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...what got us all into gardening?

- Do you love gardening?
- Does your spouse make you do it?
- Does it give you a sense of accomplishment?
- Is it just something that gets you outdoors?

For me, I think it's a combination of reasons.
How about you?

I love it. My mom always had a huge gardena dn she loved flowers, except marigolds. Marigolds are my favorite flower. She called them stink weeds. I love the smell.

Owie - Sounds like it's in your genes, then. Same for me, except my Dad was my influence.

I grew up gardening as my parents had a large garden and grew almost everything we ate. From an early age I picked rocks, weeds, currants, and raspberries reluctantly, and strawberries, apples, plums, carrots, peas, and beans more willingly. I always enjoyed picking flowers and that's mostly what I grow now, partly because I'm in a colder climate but also because I know how much work a veggie garden is and can't be bothered.

I mostly garden because I love the look of a pretty flower garden! I can't say I really like the hard work (less the older I get) but I like being outdoors and it does give me a sense of accomplishment. Besides it's good exercise! LOL

Wow, Lucky - what a wonderful upbringing you had.

For me, my Dad was a florist by trade. That meant we always had fresh cut flowers in the house, and flower gardens that were well tended.

Grandfather had veggie gardens way back when and I helped. Also, used to go to my great aunt's and quiz her what were the names of her flowers. Around 6 or 7 maybe younnger. So gardening fascinated my at a young age.

good question. it made me stop and think. i've never been a gardener but back in 2002 i decided i wanted to grow vegetables. so i tore up half of the back lawn.. which was a lousy lawn and no big loss. i dug it all up myself and added about 16 cu ft bags of soil amendments and made a center raised bed with beds bordering 3 sides. i bought a bale of straw and made the path around what looked to me like a grave plot for the giant in jack and the beanstalk.

the first year i mainly grew tomatoes, corn, green beans, sugar snap peas and carrots. following year i added potatoes. 3rd year i turned the beds sideways and put in pumpkin instead of potatoes. i think the 4th year there was no garden of any kind. by the 5th year i was tired of veggies and wanted flowers instead.

my neighbor was tearing out his brick patio to make a concrete one.. and had a flat bed truck out front to haul the old bricks to the dump. i was horrified and, with his ok, salvaged as many as i could.. even tho i had no idea what i was going to do with them. i schlepped them all into the back yard, stacked them in piles and left them until something inspired me.

one day i started fooling around by leveling the veggie beds and laying bricks down in its place. i replaced the 'giants grave' with two 4' round beds for flowers in what evolved into a little brick courtyard. it was a kitty wampus laid one.. and still is. i never went back to do it right.

every year it changes.. from veggies.. to flowers.. to shrubs so i don't have to buy new flowers every year.. back to wanting flowers again. i did the shrubs to save myself labor and expense and thought that i would be done for the rest of my life. HA. that got boring and i went back to wanting flowers. now i know i will never be 'done'. each year i try different things and that is the joy of gardening.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bana,

quote:

Originally posted by jmchab:
... So gardening fascinated my at a young age.

Lucky you!
With my somewhat recent retirement, and diminishing family obligations, I find that I have the time to "dig in" and beautify our gardens. We had sun this afternoon, and that made it all the more pleasant for me.

back to front.. corn, tomatoes, sugar snap peas. right.. green beans

LOL, Bana! Your first paragraph wore me out!

I admire your drive. You must be out there for hours on end. I sort of work in spurts. An hour on this, 30 minutes on that. It all adds up though. Things are starting to look good here.

'courtyard' & flower circles 2007

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bana,

quote:

Originally posted by bana:
back to front.. corn, tomatoes, sugar snap peas. right.. green beans

Yum! Much tastier than daylillies!

shrubs phase 2010

2 years later.. neighbor pulling out the back shrub...

and today.. empty bed on left is where i took the daylilies out.

and thats my story to date.

THE END.

Bana - your flower circles remind me of pictures I've seen in Sunset Magazine.

thanks for putting up with me, ricearoni. the circles are those curved brick edging. i think it took 4 to make a 4' circle.. and because of the curve i didn't have a choice of the size of the circle.

how about some pictures of your beloved garden(s)?

There's nothing much to show here. I'm in the middle of re-juvenating the back and front lawns, pruning mostly neighbor's overhanging growth, trimming shrubs, and nursing those daylillies.

Oh, and hovering over orchid plants that we were given.

I feel good about what I've done, but I have a long way to go!

that's the joy of it, ricearoni... letting the garden speak to you about what it wants and needs... and enjoy doing it. it really is a work in progress.

bana, do you still have the purple chair in 'shrubs 2010? i love it!

I started gardening when married DH. He bought me my first house plant and when we bought our first house we planted seeds for tomatoe plants. Put them out and on Memorial Day they all got frozen out with a snow storm!! (Joys of living in Colo)
We replanted and then planted roses. I've been hooked ever since!
I love it and it is good for the mind body and soul!!
Great pics bana

quote:

Originally posted by Barb in Mississippi:
bana, do you still have the purple chair in 'shrubs 2010? i love it!

alas, no i don't. the paint was not weather proof and came off in big flakes. i planned to repaint it... you know how that goes but when i saw the bottom of the legs rotting, i decided it was trash time. it came from a resale shop for $5 so i think i got my moneys worth. maybe someday i will do one like it. i will pm you a close-up of it in case you want to copy the colors yourself.

quote:

Originally posted by Ricearoni:
Wow, Lucky - what a wonderful upbringing you had.

For me, my Dad was a florist by trade. That meant we always had fresh cut flowers in the house, and flower gardens that were well tended.

Ricearoni, as a child it didn't always seem wonderful when my parents expected me to pick a bucket of rocks from between the veggie rows, or when I had to pick raspberries and always got a rash on my arms. I hated it but helping was expected. Now I realize how that instilled a good work ethic in me.

It must have been wonderful to have a Dad who created beauty every day as his job. My Dad had a small rose garden (about 6-8 plants) and he showed me at an early age how to deadhead. I felt very 'special' as no one else was allowed to touch his roses. I also loved when Mom asked me to pick a bouquet for the house. For me veggies have always seemed like work and flowers like play altho I've since learned soil building is always work!

Bana, thanks for showing the evolution of your lovely garden. What a lot of work to lay all those bricks but well worth it for the results.

For years we moved frequently with DH's job so my gardening was limited to trying to improve the curb appeal of the house without spending too much money. As a result I focused more on house plants and sometimes had more than 70 at a time. My biggest problem with indoor or outdoor gardening is that I like to propagate so end up with too many plants. I'm now trying to curb this!

I'm still on the learning curve with my new computer so can't yet post my new pics.

Lucky - I know about inheriting that work ethic gene - a blessing and a curse at times.

Re: your house plants - do you specialize at all? Orchids? Succulents? Or do you like having a variety?

Ricearoni, I didn't really specialize altho at one time did have every color of African Violet I could find. When we lived in Europe my DH learned there was a tradition for men to buy their wives a plant every Friday and he did that until I had no more places to put them! Luckily we had large windows with wide granite windowsills that I filled with plants. So I had every variety of house plant that the stores sold! Of course I had to give them all away when we returned to Canada and start my plant collection all over again.

Orchids are one of the few I never grew as they were expensive and not sold everywhere as they are now. I gave up houseplants when we retired and started traveling and they were too much bother.

Those are great memories, Lucky. Thanks for sharing them.

What fun reading all the garden stories! Wonderful memories to be sure...sometimes I ponder that based on my faith life began in a garden and we are therefore predestined to find peace and fufillment by taking care of plants and creating our own Garden of Eden's.....

quote:

- Do you love gardening?
- Does your spouse make you do it?
- Does it give you a sense of accomplishment?
- Is it just something that gets you outdoors?

===================

I'd say i LIKE gardening. Don't know if I LOVE it.
It's something creative to do and I like the color of flowers, and gardening blends both those worlds. I do get a sense of accomplishment to some extent. I love looking at all my pots and the couple of beds I have and see how pretty everything looks....or what I could add if I had space, or making changes if a particular plant doesn't work out.

I'm NOT so into that it's my number one thing to do. I weed I repot, I water. I'm all about easy care, hardy plants, that don't take much work for the result you get.

My Mom grew up on a farm, but never really gardened herself. But we had a plant ot two in the house and every summer I'd go to the grandparents family area in SC, where cousins fished, took out the cows, slopped pigs, killed hogs and chickens etc. SO I knew ABOUT gardening landscaping and farming.

Gardening/landscaping was new to me personally when I bought my house 11 years ago...and I sort of just got into it. Other homeowners had pretty yards and I thought I can do that.

One year I was in my teens and thought I'd make a gardening for my mom. Well the yard was all grass. I planned an 8x8 area. Little did I know all the work it would take. I worked a half a day trying to dig of the grass. That's as far as I got. Too much work for me.

I didn't even THINK about gardening/landscaping again until I bought my house, and beds were already in place. Everything else I do is in pots.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: clbselah,

quote:

Originally posted by GreenAlice:
What fun reading all the garden stories! ....

Agreed, Alice. It's fun to see our different influences. I'll bump this up to see if we can get others to post.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by clbselah:
...Gardening/landscaping was new to me personally when I bought my house 11 years ago...and I sort of just got into it. Other homeowners had pretty yards and I thought I can do that.
QUOTE]

I had a next door neighbor (she's passed on now) who was an influence on me. She adored nature and had quite a green thumb - both for produce and for flowers. Whenever I wanted/needed gardening advice she was very willing to offer it. She was a good inspiration, and even with her advancing age she continued to kneel over and fuss with flower beds, etc.

Another farm girl here...from a long line of farmers, so I guess it's in my blood. I just don't feel right if I can't get my hands into dirt.
As a kid, even before I was big enough to hold a hoe I had to help. My grandmother made hole with a stick & put the tomato plants in them & it was my job to fill the hole with water & push dirt into the hole. I had to lug a water can along that was almost as big as me! But I thought it was fun! It wasn't near as much fun when my hand fit the hoe...but it had to be done if we wanted to eat all winter.
I also had to help milk the cows, slop the hogs, feed the chickens, gather the eggs & put hay in the barn. And I even got a taste of picking corn by hand before we got a corn picker...a 2 row one! And we put up loose hay before we could afford to have it baled too.
But there always seemed to be time to fish in the summers & throw a game of horseshoes. And I was pretty good at taking off on my bike all day long too if there wasn't anything that HAD to be done.
I was really good at picking strawberries...one for me, one for the basket, two for me, one for the basket! Wonder I ever got enough for grandma to make jam with! But I just hated picking cherries! You had to check those real good or you would eat a worm!

Love reading all these stories...interesting the way so many came to the joys of gardening.

Bana, I really really like the 2007 look of your garden. I think that picture is awesome!

Add me to the list of those born into gardening. Lifestyle was pretty much like GaKarens.......either you grew what you ate or else you went hungry. So gardening was a part of my life from my earliest memories. Instead of cherry picking, for me it was blackberry picking. Black snakes liked to lay up in the vines.....be careful or that plump blackberry might be the plump head of a black snake.


ve

Folks, I'm loving your personal gardening and farming histories. I am such the city girl - always was, likely will always be, so I'm finding your stories fascinating. Thank you VE (yike! snakes!) and Karen.

Going to bump this up again. I love the stories too.
VE yike snakes is right. I hate them but like what they do so leave them alone.
Keep up the great stories.

Got my first house and first backyard to play in! Good things come to those who wait....
Yes, I love the "country stories" ~ very interesting! So foreign to me, the bonafide city girl! Two people mentioned "slopping the pigs" - "Excuuuuuuuse Me? I'm used to places with stores and restaurants on every block and NO SNAKES or other wild creatures! (I was excited to learn we have raccoons and opossums & Cardinals here - never saw them before where I lived!)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Wavy,

quote:

Originally posted by Wavy:
Got my first house and first backyard to play in! Good things come to those who wait....
Yes, I love the "country stories" ~ very interesting! So foreign to me, the bonafide city girl!

LOL there's time for you yet Wavy! ;D Even tho I grew up gardening my parents only had one acre of land and I always considered myself a confirmed city girl. Have lived in large cities and high-rise apts and love many aspects of the city life. However after we had been married awhile we began to dream about living rurally and having animals, etc. So we made that dream come true altho never had pigs - don't like them! So I'm still a country girl because of where I live but may go back to being a city girl eventually.

Congrats on the first house and yard - I know you are having fun with it and that's what life is about IMO.