Readers respond to Emma Beddington’s defence of untidy gardens at this time of year, when many sacrifice unruly nature for hard standing

I so identify with Emma Beddington’s disappointment, anger and distress over the horrible practice of ripping out gardens in favour of soulless, uncreative hard standing (A messy garden is a glorious garden. We need to stop tidying, titivating and paving them over, 12 April). Are people utterly impervious to the importance of nature? How can they bear to be so philistine? Are their cars their only gods? Can’t they be grateful for the privilege of having a garden? Why not take pride in a verdant frontage? How about employing a gardener? And yes, please could David Attenborough be prevailed upon to help change so many people’s destructive, too practical mindset towards celebrating nature, manicured or not.
Joyce Bell
Lewes, East Sussex

• I live in California and am half-English – the English side of me is also drawn to a loose and messy garden, hopefully with an old ruin of a house within it. This is anathema to an American, and I leave behind me a long trail of gardens where I have dug up the concrete and someone has bought the property after me and reinstated the concrete, mulched the entire place in bark and cut down every tree and bush. This is the “low-maintenance” yard. Think what they will save on gardeners!

Continue reading...