advice on coping with "garden withdrawal," feel free to pass it my way.

Just one last thing: I have taken many - too many - pictures of my gardens. They show how the beds developed and changed over the years. They show the life cycles of individual plants. They show the creatures that come to enjoy the gardens. I now how pictorial diaries where my gardens will live on forever. I used duplicates of the best pictures to create a little book that prospective buyers can look at so they can see how the yard appears in different seasons. I've also made up maps and instructions for plant care. If the eventual buyers are interested, I will give them the picture book, maps, and instructions. What they do after that is their business, and I will never return to see what they've done. What if they did a better job than I did??? I don't want to know that!

We too are planning on moving in the next couple of years. Because of this, as I've gotten new plants I've planted them in containers. Moving is stressful enough, I'd rather do a little bit here and there now than have to dig them all up later.

It is striking to see the range of responses we have all shared in this, including those with long garden attachments like Waplummer and others above. I bet that all passionate gardeners think about this. On some level it is like contemplating one's own death, to those of us for whom gardens have almost the presence of a long close friend in our lives. Or, maybe more to the point, they are really a direct extension of and a part of our inner selves.

I do not remember, when I asked about this a year ago or more that so many people said "just walk away and remember it as it was." I don't think that I could possibly have done that last year. But knowing what I do now, it is the way I would definitely proceed.

I have moved four times in the past 13 years, due to getting married and the DH's job requiring relocations. Fortunately, I was only in the various houses 4 years, 3 yrs., 2 yrs., and now 4 yrs. again. Before that I was in my own house for 13 years, and that garden was nice, but very small. On all of the subsequent moves, I didn't get a huge amount of the landscaping done because of work needed to get the house in shape first, though I have left behind some nice gardens, two new brick patios and two cedar fences. My current home of four years, however, has been a different story. I have been planting and re-landscaping furiously for the past three years, thinking we'd be here for a while. Now I've learned that we may be uprooted again.

The good news about moving in the past has been that I get to start over without making any of the same mistakes. I do, however, always manage to make new ones. :o(

I'm not sure if my gardens here will increase the value, though the patio and stonework will, as will the post and beam garden shed we had built to go with our antique home.

A previous owner at this house was an avid gardener, but the two or three years between his leaving and my starting took its toll, and it was so overrun with weeds that I ripped a lot of it out and started over with my own ideas. I suspect whomever comes after me will make changes, or maybe even pull it all out and replant the lawn. Oh, well.

Can't look back. If we do end up moving, I'll take everything I learned here with me to a new location, and start over. Again.
Jo

It happened to me, too. Pretty much the way you've described, except that I don't believe the buyers ("gardeners") knew anything was missing - or would necessarily have cared. My garden was not as mature a one as yours was. Editing plants out was going to have to happen anyway and the garden may well have looked better the following spring as the plants left behind continued to expand.

I spent money and, Lord knows, work moving plants. Lost at least 30% of them between transit trauma and mismatch of plants to new site (and my newfound enemy - voles). The pressure to get moved plants into soil only partially prepared was stressful. I didn't do a great job and will have to do some of that work again - with more horse manure!

I had nightmares for months that she was going to "prune" the antique roses to the ground. My pink snow covered mountain of an Ispahan....

I still miss my "Valley Forge" elm.

Back to gardens, you are scaring the h*ll out of me! We've been up for sale since the fall, and had an offer on our 'dream house' for a while. Recent about face on that property, so now back to looking for the perfect place to buy, still have our place up for sale.

I had all my fav plants dug and potted and in my green house in large pots prepared for move in January, which didn't materialize. Funny thing, had an offer in November, were $5,000 apart in agent haggle mode, when the couple split up! What are the odds? Not supposed to happen with that house....With the very warm winter we've had up until recently I managed to get them all on the ground, with soil poured in between and around the pots, and now there is a good 4" of snow on top. So I think my perennials I want to bring with me will live...

Okay, back to reality, we are not selling and we are not overpriced. Have to take a look at the gardens being a (gulp!) liability instead of an assett. If we haven't sold by April I'll have to consider sodding over parts of our lot. Front yard is all gardens, side yard outside the fence in all garden. I NEVER thought we'd be leaving, but also NEVER thought any of this heaven would be a detriment to selling. ARRRGGG!!!

Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean, we will find the perfect house and garden, we will find, ach...

Taryn

Also, don't know about the economy in your neck of the woods, but over here the economy is in the dumpster. It seems no one is moving without a good reason (i.e. not just because they want a nicer or bigger house), too many folks out of work and those with work are fearful they won't have work soon - its U-G-L-Y. Consequently, houses seem to be just sitting on the market.

I doubt it's because of your gardens.

While it was not fun feeling pressured to sell when we had our sites on this other home, now that we have let that one go, I'm not enjoying the fact that there is nothing we've seen so far that comes close to comparing with what we have here, and fear we might sell, then have to 'settle' for something less than we want. Guess it'll work out the way it is supposed to. Tell you this, I'm never moving again after this one! (said that last time too though)

I'm not so sure it isn't the gardens though. They are a lot of work, and I like the work, but many don't. Am telling people who don't garden that the heated greenhouse could be used as a hot tub room, lol! Wish I could take it with me..Wish I could take my whole home, gardens, greenhouse and just plop them down on an acre or two somewhere. Oh, and some of my lovely neighbors too...

Forgot to mention earlier that I had the pleasure of seeing David's former home and lovely gardens, before he moved things out, in July 2004. It was such a treat, a total delight for all the senses! David, your new home and garden will be wonderful, perhaps different, and will evolve as they are meant to. Hope to one day see them as well. Again, cudos for being true to yourself and starting over even if it was difficult--that takes real courage...

Taryn

I have been through the moving a garden scenario too many times to mention. It seems all I ever do is leave gardens. So much so that I just get excited about the new gardens I can create now rather then sad about the ones I leave behind.

I am considering moving away from NJ and that would leave the garden at my fathers house neglected. Funny that I didn't worry about missing the garden but my first thought was what a pain it would be for him to care for and when he wants to sell it may be a liability.

Anyway quit my horrible job in the fall and tomorrow I am headed to L.A. and hope to find a job out there. I hope things in your new life continue to go well for you. Be in touch. If you don't have my e-mail address bug does.

~ Kaveh

Val

Right after reading your opening post, I was moved to walk
out into my small, suburban garden, crammed with so many
beloved trees, shrubs and perennials, and ask myself the
question "if you had to move next week, what would you be trying to take with you?". . .the answer (and here we agree
again): very, very little. We sometimes don't realize how
many of the successes in our gardens are site specific -
there are few things worse than trying to take that cherished plant with you, only to have it be unhappy in it's new home and lanquish. That happened to me, for example, when I tried to move (three different times) the
other-wise common blue iris my father salvaged from HIS
father's garden and passed on to me - when they ultimately
died (not surprisingly), I felt horrible guilt. It would
have been far better to leave them in my childhood family
garden and simply remember them in all their glory. . .

And, finally, a thought on the emotional power of the garden connection: when I bought into this house with my
partner some years ago, it was my first chance at a real
garden again after several years in a city co-op, and I
plunged in with every fiber of my being, doing what we all
do in our various circumstances, wallowing in the sheer joy
of creating a garden! Then, something unexpected happened
in my life - just as something unexpected happened to you,
David - my partner abruptly died of cancer, and I was left
to make a heart-stopping choice: move back permanently to
the co-op in New York City, my home of 40 years (and NOT exactly a counter-intuitive place for a garden lover to live!) or sell the co-op and stay in the burbs with my
garden. . . As most of you would have guessed, the garden
won: not only was it the source of my fondest memories in
recent history, it was enormous solace during my mourning
period, so much so that I semi-retired just so that I could spend even MORE time working there. And here's the
most curious part: two years further on in my life, I can now see how the garden has subtly changed to reflect my
single life. For me, at least, and many other gardeners,
I suspect, our gardens become the barometer of our lives,
changing and evolving as our lives change, but in their
very existence, becoming the very soul, the never-changing
bedrock of our lives. . .

Talk about "philosopical BS" !!! :)

Carl

This reminds me of when my neighbors bought the house next door. It had been empty for a while and the garden was a bit weedy. One of the conditions of sale was that the seller have someone clean up the beds. Well, they cleaned it up alright! All the perennials, including the roses (which were blooming!) got yanked along with the weeds. They even cut down a pear tree with fruit on it because some of the branches were broken from a recent storm. All they left were the evergreen foundation shrubs, a couple of pine trees, and mulch. My new neighbors just stood in the front yard and stared in shock when they saw it.

I left a great garden behind once to a non-gardener. It's overgrown now but it still blooms, and he and his new wife (who also doesn't garden) love to look outside at all the 'pretty flowers'.

My vote will always be to leave everything behind, except for a couple plants (couple=2) that have deep sentimental value.

But, -- duh -- , for passionate gardeners, leaving a garden that one has worked with and loved for many years is a major life change. And for me, and it sounds like many others too, this change very often coincides with other important junctures in life -- a move, to be sure, but also the loss (and/or gain...) of a partner/spouse, children leaving home, falling in love, *coming out* (so it was for me, the partly spoken story that is perhaps all but obvious above when you read between the lines, and that many people here have come to know). So yes, gardens are mirrors and also direct extensions of our lives, as Carl said, often the very bedrock and soul.

One of the things I was going to do with this was to post a picture of the garden on the very last day I left it, before we gave possession to the new owners. But I searched everywhere in my computer files (on the computer that went to my now exwife, since the divorce became final this past week), and, whether she deleted it or it just disappeared into cyberspace, it was just nowhere to be found. Maybe that is just as well. Now the only pictures I have are the many that reflect the garden as it grew and evolved and matured, mostly at its best. I think I will post a few of my favorite pictures somewhere, here or on the gallery, before this totally disappears. They will have to wait until I return home (I am with my daughter in Tampa who is running a marathon tomorrow, 75 degrees right now, yeah!).

I would like to thank all the people, who shared with us here and with me by email, very personal, intimate stories of what it has been like to leave a garden and to pass through these kinds of crossroads in life.

I find a lot of SE Michigan gardeners in here! I'm in awe of what many people are able to do in many of the very small lots around my area, as well. Inspiring and daunting! I wish I could hire some help just to get me started on the right track before making a lot of time consuming, expensive mistakes.

As to leaving a garden behind, it's sad that it turned out the way it did in your situation, but you never know, either, when you might be leaving a buyer a wonderful gift. I would have been overjoyed to move into a home with an already established garden, I considered myself lucky just to get the zebragrass, lavendar and tiny japanese maple the previous owners had planted just in time to sell the house. It was a start - at least I didn't have a total blank canavas.

Take care! Start over!
- Diane

And the great benefit for me is that, all over my new garden, in places I had stored plants in holding beds, there are plants coming to life everywhere. Geraniums by the dozen, my prize hellebores in full bloom, hostas crowning out. And best of all, out of about 30 cleamtis that I moved in total, 25 are showing abundant new growth coming out of the ground. And this, despite them looking completely dead in the heat and drought of last August, in a holding bed where the weeds were 7' tall and completely carpeted the ground. Even my mature plant of Huldine (the best white clematis) which I moved last July into a new bed and never showed any growth at all, has buds popping out everywhere.

Yes, I lost a lot of trees that I moved. Yes, it was a lot of work, and expense. Yes, I partially gutted my old garden.

BUT now I have mature plants, that came from the old garden and bring some sense of continuity to the new, to act as anchor plants. Most of the clematis would take several years to get to their current sizes.

So maybe moving all those plants was NOT in vain. Right now I am glad I did it. And I suspect I may be even more so in July.

Amazing what rejuvenation comes with spring -- of the garden, and the gardener.

Sue

And Sue, there will be some pictures coming, especially as the plants get a bit farther a long and there is actually something to see.

Assuming I can find my camera. Must be in some box somewhere, yet to be unpacked.......But next week I get 100 yeards of fine pine bark mulch, and woodchips. More paths in the making and a lot of bed space to mulch. A Bobcat to rent. Maybe after that.........

New paths? Ah yes, for you and the garden both! Anxious for those photos. :-)
'bug

I'd be devastated to leave my current garden EXCEPT that I know I'd get to start a whole NEW one! I would hope the new owners/occupants liked to garden, but I wouldn't count on it. I love the process of making a garden and watching it develop as much as I enjoy it once it's matured.

Lisa

I've started potting mine up for the move to Massachusetts and you've given me hope that it will indeed be worth it in the end!
Patti

I'm looking forward to your pictures. I still have bookmarked the photos from your old garden because it looks like absolute gardening nirvana to me! :) Largely because of your photos and the advice of folks on the Clematis forum, I purchased several Viticellas last year including Betty Corning. They are taking off like mad this Spring and I can't help but think of that photo of you standing in front of your Betty Corning. And to think I read in a catalog recently that it grows to only 6'. Right!
Kim

I mourned those plants. They gave me some financial restitution, but it just ain't the same. Mind you, poring over catalogues deciding where to spend the money eased the pain a bit... ;o) But I still miss my Helleborus niger.

When the marriage did end, I remained in the home for a time. It was an older home and it became clear that it was too much for me to maintain on my own. I needed to move. I began potting and when I moved to my new house I had a U-Haul worth of plants. I had left plenty behind so it was actually hard to tell I had taken anything.

My ex-husband moved back into the property. He had no idea how to care for the yard so at one point he hired some 'crew' to come weed the beds. I received a call from him about 3 weeks later accusing me of taking a Jap maple. It was not a mature specimen but it was in a conspicuous place. Of course I had not removed it. I had the chance to take it before I moved but I didn’t, believing that it would help sell the house if that is what he decided to do. Shortly thereafter he did decide to sell. I returned back to the old home to take cuttings etc from a few plants that didn’t survive the trip and had sentimental value to me. Was I in shock!! MORE than just the Jap maple had been removed!! Who ever was stealing from the yard was returning over time slowly taking from the yard....to the extent that they removed a sun-spiral patio I had laid (see pic)--no small job!! My ex-husband never even noticed since he was rarely home and didn’t garden. Prime roses and clematis were taken along with any hardscape not nailed down. Heartbreaking!

Patio after completed

Truly I have been through 2 very difficult years and I haven’t had my garden to comfort me….but, life does go on!! I do not go by the old garden because it isn’t mine anymore….understand that when I say mine….I mean that in more ways than ownership. My garden represented my creativity and outflow….looking at it now would not be a productive act.

The house I live in now is on a postage stamp. I have like .2 of an acre. I have beds all around my house and I am gardening the hill behind my house by slowly removing the junipers in favor of roses and drought tolerant perennials. I mourn the loss of my pond as I spent many days sitting on the edge and enjoying its comforts. I recognize and accept that this yard will never be, can never be, the garden I once had. I am currently working on what I do have and dreaming of gardens to come. I pour over magazines and imagine what I would do with this and that. My goal is to maintain this residence until my children complete school and then to move out where I can have 2-5 acres.

I believe that our gardens are not plants in the same way that musician’s compositions are not just random notes. They are our creations and certainly never easy to leave behind. New gardens should be viewed as blank palates and a challenge--to be sure!! I feel a kinship with those of you who have left your gardens behind and I wish you all the best in the building of your new havens.

Ronda

When I moved to this house 4 years ago, I brought with me about 25-30 large pots of perennials and a few shrubs. The poor things ended up staying in the pots for about a year and a half until I was able to get them planted. Most of them were a bit tattered but survived.

I decided that when I move from this current house (which will happen in a few years when my son graduates from HS), I am digging up and taking with me everything I can. Maybe I'll have a "dig your own" garden party for friends and other gardeners from GW or maybe advertise them on Freecycle.

Better that someone who loves and appreciates the plants get them than have someone move in who is going to roto-till the gardens and plant grass!!

"There is one other important reason, I think, NOT to remove many, if any plants, from your old garden. And that is to spare yourself the painful memory of seeing and *being responsible for* the destruction of your own garden."

Although I've poured my heart and soul into my gardens, I'm not sure that I see it this way. I remember reading years ago about Buddhist monks who create elaborate and beautiful sand art, and when they finished, destroying it as a way to represent the transience of life on Earth.

Check out this link, the mandala these monks created is absolutely stunning. Then in a ceremonial process, they sweep it up and deposit the sand in a body of water!

I'm not sure how I missed this thread back in April, but somehow I did. I just spent the morning reading through it and have been touched by all the posts, and the obvious heartbreak that comes with leaving behind something that you have given yourself to creating. I have no plans to move in the near future, and my gardens are in no means as elaborate as yours or Taryn's, or Deanne's or all the others (as I have seen photos of all), but I know were I ever to leave, I'm not sure I could go back and look at what might happen.

but I believe the jist of my post here is that I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for inspiring me to delve deeply into the joy of gardening. Your previous gardens were breathtaking, and inspired me to try growing various types of plants I had never even thought of before. I had never grown clematis before seeing your pictures, but I now have 4 growing beautifully with more to come. You taught me that hardscape is as important to a garden as the plants which share the space. As a new gardener, your photos taught me what an oblisk was, and that interesting foliage was equally as important as blooms, as blooms dont't last forever. And you taught me that planting things close wasn't necessarily a bad thing, and to take chances with marginal plants because Miscanthus "Cabaret", which is marginal in my zone, looks incredible planted behind Agastache "Blue Fortune"! ;)

I anxiously await photos of your new home and garden, and some more inspiration from your creations. And also, congratulations in making it through the trials and tribulations that are the life we live. It was inspiring and heartwarming to watch your obvious dispair early on, turn into a rekindling of your joy of gardening as you saw things start to spring to life in the spring. I could almost see the sparkle in your eye as you wrote. I too am facing some life adjustments ni the form of "moving out of children", as my oldest daughter is getting married, and dread that as much as you did. But as my Dad always said, "That which does not kill us only makes us stronger." Yeah right, Dad ..... kinda brings the whole mortality thing back into play...

Anyway, the best of luck to you in your new life, and please PLEASE....pictures...we need pictures !!!

Peace...

Blackie

So, David, if you're out there, share a few shots of the new place.

Sue

The task of creating new beds in awful clay soil, getting the bare rooted stuff potted, planting what I had, and trying to get gardens going on this space which is 3 times the size of what I had in CT as well as unpack, paint, etc. was difficult.

This winter, I started winter sowing and brought a lot of things to trade to a regional plant swap. I also bought more. I wanted to make the garden a place as nice as the one in CT....and it was hard, brutal work, and I was taking it too fast.

I put in a lovely goldfish pond, 3 times the size of my old one as well, with wonderful things like bottom drains, biofilters, skimmer and a waterfall. But I don't enjoy it. I still have a lot of plants to get into the ground like right now....

In June, I went back to the house as I was visiting the friends next door and I wanted a few of my special broader leaved sun lovers (I have next to no shade here....) and to give some tips to the couple who bought the house ....the wife "Wants" to garden, but knows nothing. When I stepped into the back yard, I was stunned. They had brought in a bobcat and had bulldozed most of my sun beds. Gone were variagated chamycyparus and what has left had been damaged. I had told them that if they wanted to take the garden out to please let my neighbor across the street know so she could come and salvage some of the plants as they were unusual and special. That was too much bother.

They told me to take what I wanted. They were still talking about simplifiying. I told them to take out the front beds completely as they were just overflow and for heavens sake to take out the flowering quince I kept pruned to 3' high as it took A LOT of pruning. She wants to keep the quince. She had asked the local nursery to come in in the spring and simplify the bed in front....and they were waiting...Why? They knew I had unusual stuff and they wanted to come in and pot up the stuff that she "didn't need".

I called in a couple of my friends and we worked at moving stuff to make life easier for her and salvaging stuff which were in areas not yet whacked but in the process of being whacked. I had a huge royal fern I hope someone got into the ground....I lifted it for them (they were decking over it) but I couldn't replant it as I was worn out by that time. All in all, we saved 3 carloads of plants....and you couldn't tell what was missing. Hundreds of dollars worth that went to my appreciative friends. Some came back with me.

While I'm glad some made it. I look at my gardens here which to me are beginning to look like ma and pa kettle's back yard and I'm worn out. I'm sure I'd feel different if the soil were different....and I'm sure I'd feel different if I had kept my head and done it a little at a time, but oh mamma, this is more than I can handle at present.

And I wonder....will I get to sit next to my goldfish pond ever????? It would have been easier if I had not brought a single stick with me, and had done a small bed at a time.

Even though I had always loved digging in the dirt and watching things grow, I never had the time for much gardening, until we moved from the Mid-south to Colorado. Then, everything I knew about gardening was irrelevant, because of the high altitude and zone differences. Just as I was learning what I could grow successfully, and discovering the Gardenweb forums, I found myself in a situation similar in some ways to David.

My DH found out that his dept. was being dissolved the day before I found out that I was pregnant with our third child. When he found a job he wanted, it was 3 1/2 hours west of where we were, so we put our house on the market in November. Then he had to commute back and forth, so we only saw each other on the weekends until we closed on our new home at the end of March. Not only did it take longer than we thought to sell our home, but the builder missed numerous closing dates on the home we were purchasing. Anyway, don't get me started on that ordeal!

My point of sharing this is to say that even though MOST of the changes I went through were positive, there was still a lot of stress during those changes, and I am a different person now because of them.

I had to leave behind several plants that I had recently planted (the houseplants took up all extra space in my vehicle), but I look at all of the knowledge I gained through trial and error there, which will only make me a better gardener. The weather here is drier, and the temperatures are a bit more extreme (zone 4 now instead of 5), but I can still use many of the same types perennials, trees, etc. that I grew there. Of course, I was only there for 5 years, not 20, so I had not become emotionally attached to any specific plants. We currently have a dirt yard, though the beds on the front of the house have been prepared, and have a few plants in them. It definitely looks like a work in progress, but the planning, and the anticipation are just as much fun as the finished project. At least for me anyway :)

Bonnie

My favourite gardening book is Passalong Plants, by Steve Bender and Felder Rushing. Many of the plants in my garden are listed in this book. They came from my grandmother's garden and her grandmother's before her. Or from neighbors or from friends. And after I married, from my in-laws.

The largest group of these are heirloom daffodils. Whenever we have moved I have always dug up plants to take with us and taken cuttings of plants that will grow from those. They are never planted in the same plan as they were before, but they are generations of my family's heritage to ground me in the new space.

Nearly two years ago I was able to go back to my great-grandparents' place in Louisiana and get cuttings from an ancient fig tree. Two of those are now planted at our place. The setting is not the same, but the joy to be reaped when we have figs from the tree that was always designated, "the best figs in the country" will be worth it.

By taking the plants with me, I don't miss the old garden nearly so much. Plus, I've left pieces of of our family behind to give joy to others.

Becky

And how about posting pics of what your old garden looked like when you moved? I believe you mentioned trying to find them to post.

Reading this thread convinced me once and for all to take as many plantings as possible with me when I move to the next house, and give away as much of the rest as possible!

I am also planning semi-permanent gardens and fixtures for some areas, especially the back yard. They will be heavy on annuals and veggies. New plantings of shrub borders and understory trees are going to farther back away from the house. That is because I figure that future owners will want to have a larger area of grass in the back yard.

I was down on the idea of moving plants when I first wrote this, for the reasons I said above. Because of my life turmoil and a very dry summer in 2005 (we seem to be getting more and more of those, don't we?...), a fair number of the plants I moved seemed to die off, especially the clematis and a few of the woody plants. But more of those plants recovered than I expected, and I now have quite a few clematis in my garden from the old place.

I think it was worthwhile to have moved the woody plants that I did. They would never have been fully appreciated at the old place, many might have been cut down since the old garden was so overplanted. And in the new garden I have multiple maturing specimens of uncommon and rare trees and shrubs, most of which I never could have purchased at the sizes they are, if I could have found them at all. Some died, but the vast majority made it. They also give me an important connection to the old garden. For someone who loves plants, especially woodies, they are like old friends who have come along with me. They are imbued with memories of the old garden. Most of them now have more space and are flourishing better. Few gardeners would move woody plants like I did or pay the cost, but in retrospect that was definitely worth the trouble and expense, for me at least. Clematis too. Perennials, less so, except perhaps the hellebores I collected from all over and some of the rarer plants (those pricey epimediums I have come to love....)

BTW, the buyers of my old house and garden downsized the garden and added more lawn. The number of plants in the front part of the garden I could see clearly diminished. Still, it was unmistakably a garden, and actually pretty well maintained.

Then those buyers got transferred, and early this fall the house and garden went up for sale again. Despite a VERY slow real estate market here, the house sold again in a couple of weeks. I am told by an old neighbor that the new owners also partially bought the house for the garden. So? who knows how it will end up. I would love to see the back part of the garden that is the heart of it and not visible from the street. I have not seen it since I left.

So that's the end of the story for now.

I do, BTW, have lots of new garden pictures which I DO intend to post when I get some time. I cannot do it at work and the evenings get pretty busy, but I will try. Lots of pics from this past weekend, when I realized that the garden still has loads of interest and many plants still in good bloom. We have had a very mild October, no killing frost yet.......here's hoping it will hold off another few weeks.

David

This post brings back fond memories of working in the yard with my grandmother. She was the one who initially taught me so much about gardening and her yard was spectacular. When she passed away and her home was sold, I went back the next summer and the new owners had dug up the entire yard and paved with black tar over everything, front and back. I was horrified, sat down and cried. I would have loved to have been able to save some of her flowers, shrubs and roses. I do not ride by that house anymore and if I have to go that way, I try very hard to avoid the street she used to live on.

Being a gardener, I would love it if I bought a house w/ a great garden, and the previous owner came by for a visit a few years later. So take a chance and stop in to ask if you could check out the back...maybe they'll give you some cuttings, or ask for advice. At the very least, you can visit with your old garden, invoke some memories, and pass on words of wisdom.

The buyers who bought from us were indeed gardeners, but downsized the garden. Then got transferred.

The house resold as I mentioned above. My partner Jim and I drove by the neighborhood 2 weeks ago and we saw a Bobcat in the back. The stone wall I handbuilt was all dismantled, all the stone piled up. Many of the specimen trees were gone, obviously cut down. The others that did remain really looked good, reminding me how trees really do need space to shine. And then we could see that most of the central beds in the back garden were gone. There was a very large area of crushed gravel that had been laid. We thought probably for a patio or something.

Then I saw a neighbor and friend from the old neighborhood. He told me that a nice family with 2 early teenage boys had moved in.

And, he said "guess what they are putting in where your garden was?"

"A new paved 1/2 BASKETBALL COURT!!"

Jim was shocked, but I actually chuckled gently to myself. My grieving for that garden is mostly past. I have a new one, though it does not have the glorious sense of intimacy and wonder yet that I cherished and marvelled at in the old one. Not sure if it ever will, time will tell.

So it is once again true, that residential gardens rarely survive beyond the original gardener.

A few pics from the back garden, some of my favorites, in memory:

Images from a permanent hard drive now, just a glimpse of the past

Forever written in my heart.

David

That's why I'll take everything I possibly can with me and would rather have the neighbors or even Freecyclers come and take plants away, rather than have a new owner rototill them and put down asphalt or something.

I think this thread should be submitted to the FAQs. A must read for those who are selling their gardens.

Your story was very touching. I am glad to hear you have been able to grow and over come the horror of selling.

I have often said that my home will not be sold to just anyone. I will leave it in the family if possible. I better have a bunch of garden crazy kids.

1st house: My mother and father moved to northern MI after purchasing a house complete with a greenhouse bedding plant business. They ran it while starting a family. After i was born my mother said she had me with her in the greenhouses all the time. No babysitter, just me and her, soaking up the warm feel and wonderful smells of the greenhouse. Which explains a lot for me. I would hang out in a greenhouse all day if i could. After a few years they sold the home and business because it was just to hard to make ends meet.

2nd house: I planted an apple seed at a babysitters house in a little paper cup. I took it home and put it in our large veggy patch. I checked on it every day. It was growing very fast. Then one day it had green beans all over it. I can still remember running up the path under an old crab apple to the house. My vision was blurry from the wash of tears streaming down my face. I was devestated to see my apple was a bean. a few years ago my mother confessed about the seed switch. She said that the apple wasnt sprouting so she replaced it with the bean never thinking i would care or notice.

Next to this house was huge garden with all sorts of plants planted out in rows. I strolled through them regularly as if they were mine. Turns out i didnt own them but a wonderful, 100 year old woman did. I would go visit her and she would give me candy and talk about flowers with me. I was probably only about 5 but i remember it well. Carmel toffee style candys. So buttery and delicious. she let me pick flowers from her yard. To this day she has the largest rhododedron i have ever seen. It was at least 20 ft tall. To the roof line of her second story house! I have one picture of it. My mother, baby brother, and I standing out front. Its one of my favorite pics. We only lived at that house for a summer because the basement was too musty for my brothers asthma. It will go down in history as my favorite home though.

3rd house: When i was about 6 years old we planted marigold seeds in school. I got to take it home once it had grown. I can remeber very clearly my obsession for that little smelly flower. I dug it up and moved it all around the garden. My mother even gave me my own space to do so.

I used to pick the wild hepaticas that grew all around. The house was really close to small creek. Wild flowers were all around. I used to go for walks and sing to them. Sounds nuts, but i did. Any way arent gardeners a little crazy! The location for this home is one of the most fun a child could ask for. To this day i still have rogusa roses and old purple irises from that house.

4th house: About five years ago we were having our propane tank switched out. Well, there was a problem. I had turned our whole yard into an iris gallery. the truck had to straddle one of my smaller beds. Worst of all. All the irises were in full bud just days from blooming. I was just about having a panick attack out there. My mom had to make me go in where i stood gasping and smacking at the window. The driver did well. No injuries were reported.

This is were my garden is now. In MI, 15 hours away from me. I cant stand it. Knowing that the oak leaves have fallen and i am not there to clean them up. I feel like i left so much undone. I will go back in the early spring to clean up but still its very frustrating. I cant imagine being in the position that so many of you have been in but i am sure i will someday.
I know that i will be moving several times in the future. Im 25, just moved to NC, probalby wont be here more than 5 years maybe before we go back to MI. Who knows though. I cannot predict the future as much as i try. All i know is if there was only one thing on earth i was allowed to do it would be to garden. Even if i could only plant marigolds.

I've lived on this property on a northern Indiana lake for 32 years. Raised our three kids here, learned to garden here. Tore down the 75 year old house 6 years ago and built a beautiful new one on the same property. We're moving in the spring to a ridge in Tennessee, where we'll live next door to our two daughters and their families. New zone, new soil, new challenges.

Our real estate description specifically excluded the hosta collection. My DH thought that might make it harder to sell the house, but it sold to the fourth person who looked. The new people are unable to garden for physical reasons, so I think they're glad to lose the 200+ hostas, although lakeside they were foundation plantings, so will have to be replaced. The hosta areas will probably be put into grass, so I'll take the companion plants as well so the area will be bare and ready to seed. The mixed borders will probably be simplified or grassed eventually. The veggie garden will become a parking area. I may take cuttings of a few other things; depends on time and my back!

My plan is to dig the hostas in April and transport them to Tennessee bare root, in large plastic containers. The new house won't be finished on time, so I'll probably have a couple loads of topsoil spread somewhere and just heel them in till I can site them properly.

I could probably replace these much more easily than moving them, but the big boys have been mine for quite a number of years, so I have an emotional attachment. And I know the new people had no real interest in them.

I hope this all works out . . . I fully understand all of you who wept over lost gardens. I'm having a terrible time leaving my lake view as well . . . the only thing saving me is knowing that when I look out of my new house, I'll see the neighboring ridge . . . and grandchildren.

I am recommending anyone who is moving away from their garden to read this thread - it's truly helpful and encouraging.

Carrie

I have already planted a lot of perennials and not knowing just how long we'll be staying in this home, it gave me a lot of insight.

David, your gardens were incredible, I hope you don't mind my asking you the name of the plants in the 4th photo? They are beautiul and exactly what I've been looking to add to one of my beds. I'm curious as to the name of the white flowers in the front and then the tall plumes of white and lavendar in the rear. The plants in the rear look like my grandmother's Veronica but not sure if that's what they are.

Many thanks for starting this post!
Linda

Vera

BTW, since I know that people always ask, I will anticipate the question that the white form of the fireweed has become VERY hard to find in the US. I got mine originally from Heronswood 15 years ago, and I know of no place now where one can find this plant. I did dig up a few shoots and move them, and they are becoming established in my new garden.

Good thing too, because this patch of spires at the old place is now the basketball court. Wish I could have gone back to dig up some more before they paved it.....

Good luck!
Linda

Do you mind if I ask about a plant in the last pic? In the upper right hand corner, there's a blue flowering shrub (?) next to a clematis (I think) with darker blue flowers. What is that shrub? And does it really have blue flowers or does my monitor need serious adjusting?

Thank you in advance.

~MH

Linda

Rosefolly

David, please post images of your new garden!