Is a lot of "gardening" a rip off?

[Dave2002]

By "gardening" I mean the trying to set up the kind of garden that the Sunday papers and adverts would have us do - with tables, chairs, loungers, parasols etc. Much of the "outside" furniture tends to fall apart, or degrade within a few years, and even more resistant hardwood furniture doesn't always last very long, or at least not without substantial maintenance and care.

Given that much of this stuff may damage environments elsewhere, should this really be encouraged?

[Old Grumpy]

I don't think Sunday papers are in the business of limiting environmental damage, given the size and weight of some of them. Even the supposedly left wing Sundays are exponents of outdoor champagne socialism!

[smittims]

Like everything that makes money,it won't go away in a hurry as long as the suckers keep spending.

My father was a gardening enthusiast in the day when it was all do-it-yourself, and arguably more satisfying when you'd got it the way you wanted it. He would have regarded garden centres as capitalist exploitation. As a lazy nature lover I was relieved when 'leave-it-to nature' gardens became politically-correct. I do have a shady courtyard at one end , which could easily be filled with £2,000 worth of earthenware bowls filled with colourful Japanese shrubs and fancy furniture, but I'd hardly ever sit there, so, yes , I think a lot of gardening is indeed a rip-off.

One of my neighbours has a heated pool which he's hardly ever used, and recently spent two whole days going over his paved yard with some nasty noisy power-tool, presumably to eliminate the weeds which grow in the cracks.

My gardening expenditure is putting out last year's indoor hyacinth bulbs in tubs. They do remarkably well. And this year the birds have obligingly planted some poppies there, in return for daily breadcrumbs.

[Pulcinella]

Anyone know what proportion of the gardens at Chelsea end up elsewhere?

[oddoneout]

By "gardening" I mean the trying to set up the kind of garden that the Sunday papers and adverts would have us do - with tables, chairs, loungers, parasols etc. Much of the "outside" furniture tends to fall apart, or degrade within a few years, and even more resistant hardwood furniture doesn't always last very long, or at least not without substantial maintenance and care.

Given that much of this stuff may damage environments elsewhere, should this really be encouraged?

Why limit it to gardening? What people do in and with their homes could just as well have the same charge made against it, ditto leisure activities of all sorts, entertainment, cars etc etc.
Businesses and manufacturers see an opportunity, social media(especially the pernicious and parasitic influencers), lifestyle journalism are happy to do their dirty work for them in making people feel they must have the latest chinese tat, and it all becomes a hamster wheel of ever decreasing independent thought driven by FOMO* anxiety. As a human trait it isn't anything new, but the scale of it has changed.
What I find really nasty is that it includes so-called green products, which are promoted using the same fact-free glossy-mag guilt-inducing/quick fix model.
And the really irritating thing is that for all the thousands of garden furniture options, I am still unable to buy what I actually want, and have done for some years - a garden sofa, not a bench not part of a "set" of some kind.
*fear of missing out

[Serial_Apologist]

Anyone know what proportion of the gardens at Chelsea end up elsewhere?

A few end up in community gardens for disabled or disadvantaged people and districts, but admittedly without any evidence my guess would be that the majority are destined for expensive places, either to visit or live in - these being the ones highlighted in TV coverage of Chelsea.

[Serial_Apologist]

Why limit it to gardening? What people do in and with their homes could just as well have the same charge made against it, ditto leisure activities of all sorts, entertainment, cars etc etc.
Businesses and manufacturers see an opportunity, social media(especially the pernicious and parasitic influencers), lifestyle journalism are happy to do their dirty work for them in making people feel they must have the latest chinese tat, and it all becomes a hamster wheel of ever decreasing independent thought driven by FOMO* anxiety. As a human trait it isn't anything new, but the scale of it has changed.
What I find really nasty is that it includes so-called green products, which are promoted using the same fact-free glossy-mag guilt-inducing/quick fix model.

Exactly. Unless like lucky me one has somewhere to store garden furniture if/when not in use, subject to the elements it quickly deteriorates (or deteriates!).

And the really irritating thing is that for all the thousands of garden furniture options, I am still unable to buy what I actually want, and have done for some years - a garden sofa, not a bench not part of a "set" of some kind.
*fear of missing out

Such merchandise does tend to turn up on cheap secondhand goods websites.

[eighthobstruction]

....they've got to fill those 24,000 containers on all those Evergrande ships coming from China and the Far EAst with something....

....Growth, whose growth, what growth....today I visited a shop (small business) that turns a small profit partly from selling ornate electrical scent burners (basically a large blob of plastic made to look like onyx/quartz with mains electic heater)....made to look elegant/pretty for the short term....the stuff of which forum members speak is what fills these containers....Chinese economic annual growth is down fron approx 11% , it is now more like2%pa somesay soon negative....but they still (+ Far East) outproduce us hugely....bang bang bang the Steel stamping lathes are creating those tables/bar b cues right now....

[Old Grumpy]

Bar b cues...


...that's another waste of time. What's the pleasure in eating outwardly charred, but inwardly raw food that smells of kerosene?

[vinteuil]

By "gardening" I mean the trying to set up the kind of garden that the Sunday papers and adverts would have us do - with tables, chairs, loungers, parasols etc. Much of the "outside" furniture tends to fall apart, or degrade within a few years, and even more resistant hardwood furniture doesn't always last very long, or at least not without substantial maintenance and care. Given that much of this stuff may damage environments elsewhere, should this really be encouraged?

... unduly harsh, I think. I have what counts as a 'garden' in this part of London - viz a tiny paved area in the back, large enough for a few big pots (bay trees, cyclamen, pelargonium, herbs) and a teak table and six chairs. The table and chairs we have had for ten years (and look good for another ten), minimum maintenance, regularly used for eating out when the weather obliges...

.

[eighthobstruction]

... I have what counts as a 'garden' in this part of London - viz a tiny paved area in the back, large enough for a few big pots (bay trees, cyclamen, pelargonium, herbs) and a teak table and six chairs. The table and chairs we have had for ten years (and look good for another ten), minimum maintenance, regularly used for eating out when the weather obliges...

.

....Oh I agree, nowt wrong with that at all - essential in fact....but at same time I think Dave speaks of the excess and built in obsolesence that goes on in certain quarters/halves....it's the way the economy works and people need and want to make a living (a top quality UK made Oak 3 seater -£2000 ++) whereas you can seat the whole fam' for £200 for something that will last just 4-5 years....or some hideous plastic thing that really wish would disappear after a while....OOO #5 is of course quite right, and 24,000 more containers fullm of stuff to sell (and essentials too)....

[Dave2002]

I'm not actually only thinking of garden furniture, but it attracted attention. I'm thinking also of the plants which you see, and realise you "have to have them". Very likely a "proper" gardener may buy them, cherish them, make sure they continue to thrive and do so for a reasonable period of time. In the meantime the rest of us probably won't repot the plants or put them into the ground [and if they do that, they'll be attacked by slugs or other beasties] and we won\t put them in a good position [sunny, shady, cool, moist etc] and won't water them appropriately.

So the end result is that every year many of us spend money on plants which are doomed to die. We will, of course, buy all the other stuff - the paraphernalia which is supposedly designed to help us keep these plants going, but we won't use that properly or appropriately either, so everything goes to rot.

We do this kidding ourselves that we are doing something "green", and exposing ourselves to nature, and environmentally a "good thing" - maybe!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Not just a complete ripoff but in the case of bought in plants a bio hazard . We’ve stopped buying plants because of the vine weevil infestation from the soil on them.

[gradus]

Not a rip-off but the way that gardening is shown by people like Monty Don is a fantasy. It presents in a way that glosses over the huge amount of hard work involved in maintaing an enormous garden to the standard we are shown and we are led to believe he does all by himself since no one else is ever shown working and no credit is ever given except by MD's occasional use of the pronoun 'we'. I do not doubt his gardening knowledge and skill but I much prefer the realism of Beechgrove and its relatively modest production.

[AuntDaisy]

Not a rip-off but the way that gardening is shown by people like Monty Don is a fantasy. It presents in a way that glosses over the huge amount of hard work involved in maintaing an enormous garden to the standard we are shown and we are led to believe he does all by himself since no one else is ever shown working and no credit is ever given except by MD's occasional use of the pronoun 'we'. I do not doubt his gardening knowledge and skill but I much prefer the realism of Beechgrove and its relatively modest production.

I love Beechgrove, very down-to-earth and practical.
Scotch & Wry did a lovely tribute. Beechgrove had a few older programmes on their YouTube channel.