In article ,
says...
David in Normandy writes

After we bought our previous house the neighbour mentioned
that the previous occupant had buried their dead cat
somewhere around where I was digging ground to make a veg
plot. Sure enough it wasn't long before a cat skull was
grinning at me. I put it in the dustbin - not sure what you
are supposed to do with pet skeletons when reclaiming every
diggable inch of a small garden. I certainly wouldn't want
to keep finding it every time I lifted potatoes!

I doubt mention of said animal would have put us off buying
the house, but it would probably put some people off.

Friend of ours was a zoologist who used to bury dead animals in order to
clean the skeleton. While trying to sell a house he was frantically
digging a border to retrieve a skeleton that he *knew* he'd buried
there, but could find no trace. This might have been understandable had
it been a mouse - but it was a Great Dane ;-)

As to what people look for in gardens - as a general rule, gardeners
know what's what. They'll keep what they want and know what's involved
in changing the rest - no window dressing possible. Just listen
carefully, and if they turn out to have gardening tendencies, draw their
attention to all the treasures.

Non-gardeners want the garden to be 'easily maintained' - so as others
have suggested, concentrate on keeping it looking tidy, trim grass edges
and bushes, get rid of obvious weeds like dandelions and nettles, make
everything look effortlesslessly tidy rather than running out of
control.

when moving here and starting to garden we were alarmed by the amount of
large animal bones in the garden, whole animals, cows, horses, sheep. we
found out a vet had lived here during the war and we assumed he was
hiding his mistakes! however we subsequently met his son who claimed his
dad was following local advice for fertilizing the ground!
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea