My favorite garden memory was my dad showing me a Bleeding heart plant, and he took off one of the flowers and made ice skates from them. I must have been 3 or 4 years old, and I've never forgotten. I lost my dad last year, and I wish I could put a bleeding heart by his gravesite but he is buried in a Military Cemetery and the don't allow live plants, flowers left are picked up and destroyed in 2 days.

Alberta

I don't think kids are the same any more with their x-boxes, fast food, cell phones and texting each other all day.

When I was a kid, I was enchanted by my grandparent's garden in the Potomac Highlands. Built on a mountainside, the front yard was simple with a boxwood hedge, but the back garden had berries, cherries, grape arbors and flowers built on tiers ending at the edge of a mysterious wood. You could find all kinds of wonders there, Chinese lantern plants, a little pool with glass marbles in the bottom, and the smells of grandmas bar-b-ques of trout and hamburgers, potato salad and baked beans still seemed to linger in the air around the patio she made which seemed hugged by the mountain itself.

I have often imagined the hill behind the housecovered with lavender in flower. That's the kind of garden it was, like a French grandma's, but she wasn't French. Her name was Ruth Mansberry. An English name, I'd say.

That's where I learned about Mountain Laurel, green apples, chesnuts, and other cool things like kittens and witches.

Alberta I'm sorry about your recent loss and that you can't decorate the grave. I think that older cemeteries are cool being so unique.
Greengardener did you read my post on the pinwheels?
(ihategazingballs) I think its sad that what we had as kids(freedom)is lost I live on a busy corner, 55mph+ and am scared to let the 5 yr old out by himself- last year some drunken !$^&*%(rhymes with lasso)drove through our ditch and driveway,totaled our car that was parked there and took out a eight foot cedar fence. That's the same driveway my son plays in...thank God he was sleeping!! That all happened at 3 in the afternoon while I was at work!! Can you tell it still upsets me? As a kid I remember just being able to wonder were ever I wanted and not being afraid to talk to my neighbors who were usually old men!
B

It really is a shame we cant allow our kids to have the freedom we had growing up...Alberta is there a chance you could do a memorial garden for your dad at home ?or in the church yard ? I am sorry for your loss..

When I use to get to go to my grams, I was always soo interested in her next door neighbor..she had a small fenced in yard, WITH NO GRASS..LOL It was ALL flowers..and I would always want to see if she was outside and what she was working on...I really think she was the reason for me loving to garden.

I use to love to go to the local creek with " the boys", and catch toads, and walk thru the water with my shoes on and off...and go on adventures...nowadays my daughter wants to " hang with the boys" and I have to worry..

I remember going to my grandmothers house"she was polish>and did not speak american,she did all her cooking in the basement of the house and it always smelled so good, food cooking all the time,she had a cherry tree in the back yard and my sisters and i would climb way up and eat the cherries,getting all sticky and dirty,but we didn't care. Around the corner from our house was a big victorian home with a beautiful garden, if you came through the alley"do the younysters here know what an alley is>:0)you could crawl on your hands and knees and squeze into that yard unseen,there was a bed of lily-of-the-valley growing there that made you want to curl up and go to sleep,there was also a Koi pond with the most beautiful fantail fish i have ever seen in my life,it was my dream to one day have such a pond,the fish didn't look real they were so pretty,perfect for a young girls dreams and fancys,lay back and make shapes out of the passing clouds,playing out side when it rained and sitting on the porch playing with my dolls,ahhhh,those were the days my friends,it is nice how life brings you back,i now have that pond,and i am old enought now,with time, to lay back, and make shapes out of the clouds that pass by.Simple pleasures.Carol

One thing I love about gardening is the looks on children's faces when they get interested. There still are kids that get addicted to gardening at a young age, as I did.

Albertar, my dad passed away a couple of years ago and is also in a military cemetery. I was a bit of a pirate and stole some of his ashes from the urn at my mother's house, before he was interred. I still have them and am going to make him another memorial site. He taught me about making lawns from scratch and transplanting trees. He was good with trees, maybe because he was Irish.

Brandy: I love pinwheels too. Brings out the little kid in all of us. I can't resist the shiney foil, sparkley ones. I also remember a time when we kids were free to run far and wide, though we were warned against the boogie man--he didn't live so close back then!

Carol, you bring back such memories. I also used to gorge myself on fruit in my grandparents garden, eating through one section after another. I also loved sneaking into the Victorian gardens near by. Magical summers, especially in gardens with koi ponds. I just thought they were "big goldfish" back then, hiding under the lily pads.

So, do you all try to recreate a little of your childhood in your gardens?

You know, the talk about the cemetery and your father's that have passed reminded me of another memory. I lost my father several years ago and I created something for mom so she, as well as all of us, can remember him.

Years ago, my father and my uncle (my uncle and aunt had a lot of rural property, so plenty of trees and saplings to boot) dug up some saplings and transplanted them in our backyard when I was much younger. So, I remember the trees not being there. Well, over the years, age and some good storms, not to mention some lightning strikes, took its toll, and one of the trees had to come down. It did not seem right not having that tree there.

With the roots ground out and couple years of settling, I saw an opportunity for a nice new garden. Not to mention a way to keep dad's mark on that spot even thought the tree was gone.

So, I took some irises and hosta that were due to be dug up and divided anyway and added some modular block and created a nice little circle in memory of him. In addition to the hostas and iris, there are some mums and mom plants whatever else she wants to in there as well. Since dad served in the military, there are obviously American flags that fly in it year round just for him.

Just a little something for her to remember him and enjoy the yard at the same time.

I wonder if anyone else has done similar things?

I grew up on an island, and didn't really have that much interest in gardening at all. There were always hibiscus, crotons, ginger thomas and all kinds of other flowers around, but my grandmother grew FOOD. So easily - seems like she would stand at the back door and toss out a handful of seeds and stuff would grow. So my memories are of going out and picking pigeon peas, bananas, okras, avocados, soursop, mangoes, pomegranates and all kinds of other stuff .... and coconuts (from the shorter trees - never did get the hang of shimmying up those tall coconut trees). Or going out into the "bush" and gathering all kinds of native herbs, which were used for everything from eating to curing a stomach-ache.

But my best memories are of sitiing in the lower branches of the mahogany trees that flanked the road to our house, reading a book. I could lose myself for hours in those trees, reading until the sun went down and I couldn't see any more.

To this day, I can lose myself in reading .... just not in trees any more.

PV

I love reading all your memories,come on every one,more,more,more.

Interesting - where did you grow up, PVick? Someplace warmer than NYC, it seems!

My outdoor memories as a kid weren't really of gardening, but extended area games. I grew up in classic suburbia - there was a relatively small park, with woods you could certainly hide in, at the end of the street, and a few other patchy woodsy areas around. My small band of friends and I created elaborate stories and played them out. We were always "adopted kids" - in our childish ignorance, I think we thought that meant we could pretty much do anything and no one would care - obviously, none of us knew what being adopted meant. In the story, running through the woods often was running away from home, or from some danger. In the height of spy story television - The Man from Uncle, Mission Impossible, Get Smart - our stories evolved into spy stories, and always, always had written coded messages, which we hid around rocks and such, and hoped they wouldn't get intercepted by the "enemy". (Probably said such worthwhile things as "Joey is cute, but he is a spy" :))

Brandymulvaine has a point, though - that same park we traversed fearlessly as kids later on had problems with muggings, an occasional rape - truly a crying shame.

Born and bred in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Drippy.

Yeah, time marches on there too - my trees are still there, but lots of others are gone forever now, developed out of existence. And I don't think too many kids sneak off to the beach for a quick dip before supper any more. Shame.

PV

Being a military brat, I didn't have much gardening experiences, especially overseas. However, my grandparents always had a huge garden and I loved visiting them when they had it going. They grew everything and my grandmother canned it.

Sitting outside snapping beans, shucking corn...and if we were really good, Papaw would take us over to the grapevines and let us eat some grapes.

But my most favorite memory of their garden was my grandfather's sunflowers. He called them Sunshines.

My favorite memory? Picking worms out of my grandmother's compost pile to go fishing, sneaking out and eating sour, unripe grapes, even though we knew that she was watching and would punish us later. Shelling beans and peas. Throwing rocks at the cherry tree to scare away the birds, collecting chestnuts!

*sigh* The list goes on and on.

My favorite garden memories?

Going to Jamaica to visit my dad's family and going to Hope Gardens, where there were all kinds of plants I'm not even sure what they were. Just so many vibrant colors...it was total eye-candy; running through the Blue Mountains where my grandma lived and touching all the "sensitive plants" in a large patch of them, then running away to play for an hour or so until we were sure they had all opened up again, then we'd touch them all again.

A neighbor in the US who had a "club" for us kids, to keep us out of trouble. He grew "Money Plant" (Lunaria) in his back yard. The plant fascinated all of us kids in the late summer/fall when the "money" showed up on it. I sowed some on Solstice in memory of him.

My little brother finding a rat in my parents vegetable garden, picking it up and putting it on the swing, swinging it like it was his best friend...lol.

Linda

My favorite garden memories are of my grandmother and her garden. My mother and I lived on the first floor of my grandmother's house and I was always out in the backyard helping her in the garden, whether it be weeding, deadheading her portulaca's or watering the flowers late at night. I have some wonderful memories of her garden, she grew lots of perennials, delphiniums, salvia, veronica and the most extaordinary dahlias in the fall. There was a huge spirea bush in front of the house that looked like a bridal vail and I would pick strands of the white flowers and make a wreath for my head and imagine that I was a princess.

One of my most vivid memories are of the mock orange blossom bush, I would sit at the supper table in the early evening and with a warm breeze that bush scented the entire kitchen. I am winter sowing this bush as we speak.

After my grandparents passed away, my mother sold the house and the new owners paved over the entire property; I was heartbroken. At least I have my memories, I only wish that cameras were as prevalent back then as they are now, I would have probably taken lots of pictures of her garden.

Linda

I have endless garden related memories from childhood. My dad was a passionate gardener. My grandparents on both sides had vegetable and flower gardens on their farms. So I remember "hedge apples", Rose of Sharon dollies, nails under the hydrangea, elephant ears next to Gramma's porch (and now mine), a row of 4 o'clocks that Daddy prized because the colors mixed into streaks and splashes,playing with little cars under the hemlock tree whose branches reached all the way to the ground like a tent, reading while reclining on the wide branch of an apple tree, etc., etc.

But my very favorite memory is from a discovery I made in the side yard under one of Daddy's old dogwood trees. I have NO idea how I found it but there was a trapdoor spider who had a burrow there among the lily of the valley. I would lie on my stomach for hours watching the spider patiently wait for a bug to crawl nearby. Then he would jump out and catch the prey and drag it back into his lair, closing the little hinged door behind him. I thought that was the coolest thing I had ever seen! I can't tell you how much time I spent waiting for split seconds of action.

I'd like to think that I still look for the little things in my garden and appreciate the wonders nature provides.

I think anyone that lives in the south will understand my favorite memory. I had spent the night with my grandmother, the next morning I was helping her plant flowers. I was amazed at the black dirt (I imagine it was potting soil) that she was using to plant the flowers. I had never seen black dirt before (this is the part anyone from the south should understand). I was so amazed that she gave me a shoe boxed filled with the dirt to take home. LOL, come to think of it that may be why I'm still thrilled when anyone gives me potting soil. For the past several years I have asked my husband and kids for miracle gro for Christmas this year I got 4 large bags (plenty to use for winter sowing).

Ginger

Does anyone remember the smell of lilacs coming in through the old screen windows? That smell always make me go back.. OMG the smell of childhood... the neighbor lady had a huge lilac bush that we had a base in, yes we played spy games too! The smell of Dames Rocket-I have a huge patch of it now but it took me forever to identify my memory, you know? like the old fashioned impatiens(balsam) I loved to play with those!! But I always called them snapdragons as a kid. Thank God for the internet or I would have never figured it out!!-B-

My father is a forester and grew up on a dairy farm. So while we had a huge vegetable garden and lots of trees, we never planted any flowers. I use to beg and plead with my parents to buy flowers to grow and they never wanted to. What was the use of flowers? You can't eat them.

Well I saved up some money (under $10) and sent away for some deal from Brecks (the kind they advertise in the Sunday paper)for hundreds of Darwin Hybrid tulip bulbs. When they arrived my dad and I dug a circular bed for them and I planted them in a bullseye design. The next spring they came up so nicely even my parents were impressed. They are still coming up in our gardens today.

There were 9 children in our family and I was the first girl after 5 boys. During all pregnancies, my mother spent a considerable time in the hospital.

Even though I didn't get to spend too much time with her in my really early years, there is one thing I remember. Despite the fact that we lived in the countryside, she had but a very small garden up against the house. The plant which dominated this garden was Phlox Paniculata, and when they came in bloom, she and I would sit on the ground next to the garden and just smell those Phlox!! We would close our eyes and just smell...

Now she lives on good acreage and if you go to my parents home in late July, you will smell the Phlox before you see them, and when you see them, you stand in awe. The plantings are huge and flow from one garden to another.

Last summer we found ourselves laying on the ground next to one of the gardens smelling the Phlox once again and even though our ages were respectfully 50 and 85, for a moment we were 5 and 40 all over again.

I don't know if this memory is my favorite - indeed my first dahlia may have been my favorite - but this memory certainly had the most lasting effect. Two university degrees probably started with this grandmother's demonstration.

My grandmother took a Ball (Mason) jar and filled it with dirt and stuck some beans and corn down between the glass and the dirt and showed me how the roots went down in both cases but the beans came up and split and the leaves opened above the soil whilst the corn roots went down and the leaves came up from the grains of corn below the surface of the soil.

Tiffy, that is so beautiful...to think of you and your mama sniffing the phlox!

I have to agree with running with the neighborhood kids without fear of anything except maybe the kids at the other end of the alley-they put rocks in their mud balls sometimes when we "fought" Funny-I saw some of those kids again recently & we laughed so hard about that!

My world was in town with a huge backyard, that now I realize really wasn't so big, but it was big when it was our world!

Sneaking tastes of the chive plants

Flicking ants off of the neighbor's peony buds. (I still have to stop myself from doing that on mine!)

Trying to grow strawberries-they covered 1/4 of the yard & the birds & ants got most of them!

The scent & taste of honeysuckle on a warm summer night & the mint patch. When I married & got my own garden, my uncle gave me some mint plants from his garden. I thought he was being so generous, but he just said "wait, you'll see!" I did! And I was worried about it filling in....!

The plants in my garden from friends old & new-the cactus & marigolds from the lady at the shore, the peonies & iris' from a former neighbor, I could go on!

As for memory gardens, after my mother died a few years ago I decided that some physical work was good, so I started prepping a new bed in my woodland garden. By the time I started planting, it had become a memory garden for the family & naighbors that were gone. I chose at least one plant for each person-either one of their favorites, or something in their favorite color. One of my favorite choices was for a neighbor who enjoyed German beers-a hop plant!

Mine is of my grandmother's small garden/orchard. She had a peach tree, pomegranite and fig tree. she wasn't the most loving grandma, so we used to sneak in there and pick the fruit and hide under the trees, behind the flowers. I remeber she had geraniums, and lots of zinnias. I might have been about 4-5, but I remember eating that juicy, sweet fruit and peaking out from behind the flowers to see if grandma was coming. Like I said, she wasn't the most loving grandma, so we knew that she would be mad if she found my brother and I in her garden. But,those are the best memories for me!

I also grew up on a dairy farm with a huge vegetable garden. On the way to the pasture to bring the cows home for milking we would stop in the garden and choose a ripe melon, break it open on the fence post and eat it as we followed the cowpaths. Too many memories are of pulling weeds and picking beans. How happy we were near the end of the summer when Mom would say 'Next time you pick the beans pull a couple of plants and throw them into the pasture.' Dad planned and planted but we kids and Mom did all the work.

Best memory was visiting my grandmother and stringing poppy petals for necklaces and bracelets.

We always had a vegetable garden growing up. When I'd ask my Mom for a snack during the summer, she'd tell me to, "Go outside and pick something."

My sister and I each had our own little patches of garden (separate from the main garden.) My sister grew carrots and zinnias and I grew sunflowers. One year the septic tank overflowed. I had the hugest sunflowers! We didn't eat the carrots or sunflower seeds that year!

Our family always had a vegetable garden and Mom's Rose garden growing up.
My earliest fun memories were when my Mom let me sow seed tapes for carrots, that was cool. Also, my parents had a friend in town who had flower gardens and she pressed flowers,I was really impressed with her passion flowers as she explained the religious meaning. To this day I press flowers and make cards never forgetting Miss Deutsch.

I have lots of good 'garden' memories, but the one that I will tell you about right now is about my poor mom! :) One summer day my mom was out working in the side garden. Because it was so hot and she was trying to keep the hair out of her eyes, she tied a red ribbon around her head.....now this was long ago before 'colour-fast' anything, so at the end of the day when she went to clean up and wash her hair, the red ring stayed in her hair. Poor mom! we laughed so hard and never let her forget it! we had a neighbour who had a hairdressing business in her house so my mom was able to go over and have the colour stripped out of her hair, but she was sure horrified until she found out that she could have that done.
Other memories are of my dad's veggie garden and my little row where he let me plant long white radishes; the huge red currant bush that was the shelter for the rabbits that had a little home under it. I used to pick the currants and hope that the bunnies would come out.

My first garden was a row of carnival colored zinnias, bordered by clam shells each one with a letter from my name painted in fingernail polish.

There was also a small evergreen in the front that had a few sparkly bits of blue Christmas ornaments under it. Those were my favorite things in my own yard.

I do have a memory of seeing summer annuals for sale for the first time. It was on the roof top of a department store building near Washington, DC. They use to have parking up there and I guess sold plants there as well. It was probably a Sears and Roebuck, or Montgomery Wards.

I remember the cobalt blue of lobelia and the charmed orange and mahogany of marigolds faces. I didn't know their names them, and I'm sure I was simultaneously being dragged away by my busy parents, but I still remember those colors on that hot roof top!

Then later I saw marigolds again dotting a walkway into my great grandmother's regal house. I wanted to kiss each face of those flowers, but once again was being dragged along behind a parent. They were always too busy for flower kissing.

Later, though, my mom taught me to save the seeds of marigolds, and I still do.

Oh thanks for a good post.

My favorite garden memory growing up is my dad showing us how to garden (we moved around a lot as he was in the Air Force) but he always tried to grow something like tomatoes in containers.
My dad is dead now but I still feel connected to him when I grow veggies in my garden.

Another memory is visiting my grandparents in the summer and eating raspberries from the bushes in their yard, something that we missed moving around so much. Yum!

tansy: Marking plants with clam shells sound like a cute idea. When my son was little he used to collect sea shells and sand dollars on summer vacations to Florida and Hilton Head. We had a big box of them somewhere. My son is now grown and long gone, but I'd bet that box of shells is somewhere in that black hole that used to be his bedroom.

If I can find that box and enough shells are still intact, I might try that on some plants this year. Thanks for the idea.

Karen

Hi, Karen:
I've seen some pretty gardens using seashells afixed to birdbaths and containers. Even if they are crumbled, they make really pretty additions to paths. They stay bright white and are very durable.
There is a plantation somewhere in my area where the whole front drive is crushed seashells. It was a bright white path, very pretty on a summer day, even after a 100 years.

I read somewhere that crused seashells in the soil and around plants can protect them from slugs, snails and other type predators. Not sure how effective it is.

I also read the calcium in the shells is good for the soil.