On 23 May 2010, at 1:24, Theladygardens@aol.com wrote: > Can you imagine the daily delight of a gardener lucky enough to buy Jane > McGary's country place? What I can imagine is wifey turning to hubby and saying, "dear, why don't you bring in the backhoe and level all that mess so we can have a nice paddock for the horses?" [PS: I am not implying that Jane's place is a mess of any sort.] Keep in mind that Victoria is a city that is still mad for gardening, yet when houses with good gardens sell, that's invariably the end of the garden as it was. My estimate is that less than 1 in a 100 households here care much about gardening, and all the rest view anything more than a lawn, a few shrubs and trees, and a potted red geranium on the front steps as an impediment to enjoying life. More than once a house with a well-known garden has been sold, the buyer chirping about how the garden is *exactly* what they want, only to have the bulldozer or backhoe brought in shortly after the place changes hands or the decades-old rhododendrons cut down "to let in the light". The latter is a particular vice of former Albertans who are used to the wide open spaces of the prairie provinces. It is, I am afraid, wishful thinking that new owners will keep a good garden going. Even if they are, by a freak of fate, enthusiastic gardeners, their interests won't be the same as the previous owner. Hence we find rock gardens turned into orchards of raspberries, currants, gooseberries, and other small fruit. Perennial beds cleared and devoted to tomatoes. And so on. My own plans as inevitable downsizing approaches include having weekly plant sales for a year or two and selling off every garden plant on the place that has any merit whatsoever, plus gifting some uncommon shrubs to the municipality for replanting in parks. A melancholy perspective, but better that than hearing later via the grapevine that all the plants were destroyed to make room for a new development. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island http://maps.google.ca/maps/…