I do. The rest of the place has had free reign. The grass where mowed lawn used to be, on absurd small patches dotted around the house, is knee high now, with a variety of species of all sorts in amongst.
From the car park at the top of the lane, overlooking the valley, I can see half of the shed that’s at the top of the useless, pointless 30m x 50m rectangle of what also used to be mowed lawn but is now a wilderness of tussocky grass. When I moved in, the entire shed was visible. A thick hedge of laylandii [?] is enveloping it.
But when the brick paving gets weedy it just looks scruffy, unkempt. I did see a very attractive way with cracks between paving. The misc shaped slabs of slate that made the pathways round the gardens at Balmoral had been ‘planted’ with wild flower seeds. Looked lovely.
My dad came from West Monkton, a village just outside Taunton. He and my ma used to go there from time to time from home at Glasto to look after the bench in the churchyard dedicated to my father’s younger brother, who was lost on HMS Glorious.
They then used to go to have a picnic lunch in the grounds of Hestercombe, the joint effort of Gertrude Jeykell [garden] and and Edward Lutyens [house]
My mother was a superb gardener, of professional standard. She never used weed killer. She used plantings that did away with any need for it.
I take after my dad “What’s he doing out there?” she’d say having come in to make dinner on a summer evening. “He has no idea - probably pulling up all my plants”