Gardening and children - are todays parents afraid of nature?

Well, my next door neighbour (young, fit) had builders dig up her whole garden last year and put down fence-to-fence fake grass. Two big raised planters running fence to fence were installed and filled with large box plants, which must have cost a small fortune, but sadly look a very poor state already . I’m just waiting now for them to be ripped out and replaced with fake plants . I see her dog out rolling around on the artificial grass and my heart is heavy.

 

@shiney
Those pictures look awesome. Sadly (or luckily?) we don't have that much space to really let nature take over.

But those are the kind of gardens I remember from my childhood. Bees and butterflies, trees to climb on and lots of tall grass to wander through.

@SuzFlowers
I bet it looks nice - the first few months or maybe even years. But artificial lawn.... That's just sad, and it will only degrade over time.
I am happy the boxwood weevil started killing all the boxwoods in my neighborhood and my own garden (had a dozen or so when I bought it). So it gave me an excuse to rip them all out and replace them with something more flowery.

 

Guess they didn't vacuum it well enough

 

My daughter is now 10, she is still always picking up worms and other bugs whilst I'm busy gardening. She loves it and I just leave her to it

 

Amazing garden! I have just had an offer accepted on a house with a much bigger garden than i have now and i'm so excited to have space like this. What is the plant in the first photo, looks great.

 

Not 100% certain as it's not in flower and Shiney can verify it for us of course, but I'm pretty sure that's Phlomis russeliana.

phlomis russeliana - Recherche Google

I have Phlomis italica which has pink flowers instead of yellow...

phlomis italica - Recherche Google

Nick

 

Thanks! I think I may get some of these for when I move into my new house, love the purple too.

 

Oh cool! Thank you but I'm only moving down the road in North Wales but this will be my first owned garden (which I am very excited about). If it was just me I'd be filling it with plants but my partner prefers the more modern/unusual looking plants but I think I could get away with putting one of these in.

 

Kids are soft nowadays, so are their parents!
In my early days(the 60's) it was don't eat the worms, ok, don't eat any more. Don't touch the dog poo....no, I don't know why it's white. Go give that woolly bear caterpillar to your sister.
I now teach the granddaughter to deeply inhale the blooming dracunculus and to "see if you can get the bindweed out of the chamaerops"!
Ah, they grow up so fast