A large garden

I used to love gardening but these days it is physically impossible for me to do a lot of the work involved. I have a gardener now, which means he does all the "heavy" work, and I am able to potter around which I love!

I began to find my garden overwhelming, mainly because we were renovating a house which had to take priority.
What we did was just mow and mow so that the grass took over the borders. I moved some plants that I wanted to keep into pots and kept them all in one area so that watering was easy. I did not buy a plant for years, no bedding and no veg. Any big shrubs were pruned back ready to re-emerge when ready for them.
Once I was ready to tackle the garden again I just rejuvenated a bit at a time and stuck with it till it was done. Gradually the plants went back out from their pots. As for veg I found it much easier to put in some raised beds and this year I do feel I will be on top of it.
Don't forget the garden is to sit as well as work in. My intention is to sit in the garden for an hour a day in the summer either to read of to listen to play! Little pleasures mean a lot!

First get yourself a toy boy - recommend 15 years younger. Then compact tractor, ride on lawnmower, strimmer, chainsaw and a huge array of hand tools, three sizes of trailer. Yes I know not up everyone's street or budget. In fact a huge amount of our budget went on the above (not the toy boy). When we bought this 5 acre property 11 years ago it was four ruined barns and neglected field. We got it up to a reasonable standard of clearing, landscaping and growing after about three years. Now it is wonderful. The machines etc are getting old but still reliable, it has been very hard work and is now pretty hard work, but the rewards are wonderful - places to sit (sometimes) and wonder at the magnificent views, masses of vegetables. It is a full time job, but we never have to pay anyone, thoroughly enjoy it, use lots of Radox soak and eat well. Some of the converted barns still need attention but we would prefer to be working outside.

To toy boy, add 20 year old son.

I was a gardener in my last profession, until I got arthritis. Over the 8 years since we have been here, I have gradually added raised beds, and every year more borders and beds are dug and potted up, dug over and manured, membrane put down and the plants are replaced, then covered in bark chippings or gravel. I would love to be able to wave a magic wand and for it all to be finished, but finances prevent it all being done at once, and soil is not all that easy to come by for filling the raised beds, although I do make an awful lot of compost each year. I found my local coal merchant delivers bags of compost for £35 per ton bag, which is a godsend. It is DS's job to barrow it to where it is needed, DBH makes the raised beds and digs out edges, I do the rest as neither are any good at removing groundelder roots as they dig. I also get them doing all the hedgecutting and high-up pruning, as I can no longer stand on a ladder for any length of time whilst holding a chainsaw.

One of my favourite gardening tools is this www.amazon.co.uk/Spear-Jackson-8200RS-Razorsharp-Pruner/dp/B002W6YYXY

It's a long-handled rose pruner, that will hold the pruned branchlet so that you can place it in a trug, ideal for pruning my pergolas. It only cuts through branches that are maybe 2cms or 3/4" in width. I love my roses and it used to depress me to see them and know I couldn't reach them easily, as even stepladders are a struggle now.