I have just cut the lawn and cleared a bit of overhanging shrubbery at my
daughter's place (she rents it out ATM and we were letting a tradesman in).
Took me about 30 minutes.

The tenants, 30 and below, show absolutely no interest in the garden and so
do not maintain it.

This does not bother my daughter because she has no interest in the garden
either.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of neglecting a garden it did make us
ponder about "the younger generation".
[Just a minute, when did we stop being "the younger generation"?]

Her tenants can afford to buy, but don't want to because they don't want the
responsibility.
They still seem to live as students with the same short term view of
accomodation as somewhere to dump stuff between work and socialising.
This is not uncommon, from talking to other "Baby Boomers" about their kids.
Not many seem to settle into the life we were lead to expect - married,
kids, good job for life.
Not that this "dream" is practical now; jobs and carreers are not expected
to be long term and life expectancy is much longer so everything seems to
have an air of impermanence. Marriage and kids has gone down the priority
list for many. Expecting to have to work until you are 70 or more must be
quite daunting.

Please note that I do not criticise people for not following the route we
were encouraged to take. The world is a very different place and each
generation makes their own decisions.

However gardening seems to be tied in to a focus on the home and a
willingness to spend time at home working on it. If life is so busy that
there is no spare time and energy to maintain your home and garden then
something has got to give.

So to finally get to the point.

How many urgles (contributors and lurkers) are aged 30 and below?
Is gardening as popular as it always was (the amount of stuff in the sheds
does suggest a strong demand) or are most of the people gardening Baby
Boomers and the next decade or so, who bought houses before the last couple
of the housing booms?

Has the extended period in education (did we ever get to 50% going to
University instead of 5-10%) and the massive availability of electronic
consumer goods and availability of various entertainments given the 30-
generation a whole new set of priorities which render serious gardening a
waste of valuable time?

Just wondering (and not too seriously) :-)

Cheers

Daver

--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

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