Welcome to startide's Member Page

See my Clippings        See my Journal        See my trade list        Send me an email

I devour books about gardening, talk about gardening, think about gardening, dream about all the incredible gardens I'm going to create next year . . . but when it comes to doing the work, I find that I have more passion than muscle!

I am happier outside in nature than anywhere else, and this patch of land is one of my favourite spots. We sit on a bluff facing the Atlantic ocean. The winds rip through so hard sometimes it yanks the trees up by the roots. The fog gets so thick you can't see past the back steps, and it stays for weeks at a time. The winters are long and tempermental, spring is late arriving and fickle, summer is short and unpredictable, and fall is just right but gone before I've ever had enough of it. Our soil is the stuff we find between the rocks and boulders, and what we have is acid and heavy. Days are rarely very hot, and nights are always cool, too cool for many plants to thrive. It's not the place of most gardeners' dreams, but it my place to be, and I could not love it more.

This is our first home, and this is my first gardening experience. I have a lot to learn. And everything I do must somehow be managed from a wheelchair. But there are tons of books and articles to read; and the folks here at Garden Web are always quick to help. The neighbours stop by with a tip or two. And there are always those big mistakes to teach me, too. I'm sure there will be no end of those. But in the end, I think it will be Mother Nature who will teach me best how to work with this land. After all, it's been her garden for a very, very long time.

She has never read a book, and as far as I know she hasn't yet posted at the forums. She uses no tools and does not order a thing from the glossy catalogues. She doesn't seem to mind the wind and rain and fog and cold one bit. In fact, she has raised as an extraordinary garden here without making one trip to the garden store. Heck, just on our land alone she lined a pond, a lake, and the seashore with a zillion different flowers; and she has filled a meadow, a bog, and a woods with far more plants than I could ever name.

I just want to add my bit. I'll have my fun with books and forums and experiments. But if my efforts come to anything, I think it will only be because I will have learned how to listen to Mother Nature!

I live in: Canada

My zone is: 6b Nova Scotia

First registered on April 24,2003.