On 2013-04-19 20:06:29 +0100, rbel said:

On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:08:08 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:


If you prune things back and take out a third of the old wood and any
crossing stems in the first winter season you can quickly get something
that looks plausible again very quickly. Then you know what looks pretty
and is worth keeping. Nuking everything without waiting to see if there
are any choice specimen plants is crazy unless you are heavily into
these insane garden makeover programmes fantasies.


As I mentioned in my comment it is indeed a sensible idea to leave
'the odd couple of specimens which would have been difficult to
replace'. You do not have to be 'into these insane garden makeover
programmes fantasies' whatever they are, to want to start with a clean
slate and save a lot of time and effort by using a digger to effect
this in one swoop.

At least people who do want to rip everything out could ask neighbours
if they'd like what's moveable, or cuttings from what isn't! The pity
of this is that some nice stuff has been destroyed, perhaps and little
can be done about it now. I do understand an inexperienced gardener,
or new home owner wantinig to put their own stamp on a place but this
has turned a well-matured garden into a mess with an owner who has no
idea of how to go forward! If any lesson is to be learned from this, it
should surely be that if you don't know what you're doing, you ask
BEFORE you act, not after!
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk