Frontgardens

You can tell a deceptive amount about a household from their frontgarden. This may sound like an obvious statement to make but its complexity struck me on a routine walk to the station.
I am very nosey, perhaps I verge on voyeuristic at points. As I walked along, I looked into garden after garden and started to make my (not nearly as superficial as you may think) judgements about the inhabitants beyond.
Firstly I want to make the distinction between intention and interpretation. Certain elements are strategically placed in a frontgarden for a specific purpose. The owners have tried to craft their initial welcome to the world, encouraging people to make certain, obviously favourable, decisions about them.
Spy the exotic flower arrangements, lovingly tended and watered. Yes, they exhibit beauty but they also make me wonder why someone would go to so much time and expense to create an oasis that serves no purpose other than to provide the proverbial passerby (me in this case) with something nice to look at. Frontgardens lack the privacy that back gardens willingly provide. You can enjoy your back yard. We do not live in Tennessee so, however attractive the idea of sitting on your porch glugging back copious amounts of bourbon all day is to you, it will never be a reality. Admit it, you would look pretty weird rolling out the sun lounger on your front porch and settling down for a satisfying spot of people watching. Although the JD may cure you of your inhibitions in a relatively short while.
So are these horticultural marvels an altruistic act whereby benevolent philanthropists bestow additional beauty to the world? No, thought not.
My theory goes right back to Elizabethan psychology which was probably informed and shaped by the good old Garden of Eden as so many things are. They used the garden as a metaphor for general wellbeing. Everything being rosy in the garden maybe a cliché but it has hidden depths. If our gardens are ordered and pleasant to look at, then we truly believe that people will assume that we actually know how to behave like sane human beings. They might even want to be our friends.
It's not just aesthetic pressures that we succumb to these days with our garden/facade: the ecofriendly culture grows with every breath. We have to have clear evidence on our front gardens that we toe the line re recycling. Whilst we want everyone to know that we are looking after our carbon footprint, this practice also illustrates how front gardens can start to communicate information about us that we would rather keep to ourselves. This is even better for my sticky beak- I get to see what papers/wine people consume. This definitely gives me a sound basis for character judgement if ever there was one.
What other nasties can the front of your house reveal? Unexplained packages on the doorstep? Moss in the crooks of your paving slabs? A defunct washing machine? Perhaps all of the above have symbolic value.
I have always had an obsession about net curtains. How can you not have them? As I walk down to the station, I can see people having dinner, watching television, picking their nose...How intrusive! It is the car crash mentality, or perhaps for me the moth going towards the light. I don't want to look but I just can't help myself. Why do people let so much of themselves be readily viewed by the outside world? I would feel as though I was on some sick, omnipresent version of Big Brother. If you don't have any form of blinds at present then invest, please, save me from myself.
Now you have finished reading, go and do what you have been thinking about for the last couple of paragraphs: have an objective perusal of your own front garden. What does it say about you? I've just looked- there is a dead frog on mine. Oh dear.