A brutal critique of my garden design choices
Teenage Son has strong opinions about my garden design ideas
I’ve learned many things as a parent, but one of the most surprising is this: Teenage Son can’t cope with my garden design choices.
Not in a mild, “hmm, interesting” way. No. In a deep, soul-level way. The kind of way where he looks at something I’ve done and has to sit with it for a moment, as if processing a personal betrayal.
Take the shed.
The shed has three bays with brown barn doors. Beautiful, solid, practical barn doors. Then there’s a fourth bay that doesn’t have a brown barn door. It’s simply… a black wall.
This is because the fourth bay isn’t actually a bay. It’s a room. It doesn’t open in the same way. It doesn’t need a door like the others. It is, structurally speaking, doing exactly what it should be doing.
Teenage Son can’t cope with this.
The asymmetry troubles him deeply. The fact there are three doors and then not a door feels, to him, like a design crime. We did briefly consider putting a fake door on it, purely for visual balance, but it turns out fake barn doors are surprisingly expensive. So, asymmetry won.
This was, in Teenage Son’s view, the wrong choice.
He also can’t cope with the colour of the doors. The doors are brown. Teenage Son believes, with great conviction, that they absolutely should’ve been white. He’s not sure what our thinking was there. He says this often, as though perhaps we once had thinking and then lost it.
Then there are the hedges.
We don’t have 100-year-old hedges, thick and majestic, with archways carved through them so one can wander about like an explorer discovering secret corners of a castle garden. This, according to Teenage Son, is disappointing. He feels we could have planned better.
I gently explained that we moved here after the last 100 years had already happened.
This didn’t fully satisfy him.
Photos: Apparently these are the types of hedges I’m meant to have. The kind the hide secrets, and where caves can be made inside.
And let’s not start on the fences
The fences are black. Teenage Son doesn’t like the black fences. He’s not quite sure what we were imagining there either. The implication is that perhaps we imagined something, but again, incorrectly.
Photo: Apparently black was simply the wrong choice, and actually putting fences there at all was the wrong choice. I explained that the hedge I put there died because of the clay soil, but apparently this was not a sufficient excuse for choosing fences. And that birdhouse - ‘Cobblewomp Manor’ - well he’s apoplectic about my decision to paint the post. I gather it should have stayed ‘au naturel’.
He’s also troubled by the spacing of the trees. They are, in his opinion, far too far apart. I reminded him that trees grow. Slowly, over many years. There was a visible moment where this information landed. A pause. A dawning realisation that perhaps, one day, the trees might no longer be so far apart after all.
This didn’t undo the damage, but it helped.
The overall theme is this: Teenage Son is unhappy with almost everything I’ve done. The choices. The colours. The spacing. The lack of ancient hedges. The audacity of asymmetry.
And yet….despite his ongoing distress, Teenage Son has informed me that even if he lives on the other side of the world, when we die, he’ll buy this place. Not because he wants to live here. No, he’ll be a billionaire by then, living in the Cotswolds in a mansion.
He’ll buy this place so no one else can have it. He says they might change it. They might wreck it. They might not look after it properly.
So even if he never comes back to New Zealand, Teenage Son has decided he’ll simply buy the property and employ a gardener, ensuring that my questionable design choices remain exactly as they are.
Photo: Just quietly, I think Teenage Son loves this place, even though he pretends he doesn’t!
Did you know?
Compost heaps can reach sauna temperatures. A well-built compost pile can heat up to 60–70°C, hot enough to kill weed seeds and pathogens. So, yes, if you’re composting correctly, then you can throw weeds on the pile and not run the risk of growing a sea of weeds when you place it back on the garden.
What to do in the garden this week
Northern hemisphere
🌳Check tree ties and stakes. I’ve made this mistake before. I didn’t check over time and the way The Husband (not me….definitely not me!) had tied some tree ties was strangling the trunks. I lost one willow tree out in the paddock as a result. It snapped in half on a windy day due to the weak spot created by a too-tight tree tie. I forgave him….eventually, but he’s permanently fired from tree tying duties.
🌹Prune your roses. Now is the time to start this task. Yes, it’s blood sport. Yes, it’s a total faff. But it’s worth it and future you will thank present you for getting stuck into this task.
🫛Prepare your veggie beds. It may not feel like it, but spring is not far away now. Clear debris, weed lightly and add compost or manure so they’re ready to go when spring rolls around.
🪟Clean greenhouse glazing to maximise light levels.
🌸If you’ve left some perennials ‘as is’ over winter for their seed heads and a bit of winter interest in your garden, now’s the time to start cutting them back in preparation for new growth that often emerges on many perennials in late winter.
Southern hemisphere
🍅Give your tomatoes a fortnightly liquid fertiliser feed.
🪟Overheating is a big risk now in your greenhouse. Vent daily. I have permanently open vents on the sides and rear end of mine. They have black-painted wire mesh over them to prevent birds. On really hot days I also leave the front doors wide open.
🌱Sow autumn crops such as lettuce, Asian greens, spinach and coriander (coriander is definitely more of a cool season plant).
💦Remember the rule - deep and infrequent watering is better than frequent, shallow watering. It encourages deep root systems on both plants and trees (the exception being newly planted things - they always require more frequent waterings at the start until they get established).
🐞Encourage beneficial insects into your garden to help combat the pests. Flowering herbs are helpful for this.
What’s new on Behind the Garden Gate this week?
😎Nitty Gritty: this week it’s all about shade. Don’t fear shade! There are plants that love it, need it, and thrive in it. This week I tell you all about what I grow in my shade gardens, and what I plan to grow when I have more shade.
🐞A new page! You can now find a new page dedicated to photos of Garden Art and Whimsy, which collects together all the ways I’ve used sculpture, pots, planters, vintage and whimsical bits and pieces in my garden. I’ve even added a few photos from my parent’s garden for further inspiration. This page includes items I’ve made myself with some basic instructions to point you in the right direction if you’re inspired to make your own versions.
📷Snapshot shed: more photos to inspire you on your gardening journey.
If you’d like to sign up to Behind the Garden Gate to access the growing library of plant knowledge, garden humour, cheat sheets and even how to monetise your garden, open this newsletter fully by clicking the link at the bottom of the email. It’ll show a sign-up button right below this sentence. Anyone who signs up using an annual membership gets a free copy of my design guide emailed within 24 hours. Or if you’re not sure and just want to try it out, it’s $5/month and you can cancel anytime. So have a look and see if it’s for you. No obligation to continue, and no Dear John letters required if you want to opt out.
Photo: This photo below got quite a lot of attention on my social media channels recently. It falls very squarely into the ‘when I try hard, my efforts fall flat, and when I don’t try at all, social media LOVES it’. Is it the nasturtiums? Bert and Ernie? Gary the G-nome with a bad attitude? Or all three? Whatever it is about this photo… cobwebs, lichen growing on the roof and all….you all loved it. So, thank you, little photo….you made me look like I’ve got ‘effortless vintage chic’ totally sorted!
