When it comes to gardens, we’ve all got our individual style and favourite features and plants - as well as certain items we’d never allow into our space. We might not want to admit it, but we are probably being a little judgy (in our heads, at least) when we visit other gardens and see things that give us the ick.
And top garden designers, horticulturists and presenters are no different. We asked them what they hate and would banish forever from gardens, if they had the chance. Scroll down to discover the garden crimes that make them cringe - and hope that none of these picks are presently making an appearance in your own outdoor space…
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Wind chimes
Gardener and flower grower Arthur Parkinson detests wind chimes. “The neighbours put one up and there've been so many nights I’ve thought about going over there and cutting it down,” he admits. “Noise is a massive thing, and when you've got a garden in the countryside or don't have neighbours, you really take it for granted. But when you've got a garden around other houses, you've got dogs barking and wind chimes and screaming.
“Equally, I think you have to be careful of water features because they can be too hard. I like a bubbling ripple, but I don’t want it to sound like a Shire horse is visiting.”
Plastic grass
Designer Manoj Malde can’t stand fake grass. “I just cannot work with it. I think it is one of the most harmful things in a garden. It has no beneficial impact to a garden or to human beings and more importantly, no beneficial effects to wildlife. The rubber backing on it takes forever to break down; then it ends up polluting the environment. Worms have been known to actually move away and out of the soil when plastic grass has been put down.
“And for people who say, oh, but they're easy maintenance: they’re so not. If your dog goes and pees on it, you're still going to have to wash it down. You still get weeds growing through it. You have to brush it. You have to clean it. So actually, is it easy maintenance? I don't think so.”
Variegated plants
Troy Scott Smith is head gardener at Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent, and really knows his plants, but just can’t get along with those with variegation – that is, white or yellow markings on green leaves. “Who likes them, really? And what's their purpose in life? I say that with some jest, but I think I’ve been really fortunate that I've worked at gardens where the people who made them - Sissinghurst, Bodnant - equally didn't like variegated plants, so I've never really been introduced to them or had to use them. Maybe I'm being unfair, but the ones I've seen I don't really like.”
Hanging baskets
Monty Don is the nation’s favourite gardener and graces our screens each Friday on Gardeners’ World. He has a live and let live approach when it comes to gardening and does not have any real pet hates or bugbear to confess, but does admit: “I've never willingly had a hanging basket. But I don't mind other people having them if that's what they want.”
Overdoing the blue
Designer Jo Thompson has an issue with too much bright blue in the garden. “People painting their garden sheds that Moroccan Majorelle blue colour that looks wonderful in Marrakesh, because you've got those skies, but it looks pretty sad under our grey skies. And let's face it, our skies are grey for quite a few months of the year and they just stick out like a sore thumb.”
Gardener and writer Tamsin agrees. “I’ve had an overload of blue fencing and blue glazed pots. Working on garden magazines in the 1990s and early 2000s, they were everywhere, in every show garden, and I just think, no, I'm done with it. I love blue, but not in the garden.”
Square rattan furniture
Designer Butter Wakefield can’t understand people’s penchant for identikit square-framed rattan garden furniture. “We can't really call it rattan; it's woven plastic rattan, fake rattan furniture. And generally, it's also in a terrible dark colour. So that would go on the compost heap, first and foremost. Well, if it were allowed in at all.”
Bad sculpture
Writer Alice Vincent is not a fan of figurative statues in the garden. “I have a real thing about garden ornaments, even those very expensive, quite fancy sculptures. I think it’s a rare one that works well, but the ones that definitely never work well are ones with a face… animal sculptures, gnomes. I don’t care if you spent thousands on it and it’s made of bronze. If it’s got a face on it: no.”
Manipulated stems
Nurserywoman Rosy Hardy can’t stand it when plants are twisted out of their natural shape. “I do not like contorted hazels or willows; they really are a no-no. I'm not very keen on the ones which are plaited either. I can understand that look, but you just look at them and think, they just look in pain. They would make instant kindling.”
Artificial plants
Designer Tom Massey can’t abide fake plastic plants. “I can't see why you would want an artificial plant in your garden, and I could extend that to anything imitation and plasticky… artificial green walls or hedges, things that are trying to cheat to get a natural effect. It's this idea that our garden should be static and look the same the whole time; my dream garden definitely wouldn't be static.
“There are just so many things on so many levels wrong with artificial plants. We're already living in a world where nature connection is being lost in many ways, and plastic pollution is in the highest mountains to the deepest oceans - and that is really worrying.”
Power tools
When it comes to annoyances in the garden, no-dig guru and market gardener Charles Dowding doesn’t hesitate in picking petrol strimmers and hedge cutters. “Those two are absolutely my least favourite tool. I'm continually reminded of it because my neighbours use them a lot.”
Bins
Grower and entrepreneur Sarah Raven bemoans the necessary evil of bins in front gardens. “If only we didn't all have to have our rubbish bins, they're just not very nice. And the thing that's even worse is when you get that sort of camouflage cover, trying to pretend it's a pretty bin home. I would really like to banish the bin.”
Pampas grass
Alan Titchmarsh is clear on which plant he will never grow. “Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana). It looks like a collection of feather dusters sticking out of a mountain of grass. I struggle with it, in spite of the fact that my old friend Beth Chatto used to say, ‘But ‘Sunningdale Silver’ has a certain grace…’ Yes, Beth, you keep it in your garden, and I'll be happy.”
Tennis courts
Designer Dan Pearson has to admit there is one thing he is not a fan of. “If a client says to me they want a tennis court, my heart sinks, because often they are a big square of tarmacadam that gets used a handful of times a year. They’re a big rectangular ugly object with tall fences that takes away a piece of good ground. It’s so rare you see a grass court and they’re beautiful for the fact that they're grass, but it always seems like a hole in the landscape.”
Rigid rows
Carol Klein doesn’t like when ornamental plants are grown in strict lines. “I'm definitely not a plant collector. I've seen some national collections that are lovely because the plants are growing how they should. But if it’s rigid rows, it's anathema to me because growing plants is all about putting them together; how they complement each other. Also, very often they are self-sown. There are three things that have put themselves together just brilliantly, and you could never ever replicate that so you just enjoy it because it’s there. It’s like friends, they should flatter each other.”