If you are considering downsizing, you will want to know what other women regret or wish they knew before they downsized. This video shares five important downsizing tips so you can avoid common mistakes. I’ll also share some wisdom gained from their experiences, especially for those considering it after 60. Whether you are downsizing, retiring, becoming an empty nester or just want a smaller, more intentional garden, this video is for you.
#garden design when downsizing, #garden ideas for downsizing, #low maintenance gardening over 55
Link to my video about changes you can make so you can still garden comfortably at 80:
Chapters:
00:00 – 00:23 Intro
00:23 – 03:14 Number 1 regret and strategies to avoid it
03:14 – 05:35 Number 2 regret – too small and overly low maintenance
05:35 – 06:28 Number 3 regret – forgetting to design for your future self
06:28 – 08:06 Number 4 regret – choosing pretty but impractical designs
08:06 – 09:10 Number 5 regret – giving away tools and supplies too soon
This video is a DIY garden design video as part of my Garden Design series for gardeners over 50. Please subscribe if you love step-by-step DIY garden design.
#garden #gardendesign #DIYgardendesign
37 Comments
Appreciate the practical advice that we often overlook as we move on in years and spaces. Great list! 🙂
Definitely things to think about, thanks! 🌺🌱🌻
“I gave away my story”… resonates with me as well. At my first home, I had spent a lot of time creating a dry creek with mindfully placed rounded boulders mixed with properly sized smaller pebbles that would fit a natural mountain stream. It also served to provide a natural water runoff from the yard. It looked very real and the neighborhood children used to play in it when it rained.
I also had several beautiful trees that I had carefully manicured over a decade. I learned years later that all of that was taken out and the entire front yard was concreted over so the new owner could park more cars out in front 😢
Thank you so much for these guidelines. I'm 71 and started having severe limitations last summer. I'm definitely rethinking everything and your guidelines are really helpful! Last summer I was frustrated with a long perennial border. I cleared a spot for annuals. I don't want the same garden every year. The fun for me is to design new gardens. I used to add a garden every year. I know I can't do that anymore!!! LOL Thank you again for the apron!
I was thinking about your friend that couldn't putter around. Maybe she can do container gardening.
Helpful video. Tfs.
Thank you for your compassion in sharing these great suggestions with us 🌿
For me, I wish I could have remembered to take a cutting here and there when I was offered. I would love to have just something from my grandmother's garden. Anything! For the sentimental value and to say it came from 'her' garden. I had an elderly neighbor who once offered me some Liy of the Valley from her garden. She passed away and of course I wouldn't go back and ask the owners of the house to let me dig up a few bulbs. I love to putter, I don't per se plan, just whatever feels right. There is beauty in imperfection. Maybe I have a cottage garden? I am not sure. But I would love to make it easier on myself as I age and putter at the same time. Thank you for the tips. When you said "I gave a way my story'…I think it hits home with many. If someone admires something in my Garden, I always offer a cutting.
What is one garden memory you'd never give up? Share your experience so we can learn from each other. Thanks so much, Kathy
In my 40s, I love your videos, especially those tips for gardening into 50s and 60s. I just started gardening last year and if possible, I want to continue this hobby into my senior years. Those are excellent lessons. Thank you.
Wonderful video, thank you! Puttering around is a must-do (imo). At 70 I am trying to "stop enlarging" our garden but every year I've discovered something new and find the need to putter around more staying busy. We've grown 150-200 garlic plants for the last 15 years, now we are growing 700. Always grew 6-8 pepper varieties this year 20 varieties and need to add another long bed. We have many vegetables growing and its exhausting at times, but the craving to go out to putter around is a need & desire. I have to do this now I guess as I'm not sure how much longer I have to continue at this age.
We are in our 4th year of "severe" drought and many of my plants died despite my watering. I'm learning about native plants and raising many from seed.
My neighbor decided to put up a new fence between our properties, but had to access my side of the fence. He started late in summer, and moved slowly, very slowly. I did not have access to my roses, perennials or anything there. He never finished and told me he would do more next spring. In the meantime I put all the annuals for fillers into pots on my patio. It turned out so well and everyone loved the look. But being 81 now I think I just may eliminate my perennials, except a very few, and live like this from now on.
thank you 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
🌿 Great advice! 💜
I'm 76 years old and no way am I downsizing my garden. I love every bit of it. It's hard work but I wouldn't change a thing. Gardening excites me, it's good exercise and keeps me fit. I feel fortunate indeed. We each have our own lives, know our limits, so to each its own. You do you and I'll do me. Live long and prosper.
This video wasn't what I expected so I avoided it thinking you would have us gardeners get rid of something or not to do something. Boy was I wrong!!! I never thought about the things you talked about and they all make sense. What a different way to think about gardening as I age. Currently I have some limitations but try to do as much as I can without becoming overwhelmed or injuring myself. Thanks for the advice that I definitely will consider as I continue my gardening journey as I age into my 70s.
Only 62, but I love my puttering about in the garden…and Ooo the projects! My 1st year of retirement and I'm giddy!
I need to dig in the dirt like a little kid. But, over the last decade I’ve been adding more bricks and other types of hardscape paths and spaces to minimize the planted areas. I do have a high maintenance hedge. It’s angel vine with topiary. It’s forty feet long and ten plus feet tall in some spaces. I have to hire out for that now because it’s not safe for me to be up on the ladder. I really like your channel.
62 years old here… thankfully my garden is already small… but I am planting more low maintenance plants to make things easier on me this year.😊😊😊
great things to think about
I am now starting cuttings from my neighbor who is in his 60’s. They were pieces from his grandmother’s rose and farm and it gave him and the family memories of its scent and non-stop blooms. I haven’t seen him lately and can’t wait to tell him they are sprouting.
Plus this reminded me of a shamrock plant someone gave me when my daughter was 2. I need to tell her it’s history and how it was my first adult houseplant!
Thank you!
Thankyou for the valuable advice 🙏
I love your example of “puttering“ around the garden. That’s exactly what I do, not always finishing a project that I start that day if I don’t feel like it. I just walk outside, and think what do I feel like doing today? If I’m sore or if my bones are achy, I’ll decide to just get a stool and sit and work on my patio plants. Other days I’ll do something else if I have more energy. It’s not perfect and it’s never finished, but I get so much joy out of my rather large garden with all its unfinished weeding, pruning, and other projects! It’s beautiful and therapeutic to me. I’m 66 and still going strong (sometimes, depending on the day!)
Friends, have you read “Dandelion Wine” by Ray Bradbury❓Much next level wisdom on this subject to be found there. Great video👽
Never use weed cloth!!!! Unless you don’t plan on planting anything in the area.
What a great video! I am downsizing dramatically this year. It’s now just me and it has been a huge adjustment. The memory I will cherish is helping my husband build our garden beds. 🌿Thank you!
At 62 I try to focus on perennials thank you for such an informative channel. I’m learning so much as I continue on my garden journey.
They took my gardens out too! The house looks so unloved now
Happiness is knowing your garden will never be finished. Enjoy it today. And let tomorrow take care of itself.
My grandmother used to take a cutting from a rose bush as she moved from place to another. I remember her telling me that it was over fifty years old. Not that particular bush but from where came from. I thought it was very cool. Then my POS step father ran over it with the lawnmower just out of spite.
For the lady with the weed cloth…get rid of it! It bakes your soil and the nutrients in it. Even the worms disappear. With that cut out you’d only have to brush back a small area of mulch, easily locate your drip lines and put in your new plant. Or, try container gardening! You can plant them with bulbs in the fall for spring interest and do seasonal displays throughout the year with colourful annuals. That will keep you busy with projects and minimal maintenance.
Thanks for these helpful tips. I’ve learned a lot while helping my 95-yr old mother reimagine her beloved garden. Over the years, we reduced the number and size of garden beds, allowing the lawn to fill in again. We then removed many high maintenance perennials and replaced them with divisions of existing small, 3-season shrubs like spireas and evergreens. We also filled in beds with seasonal perennial bulbs, colorful ferns, and a few easy drought-tolerant perennials like Autumn Joy sedum for color, and any seasonal annuals that catch her eye.
The best part is she still gets to putter and enjoy the beauty of her small garden! ❤
Great advice. At 78 building once again, including a new potager and flower gardens. I hope we get it right! 🎉
You just perfectly hit my crying point😭😭😭😭 we moved 2 years ago, it was a lot to do and totally didn't think about taking cuttings from my favorite Chinese pistache tree and my 11 year old red dragon japanese maple. The regret has been eating me everyday, because I planted those two trees with my mom, who moved back to China 9 years ago. Every time i miss my mom, i think about those 2 trees that we planted together. 😭
Actually, with my former garden (1/2 acre) in Virginia I forgot how beautiful it was because it was so much work. A few days ago I looked my old house up on Zillow and was amazed at what I had created. The house and garden were gorgeous, but the work overshadowed the pleasure of creation. Here in Wyoming I have two acres to work with and I am determined to leave most of it natural. It has mature trees and it's lovely, so my gardening projects will just be around the house. The rest is just getting water and fertilizer and mowed every month or two. The deer will love it.
We Germans buy a house and bequeath it to our children and grandchildren. We don't have this mentality of constantly changing houses. The great-grandchildren swing on the same tree as their grandparents. ☺️