What happens to Veddw Garden when we’re dead?
For the past 35 years we have been making a garden at Veddw. And now, knowing we won’t live forever, (we have not had a nasty diagnosis) we’re thinking about what will happen to the house and garden when we die.
We don’t have children, so we have no obligation to leave it to anyone in particular.
The Plan
What I would really really like to do is to leave it to a young keen garden loving person who would be capable of turning it into a business to support them. And who would be capable of developing it to keep it alive and exciting.
I imagine it like this: someone will one day discover, out of the blue, that they have been left the place. With everything, as it is. They will walk into a house and garden which will be all theirs, and if we’re lucky they will have a little money we may have managed to keep (hmm – unlikely?!) as a starter. With which to pay death duties at least.
We began with less and just two fields round the house.
The idea seems magical to me.
Having no idea at the minute just when either of us might die, we cannot name anyone ourselves – they might be too old or entrenched in something else to uproot and dig in at the right moment.
And I have no wish to know this person or personally influence them – though, of course, there is much material about the garden as well as the garden itself which would inevitably impinge, I imagine.
Our Wills
So, we’re imagining making our wills so that a group of willing and paid (a little bit) people (The Panel) will select this person after we’re gone. This would apply if we were to die very close in time to one another, and it would apply if I die last.
If Charles dies last who knows what he may wish to do? New wife? Leave it all to a cat’s home? That would be up to him. He might even do the same as we’re thinking here.
We’re not sure that it’s possible to leave property to an unknown person – we will need to discover how to do that. So if anyone knows and can tell us how we’d be delighted to hear. And we will need to find the willing people for The Panel.
What do you think?
But at this point we are wanting to discuss this idea with anyone who has useful or interesting thoughts about it.
What would you do? What will the problems be? What do we need to consider? Who should be on the Panel? How much should we leave to pay them?
And in general:
And, in addition to all this, it seems to me that the questions – what are the very best possibilities for a garden’s future after the creator dies or leaves? when has that worked and when has it failed? (The Newt? Tintinhull? York Gate?) are worth discussing.
Hoping for help. Or we were. Perhaps it’s mentioning death. Or maybe the question is just impossible. You can’t leave something to an unknown person, perhaps. I put this post on thinkingardens and no-one seemed to have much to add or offer. We’re stuck, really. Sad?
Wishing you well in your search.
You have the potential to create a trust or foundation that would hold the property until it conveyed, with this objective in mind? Appointing reliable people who would carry it out?
Do you have any particular sections of your garden you would most like to see preserved?
I don’t remember the full story of the rose bed at a famous garden. I only remember you mentioning that it is now very different, but still beautiful.
We live in a forest ecology. Our avid gardener neighbors down the street sold their home 25 years ago. They sold it to someone who travels from their street parked car 5 meters to their front door.
Apparently the 25 year result of neglect of enormous garden beds is the beginning of a ‘trash’ tree forest.
Only the hydrangeas still survive.
I sometimes wonder if most of the people walking down the sidewalk are simply grateful for the shade on a hot summers day.
Based on the 200+ trash tree seedlings i root out every season from our own enormous garden beds, i believe i can see the future.
I think your idea is pie in the sky! The lawyers will make the money as you’ll have to set up a trust. Everyone else will have to make the decisions you find it difficult to make. Best to let it all be sold with the proceeds going to an appropriate charity. Or set the charity up now while you are alive & compos mentis (how about like Furzey gardens, or Godinton in Kent). Good luck! Nice idea but I don’t think it’ll work as it is.
My first thought was “fabulous idea!”, so it’s in a positive context that I wish you good luck in developing your thoughts. I refute the nay-sayers: all is possible with will, determination and passion… if you’ll forgive the pun, you clearly have those in spades! When I developed an arts centre in Cardigan a senior (highly paid) fool at the Welsh Arts Council told me dismissively that “it can never work – half your audience are fishes!” He’s long gone – Theatr Mwldan flourishes. Not entirely as envisaged, it must be said: but perhaps that’s a key point, that any such project must develop, change and find its own life force, building on but varying from its originators’ passion.
If you and Charles can both (and I think this is a vital element) share a vision for the garden’s future… well, surely setting up a charitable trust and seeking appropriate Trustees can be your starting point within your lifetime. Legal and financial advice is obviously required, but need not (in my experience) eat too much of the cake.
Please forgive the rambling discursive reply, but I think you raised one of the most interesting vistas yet for Veddw. Good luck!
Thank you. And the garden itself should never have happened either, based on common sense. Maybe a Trust might be an answer in a few years time.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, nothing lasts forever. Some things are more ephemeral, some less. Gardens are made by living beings, human or otherwise. For your garden to exist after you are gone, another being, probably human, must steward the land. Money can ensure the stewards are there, but that takes a LOT of money. Finding another young steward is more likely than finding that amount of money. I would urge you & Charles to search now for such a one. If you find one, the garden will become, after you and Charles die, not just theirs but both yours and theirs. May Veddw live long after you are gone.
We’re kind of hoping, though, that the young steward (new owner) would be no longer young by the time they inherit. Which would be a great shame and you have to hope they would have established a life elsewhere by then.
But there is no doubt it could become a business which would provide a livelihood.
If nothing else emerges we may make such a search in a few years time….
Thanks for your good wishes! Xx
Food for thought. Perhaps the sale of the property would attract the people you are looking for, i.e, buyers who love Veddw enough to commit to living and caretaking for another lifetime. The mortgage could then be forgiven providing the funding for upkeep.
Would we be alive in your scenario? We have no intention of ever leaving…(we’ll be buried in the woods.)