I know exactly how you feel. 3 yrs. ago I sold my first home of 11 yrs. (also) to a young couple that were thrilled that it was listed as organically landscaped for over a decade. Drove by the other day and saw all the crape myrtles, Texas ash and a big willow hacked down to the ground. The thick, lush St. Augustine that was always deep green, even in drought years was dead or dying. The rustic split-rail fence along the front was falling apart, and everything in the beds were yellow or dead :( I just have to keep reminding myself that I now have two acres that have gone from blah to gorgeous in just 3 yrs. And it provides all the food I will ever need. Don't think I'll ever be able to drive by there again.

I sold my first home earlier this year. It is five minutes from my current house, but I cannot bear to drive by. The buyer proclaimed "I am NOT a gardener!" and she did not seem interested in learning. Somethings are just better left unseen. We will see how long I can last.

I grew up in as a child in Aurora colorado. My parents enjoyed gardening and the lawn was full of gardens and green.

When I drove by the old home, well 2 cars were parked or junked?! in the lawn were mom and I use to grow 4 oclocks and the grass is all dirt from motorcycles and cars.

I felt a need to expereince grief and sadness, as part of my childhood seemed destroyed.

So yes, I understand the feeling of loving the land and then watch it become abused and neglected is a very dissapointing feeling.

Ouch. That's all I can say, just ouch.

Led Zep, that is the saddest story yet.

We moved last summer and I haven't had the courage to look at what the new owners might have done. I took a lot of my favorite plants from my old garden. I also took as much soil as I could, filling every available container each trip.

Another terrible angle to my sad tale of garden destruction is this: The buyers put it in the contract that we were to leave all existing planted vegetation. So I couldn't even rescue anything on a noticeable scale. Yet I figured out later that they meant all along to kill everything. I think they weren't telling me up front because they thought I would freak out or not sell to them. But I have a lot of gardening friends and neighbors, and we could have done a LOT of rescuing, of everything except the trees and large bushes anyway.

My first house, the buyers were non-gardeners and planning to pave over part of the yard. But they told me right away, and let me rescue plants months later. The closing was around Dec. 1 and they knew that wasn't gardening season. We rescued many flowers, shrubs, raspberries and small trees in the spring. They even let my friends use their shovel. So non-gardening house buyers CAN be nice.
Marcia

I knew we were going to be moving for almost a year, so I robbed the flowerbeds last summer. They were beautiful, but I just could see leaving all that effort and work even if someone did turn out to be a gardener. Luckily, the house was for sale during the winter and snow covered, so it didn't make the place look bad.

As my DH was turning over the keys, the new homeowner asked about any of the flowers which might be returning. The DH took the opportunity to tell him that we hadn't sprayed the yard and that it was safe for the kids and pets. He also told them of the neighbor the new owner had just met who is slowing going organic. She feels that the tumors on her dog's legs were due to her husband spraying the yard every year. She still says her DH killed her dog.

Maybe the new owner will give it some thought.

Gloria

I know my buyer thought I was a little nuts, (just garden whacko) when I sold. I gave him a copy of the file full of all the gardening articles, etc I had used to have the yard in great shape. I guess, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they haven't changed a thing in the five years they have been there.

We had a similar experience. We sold our house of 10 years to a family, who, after they moved in, took down every tree, shrub, flower, everything except the palm tree. We had rescued some plants, but the bulk was removed. We had beautiful flower beds, fruit trees, bushes, etc. Made me cry every time I went by, and as we have good frineds that live next door, we saw it frequently. The irony is, that they sold it after a year, and the family that moved in is organic, and is slowly replacing the plants, many of them in the same spots. They didn't even know what was there or where! Go figure!

Kathy

Led Zep:
Your story makes me cry. My husband and I looked far and wide for a property such as yours to tend. But homes in our area are very expensive so we settled on a house with a yard that had been neglected for about 10 years--dead shrubs, neglected beds, thatch like you wouldn't believe. I can't stand when people find these treasures and couldn't care less about them.

BTW--it has been 2 years and our yard is like a secret garden brought back to life--and is 100% organic. I told my husband I will stay until I am old and gray to protect my garden treasures.

I can relate. We had a big vegetable garden in the back yard which they let grow up in foot tall weeds. My herb garden was destroyed. They ripped out my cactus bed. We had cactus the whole length of the back fence in the alley...they were taken out. The junipers at the front walkway that said "welcome" were cut down. The evergreens at the corners of the house had all the lower branches cut off (boy are they ugly!) and the beautiful crabapple tree was cut down. Sigh... makes you wonder what kind of people they are that don't appreciate nature/plants/gardening.

well this should cheer you up. we just bought our first home here in colorado. at closing, we were told everything was 11+ years organic. we did have some chemical when we moved in, but they have not been used. the veggie garden is coming along beatifully, with a straw groundcovering, and soaker hose i buried early this spring. all the starts were grown by me, from organic seed, in the greenhouse frame that i reassembled and got working again. the yard has had bare spots, but i reseeded with colo. native seed. my wife accidentally got penkoted seed and put some down, but that is our only breach. we had to have a too-close-to the foundation tree mitigated, but have since added another. all plantings and bulbs have brought me so much enjoyment. we do have alot of bindweed, but we have a swath of native perrenials between two houses that we have let grow out. we weeded early this spring, by hand, and that was that. we sincerely appreciate all the hard work and sacrifices from the previous owners. i am new to the forum, and the world of organic gardening, but i am trying to follow footsteps.

i had an absolutely beautiful organic cottage garden in front of my home and when i moved out of it last year to move abroad the new owners hacked out all of the beautiful perennials and threw them in the trash. i lived in a lovely older home on a beautiful street which saw a lot of traffic and people stopped me constantly to compliment me on the garden. how these people could do this is simply beyond me. anyhow, my good friend was wandering by and saw the devastation and managed to trash pick quite a few things, which gave me some consolation.

we are moving back to the states and just bought a lovely older home with beautiful established gardens and the current owner seemed thrilled to find out that i am an avid gardener. she is dividing some of the stuff to take with her, which is fine by me.

It seems a shame you cannot sell to people who will keep the property as you would want. My big concern if I were ever to sell my house would be someone cutting down my trees so it should be possible but I dont think it is to sell only to those who promise not to do so. Not enforceable even if it was in an agreement.

Wow, that would be horrible! I would hate to think of all of the hard work of gardening organically to all be for nothing when you sell a house. Maybe we should think about having a post to sell homes to organic gardeners...? [g] Next time we are looking for a new house, I am going to ask here first..! I would LOVE an organic garden to move into. If anyone has looked at real estate recently, how often do you even find someone that gardens at the house you are looking at, let alone organic? I think it is such LUCK to buy a home with an organic garden and then to have someone not be interested in it..wow.

As for taking plants when you move, if I moved, I would definitely divide everything in the yard and move as much as could be moved, and have that be part of the agreement. I would probably try to pot up the divisions before I listed the house, so people would see what they were getting and there would be little change from sale to take over. Of course that is the ideal situation but not always possible. Getting a house ready for market and finding a new home are not the easiest things to do.

Adam

Well if you love a yard so much you don't want it changed, don't sell the house.

A happier story in this vein:
When we sold our house, the real estate agents tried to get us to bring in a gardener to "plant flowers" in what was already a beautiful, organic yard filled with vegetables and native plants. Then they suggested we "pick up all the sticks" in the backyard (natural mulch from the redwood tree).

We flatly refused and instead spent some time educating them about the garden, so they could sell it along with the house. And that's what happened - at the open houses, people praised the garden and said how nice it was that it hadn't been "fixed up" in that generic way for selling.

The couple who bought it knew all about the local native plants, and knew they wanted it as soon as they saw the Dutchman's Pipe climbing on the fence!

Naturally, our new house is in a neighborhood where the only reason anything native is still growing, is because they are trees that have been there for decades and would cost too much to take out. I've been weeding and hacking and clearing invasive Japanese ornamentals that were planted everywhere, and I shudder to think of all the Roundup that must still be in the ground.

Most of my new neighbors think I'm nuts for having taken out the acubas, and for covering the front lawn with leaves in order to kill it, but fortunately, they don't really mind. And next door, another newcomer is as enthusiastic about growing organic as I am.
-O

I am so sorry to hear that. It makes me mad when I hear of ignorant people abusing Nature's creations and her delicate balance because they are so steeped in ignorance *and* refuse to accept that there could be a different way of doing things. Led Zep's story is particularly poignant.

Organica, I am not from the U.S so I don't know how the system works. Why would it matter what your neighbours think of your garden and whether you prefer a garden to a lawn? You ought to have the freedom to decide that for yourself. I personally believe a lawn is a total waste of resources and I don't think anyone should be telling you (or me or anyone) to have a lawn. Of course, I respect their decision to have one but I was curious as to whether there are any laws forbidding the conversion of lawn to flower/vegetable garden.

Dr H:
I'm completely of your mind about lawns. But here in the US, grass runs practically like a wall-to-wall carpet. If you ask people why it's so important, they probably couldn't really articulate it, but they feel VERY strongly about it or they wouldn't pour so much time and money in. It's like television - most people are sure there is something wrong with you if you don't have one.

The last place I lived, I had an angry neighbor threaten to "tell" the city that I was growing a wildflower garden. In fact, at one point I did get an official notice to cut down the "grass and weeds" and had to drag the inspector back to observe that it was in fact a garden.

Here, they just think I'm strange. A co-worker of my husband's, on learning I was removing my lawn, actually asked, "What else is there to grow?" And a near neighbor actually sprayed just to get white clover out of her lawn! The neighbor explained that clover is OK "if you're living out in the country."

Re laws, there are communities that have strict covenants about what is acceptable to grow in your yard. I hope there are no actual laws on the books against growing wildflowers and natives, but people across the country have had to defend their yards against city inspectors and neighbors alike. The magazine Organic Gardening has run stories about it in past issues.
--O

The desire for those lawns goes back to when it was the sign that a family had finally made it to the middle class. They had time to waste puttering in a lawn!

The real problem for me came with the chemicals and the putting green look. In the 50's there was clover in the grass mix and now the thought of having clover in the yard drive folks crazy.

We lived in a homeowner's association which would get on my case for not spraying for the weeds. It was very windy and I did have a hard time keeping them out. I just sent them information stating that no matter what the rules, they did not have the right to demand I expose my family to those poisons. The complaint died with the last blooming of the dandelions.

Our current home is in a less windy location and this is making a huge difference in my ability to control these weeds. So much easier. I'm also no longer on a corner lot where everyone can see every inch of my property.

I now have two neighbors who don't use chemicals and the guy on the other side of me was out with some Weed B Gone, but at least he was only shoot the dandelions and not nuking the entire yard with the stuff.

We have a couple of homes down the street with the no yard front yard. They have large spruce trees and there are plantings under the trees. I do have to admit that it does look a bit ratty since they haven't really filled it in well and between blooming times, it just looks like dry dirt under the trees. Maybe after I've been here a while, I can offer to divide some of my hostas and stuff with them.

Gloria

Gloria:
At least they have trees in front, and not SUVs! Southern Living mag keeps running stories about how you can turn half of your front yard into a "parking court" without ruining the looks of the property.

Plants aren't grown for their own sake, they're just trimming for parking lots, dressing for automobiles.

Good for you standing up to the HA about chemicals.
--O

All these stories are so sad! It's got to be hard to put so much work into something, making it beautiful only to have someone come along who totally doesn't appreciate it.
My difficulty is that my husband and I are buying a house along with his sister. I firmly believe in growing organically but she does not. She puts all sorts of chemicals on the lawn and I'm afraid to even let my daughter roll in the grass. She used to be able to eat crackers that had fallen on the ground but now I won't let her touch them if she drops them. It's sad. I want to maintain a good relationship with her but when we have such different gardening philosophies it's difficult.
We're eventually planning on moving overseas and renting our house out to someone. I worry that the people we rent to won't take care of our garden. I would be totally crushed if they didn't. When renting out a home, can we make it a requirement that the person who rents be a good gardner?? That probably would be "discrimination." Bummer.

By the way, I'm a republican and I deeply love the land and it's plants. I believe in growing organically and taking care of our world. Please don't be tempted to make judgements about people just because of a political affiliation. Let's keep the love going! : )

flowerchild, what if you hired someone to tend the garden and just included it in the price of the rent? That's the only way I know of to insure that everything is kept up.

Flowerchild, maybe you could present the issue of garden chemicals from the point of view that you really do need a space you can feel comfortable about the kids being in the yard.

Just like your SIL wouldn't feed your kids food she knows would harm them, explain to her that she doesn't need to agree, but just respect that as a parent, this is not something you want the kids exposed to. If all else fails, divide the yard (maybe she takes the front and you do the back) and each keep the yard as you would like.\

The idea of hiring someone to do the yard while renting may work, but if your plan is to rent it out, I wouldn't invest in much of a garden that needs up keep. Maybe now is just the time to get some trees or bushes established and put the flowers in pots for now. Gardening is a lot of work and it would be difficult to demand that of a renter unless you really offered a reduced rental price, which may be an option, really.

Gloria

The renters won't necessarily have a clue about gardening, either. Often it isn't something you begin to learn until you have your own house.