"Sacha" wrote in message
"K" wrote:
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote
And of course given that some gardeners only have a pocket
hankerchief
sized garden then they have more desire to fiddle and change
things as
they have less work to do and more chance of getting bored than
those
who have a big garden.

That's an interesting concept. My experience is that most subjects
become more interesting the more you know about them. And in a
small
garden, where you can keep on top of the work, there is the
opportunity
to get to know the detail in the way that wouldn't be possible in
a
larger garden.

It's not necessarily so much a 'desire to fiddle' as the
opportunity to
do things in a more 'hands on' way. For example, I can hand weed
our
paving, which I couldn't do if I had a large expanse, which means
I can
spot the dianthus and harebells and leave them be, which I
wouldn't be
able to do if I had to use a herbicide.

Yes, I think Farm1 made a really good point there. But I would say
that you
can get to know the detail in a large garden, too but you just can't
get to
deal with all of it with quite such immediacy. A sort of priority
order has
to come into managing a big garden.

In my case, it's very much an order of slip, sliding priority. I lie
in bed at night and think "tomorrow I'll do x, y and z". I get to bed
the next day and find that I've spent all day trying to clear the
decks sufficinetly so I can properly start on doing x.

I certainly do think that people with large spaces just can't get
too worked
up about minutely scrupulous weeding because they'd spend their
entire lives
in the utmost frustration. OTOH, weeds are green and providing most
get
hoicked out as often as possible, the garden will go on its merry
way.

Have you ever noticed that it is the people who don't garden at all
who notice weeds? I find this constantly. When I visit friends
gardens, they are apologising for the weeds but I see right past the
weeds because I'm looking at it overall and not at the areas that need
attention.