How long have you been gardening

[Reinbeau]

What is your story? How did you come to gardening?

My great-grandmother was an herbalist, she was a german woman, her gardens were wonderful. I've actually got a peony out in my garden from her's. She lived in East China, Michigan. She raised my mother, and the gardening gene came through strong!

Mom really got into gardening just before my youngest brother was born, about 38 years ago. She loves herbs as well as perennial gardens, she grows old roses, just everything scented you can think of. She was the horticulturist at Plimoth Plantation for ten years, from 1980 to 1990. She's a 16th and 17th century kitchen garden expert, she used to travel with my father on some of his business trips, especially to England, where she'd research stuff in various garden history libraries in London.

I've lived in this house since I was first married, in 1978. I've got perennial borders, rhododendron gardens, woodland wildflower gardens, and a huge veggie garden I'm working on in the back yard. For years I had my veggie garden out front in raised beds because there was too much shade out back. Three years ago all of the trees went due to a septic system upgrade, so I had a clean slate to work with (unfortunately I lost my shade garden area, but I worked on moving most of the plants to the other side this fall, hopefully they'll all make it - I had trilliums that had been in the ground since 1986. I hope they make it!)

This spring I'm tearing out the front garden beds (raised, wood) and turning that area into a more formal herb garden. Here's a shot of the garden that's being reworked:

 

[poppycat]

Reinbeau, that is beautiful!

My dad dug a huge vegetable garden and then they got tired of it. I think I was about eleven or twelve when I was given full custody of it. I gardened it until I graduated from college and moved out.

I've gardened everywhere I've lived, even if it has been in the tiniest of yards. It's a compulsion, I think.

Last fall we spent every nickel we could scrape together on a big flat sunny acre. I started a small veggie garden and a row of raspberries last summer. I'm going to let it evolve slowly and see what happens...

 

[Southern Gardener]

Reinbeau,

How beautiful! What a great story about your great grandmother and mom. Looks like you've got the gene too!

Do you use a sprinkler system?

My maternal grandmother was a great gardener, beautiful perennial garden and veggie garden. My mom grew beautiful roses where I grew up and my sisters and I a small garden area just for us to plant what we wanted.

 

[Reinbeau]

No, no sprinkler system, not only that, we usually have a water ban that means hand-held only. I spend a lot of time out there with a hose in my hand! I'm hoping to sink a well, just for garden water. I wouldn't water my lawn, but I won't let my gardens go!

 

[Southern Gardener]

Wow, that's fantastic! The heat is so bad here in the summer, I struggle not to just give up sometimes. This past summer was terrible! I'm kind of obsessive about my lawn -I do have a well so I can afford to water.

 

[hsm5grls]

My parents divorced when I was 4 and the few memories I have of them together are of them in the garden. I think it was the only thing they had in common. They always had beautiful veg. gardens. They both still garden but of course not together LOL. It has always just been a family thing for me..A happy family working in the garden. I am now trying to grow enough to can for all our veg and fruit needs throughout the year. There is just something about walking through the garden with the girls to gather the vegetables for dinner and watching them munch on things as they go. Feels good.

 

[henrietta23]

I get my love of the garden from my maternal grandfather. He was of Dutch ancestry and used many old time ways. The smell of warm soil and drying herbs brings back strong memories. His garden filled the backyard. He had grape vines and asparagus and strawberries. among many other veggies. He also had a few fruit trees. My favorite had to be the new potatoes we would have when we visited in the summer. And he grew the most glorious gladioli I've ever seen.
I have been gardening since I was a newly-wed in 1990. I hated helping my parents in the garden as a kid. They had my brother and I pick out the rocks and weed. Ugh! Still hate that part. But now that the garden is MINE and I get to pick and choose what I grow, I enjoy it a lot more!

 

[silkiechicken]

Your garden is so pretty!

I've been gardening by myself for about as long as I have had chickens... 10 years or so? The 9 years before that I followed my aunt around her garden, and the two years before that I probably crawled in the dirt instead.

Mine never looks as good as yours...garden envy?

 

[sgtsheart]

I don't recall actually. I know as a child I was always planting whatever seeds I could get my hands on, in whatever type of container I found. I think planting things gave me a sense of permanence when I had none, being a military brat. As an adult I have lived in many places, but there's one thing I have always done. I make it a point to plant a tree wherever I live. So basically there are trees that I have planted from North Carolina to Arkansas. Haven't planted a tree here on the farm yet. Haven't made up my mind between a dogwood (would need lots of babying here, but possible), a sugar maple (same problem as the dogwood, maybe worse) or something more native to the area. I will definitely be planting a saucer magnolia if/when I get the seeds to grow from the old one, but that's more for the SO than myself...something that his grandma started that he can look at and appreciate every day.

 

[country freedom]

When I lived on my Pappa's farm as a young girl, I hated to walk the 2 large pastures to the family garden to weed and pick vegies and fruit--hot walk and no shade near! But in the yard, I had a small patch of various pretty little plants in half sun/half shade that my Dad let me keep--I think they were weeds or wildflowers. Thats where my interest in gardening started. I could choose what plants I wanted from around the farm and I would just dig'em up and replant in my little patch! I also had a teacher whose classroom was filled with long tables that students sat at for their desks and down the middle of these tables were filled with all kind of cacti and so many other kinds of greens and flowering plants--I was in BLISS!