How to raise a kid the right way

15 years ago

Early Spring:

5 year old son comes home from pre-school "Mom, all of the daffodils are blooming"

Husband comes home from work later that day "What are all of those yellow flowers?"

Yesterday:

Assigning some watering tasks to my "Staff" Please water those 2 small containers over there.

Husband "Those red and pink flowers?"

Son "You mean the dianthus?"

Just doing my job.

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Comments (12)

cincy_city_garden
15 years ago
And a good job at that. Your post reminded me of my grandmother, who would explain to me all of the different plants in her backyard, and my father, who would tell me all the names of the plants on our nature hikes. I was probably the only kid in my class who new what ajuga, a flowering quince, or a mayapple looked like :)

I'm impressed, pretty sure I didn't know what dianthus were at 5. Keep up the good work!

Eric
triple_b
15 years ago
I am TRYING to instill an interest or at least a passing knowledge in plants to my family, wether they like it or not. ;o)
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well_rooted
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I used to plant a toddler on my hip and walk around the garden pointing out all the pretty flowers.

Now that they are in their twenties, it has been great to hear lines like "This house has a backyard and I want to grow something." - from oldest son at age 20. Also: "I can't find any basil in Azerbaijan. Can you send me some seeds so I can grow my own?"

From daughter, in Edinburgh - "I want to plant some daffodils in the backyard."

Youngest son brought home mint plants from the grocery store, potted them up and took them to university with him, for mint tea.

And that's just a few comments.
paddlehikeva
15 years ago
My daughter turns 27 tomorrow. I am proud to say she is as addicted as I am. She is named after a rose. Her father had given my a rose for my birthday when I was pregnant. It still had the tag on it when I was weeding around it. I named her Tiffany Rose.

{{gwi:291553}}
Kathy
jljohnson740
15 years ago
Great stories!! My husband several years ago was working in the Bahamas. I went down for about 5 weeks and left my son..in college and home for the summer in charge of the garden. I fed a lot of birds and at the time didn't have enough sense to forfeit any seed that had corn in it...I no longer do that.
Anyway, we came home...I opened the gate to the flower garden to find huge stalks of wild corn(where the birds had dropped it) growing everywhere!!! He'd watered well but didn't know a daisy from a hosta and he thought they were some kind of flower!!!! Believe me...we rooted them out and of course finally had a pretty good laugh after all. My grandkids know ALL the flowers in my garden...ha haaa...one lives and learns!!! :))))
hoovb zone 9 sunset 23
15 years ago
When my nephew was 4 he followed me around the yard talking a mile a minute--I noticed my sister and her husband had oddly vanished and left me with little motor mouth. He asked me "what's this plant?"
"Limonium perezii."
"What's that?" "Rosa 'Tradescant'"
"What's that?"
"Bougainvillea 'San Diego Red', also sold as 'Scarlett O'Hara'"

After covering just about every plant in the yard. I gave him all the common and botanical names, and all the rose names, all I could until I was ready to scream. He didn't have much to say about any particular plant, just kept asking, "What's that?"

Finally I ran out of plants and went and found my sister who was sitting on the patio happily drinking a beer in silence with said Husband. They were getting some quiet time at my expense.

Two years passed, they came to visit again, nephew was a little shy at first when I met them at the airport, we get in the car and are driving home and this little voice comes from the back seat, "Aunt Gail, how is the Limonium perezii?"

I was impressed he remembered that! They pick up more than you expect, don't they?
alisande
15 years ago
Way to go, everyone! I think it's interesting how different children respond differently to the same stimulusÂif we can call this a stimulus.

With my three grown kids, one daughter became my partner in the garden, knowing all the names of the plants and becoming thoroughly involved. My other daughter might be able to differentiate a rose from a lupine, but I wouldn't put money on that. And my son, while not involved, is interested and a great appreciater. I'll always remember a moment when, as a teenager leaving the house to go hang out with his friends, stopped the group of boys to point out to them a display of blazing blue delphinium. I'm sure no one ever pointed out such a thing to them before!
judith5bmontreal
15 years ago
Unfortunately, I came to gardening late in life, when my boys were already grown. Occasionally, they will humour me, and take a short tour to admire and smell the roses, but only if I ask, never because they are drawn by the beauty of it all LOL I am putting all my hopes on the future grandchildren:)
Judith
greenhaven
15 years ago
redsox, and what a good momma you are, lol! These ARE great stories. hoovb, I am quite impressed with your nephew!

My older son is like alisande's; he is interested and appreciative. I have a Chihuly in a pot near the drive where he gets in and out of his car. I haven't decided where to put it yet. It had three blooms on it the other day when he got home from work, and I watched him get out of the car and go "Ooohh!" He crept over to it to smell it and I giggled at him through the screen. He said "Everytime I come home it seems like I have a new favorite. But I think this one really is!"

He's 17. I hope it sticks.
kandaceshirley
15 years ago
my 16 year old son will occassionally correct me on plant or rose names and I never even thought he'd been listening - he's not my volunteer weeder or planter! he's already starting to design his flower beds for his house when he buys his first house ("ten billion columbines", dragon named plants, jude the obscure, toad lilies - in a japanese themed garden for zone 4-5).
zeffyrose
15 years ago
I guess my love of gardening really did rub off on my two children--they both love gardening.

My son is now 54 and is a Landscape Architect with a Perrenial garden Center-----
I visited him when he was a student at Penn State and as we walked around the campus he named every plant and bush by their latin names.

My daughter is a nurse and she also has a lovely garden. --

this is a great post----

Florence
teka2rjleffel
15 years ago
I love this post. I followed my father around the garden. It was only a veggie garden, but at a very young age I knew the different plants by leaf form.
My daughter has no interest. I keep giving her yellow rose plants. They struggle. I recently gave her a Julia Child. She called the other day and told me that it had 10 buds on it. She was excited. She is 33, but you never know, the bug might hit some time. She also admired my Australian Tree fern.
Nancy

How to raise a kid the right way

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