Hmmm...you ask the question, but what's your story? :-)

My obsession has been steadily increasing my whole life (53 years old)!

Growing up in the 1950's and 60's -- my grandmother's front and side yard were completely cottage garden, before the term was in use! She had a little 4 room bungalow. Every evening, during growing season, she took me through the garden and told me about each rose, perennial or annual. She also had a veggie garden out back. When I bought my first house in the 1970s, I began gardening with passalong plants from family and friends.

In 1990, I built a house in the woods. I finally could also afford to go out and buy some plants and got hooked on natives and daylilies. I bought most of my plants from Lilywell Flower Farm outside Hillsborough and learned a lot from Corrine, the owner. I lived at that house until 2002 when I remarried.

In 2003, my DH and I built what we thought would be our forever home, but found 1/2 of an acre just wasn't enough room for gardening after we planted like crazy people. (He has a major in forestry and wildlife, but uses his MBA for his job).

In 2005, we built the current house on 4.5 acres and I am outside most all day long, weather and energy permitting. Being retired now, I have lots of time to devote to a full-time gardening passion! If I'm not planting, I'm planning, reading, enjoying the garden, providing plants for my customers and (of course) spending some time on the forums.

I know that's a longer story than you wanted, but I was influenced and educated by others and the gardening bug progressed accordingly.

Cameron

Mine started not long after moving into my first(current) home almost ten years ago. It wasn't so much having the empty yard as having my mom and MIL who had the bug at the time. I enjoyed their gardens and wanted to buy plants for my mom as a gift. I started reading up on perennials and shopping for her and my interest just blossomed from there. I found I enjoyed being outside and working and that there was almost no limit to the reading and dreaming I could do with this new hobby.

My Dad is retired Air Force now, but I fell in love with the Japanese gardens while living overseas as a child for seven years.

Mom and Dad always allowed me to put in a tiny little flower garden in each yard of the many homes we moved to. I have had a garden ever since ... Little by little, the lawn disappears, and flowers, shrubs, trees ....

I am starting to get the itch to move though. I think I'd like to start all over again with a bigger, better plan! hehehe

Mine started when my mom moved into her first house. The neighbor across the road had a beautiful bed of tulips and it was spring. We had daffodils coming up, there was a cherry tree in the back yard and a strawberry patch on the side of the house. I fell in love then and haven't looked back. That's been about 37 years now.

60+ years it has just been in my blood - Mom always had a flower garden and Daddy a huge vegetable garden - grandparents on both sides were farmers.
Gardening did take a back seat while trying to get 2 kids who were active in competitive skating to all their lessons, practices and skating meets while holding a parttime job to help pay for it all but it never really left me - I still had a yard full of flowers - they just weren't taken care of and I grew more weeds than flowers. My dream was to have an acre or more of land and spend 24/7 on the gardens. I am doing that now and having the time of my life......

Lynne

V...E....R......Y gradually! My Daddy was a wonderful gardener but he had some wildly antique ideas - Mama wasn't allowed to work outside in the yard because it would make him look bad. (HUH???) And, of course, as a child of the female persuasion I was also not encouraged to work in the yard. ???

And then I got married and moved away. And in Germany I had a window box. With petunias. And then in Italy I had a wide windowsill with lots of interesting plants. And then...

In NY I had a yard. I was sick by then and unable to do much but I did plant some things and tried to care for the roses that were there. Yeah...right along in there somewhere I got bit.

Then California! Everything was easy. I had roses in December. I had impatiens that never died. I had NO gardening equipment...until I mailed myself my mother's electric lawn mower (another story) but I kept trying.

And then...Atlanta. And ordering little plants by mail. Oh my. When they first arrived I thought I had been really taken. They looked DEAD. But they weren't. I gave them a decent burial in my flower bed and they LIVED!! And bloomed and procreated and all that. I had massive, gorgeous flowering displays. Wow. Amazed even me.

Then I moved to SC. And into a fully landscaped - rather formal - yard. At least in front. I spent outrageous amounts of time pruning. (sheesh) I will never really love boxwood. But in back I let my dogs run for half a year and put down paths where they had made spaces...I planted native plants to deal with the ridiculous springs that were EVERYWHERE. And I was TOTALLY bitten. Hostas!! Birches!! Bear's breeches!!! Woo hoo!

Now I'm just rabid. I've moved out to the country to a place with room for anything I can think of. And I can't stop. Every day off...every moment I can get. I just have to be out there. I can't believe the state of my house (I used to be a tidy housekeeper!) Now...I just want to play in the dirt...leave me alone...I can't hear you!

It must be a sickness!

I always wanted to garden. I got it from Granny, I guess. She had an amazing green thumb and was always working in her flowers. I had container plants on my decks and patios most of my life, but didn't really get 'bit' until I had my first house with a yard - then I went nuts. It was a little yard but I put mixed perennial borders anywhere I could and had a ball. We just moved to Durham and I'm just getting started on the yard here which is much bigger (YAY!) and shady - fortunately I love shade plants. And lindakimy - I hear you about the housekeeping. I spend every minute I can in the garden and the house has to take care of itself.

Mine started when I was little (in the 80's) after seeing my grandmother's garden. She lived in NJ and when we traveled to see her in the summer she always had huge sunflowers and snapdragons. I know there were dozens of other plants, I just don't remember any but those.

I worked in a greenhouse as a teenager and my grandmother moved here around 1993. I helped her in her garden as her health failed and she couldn't climb the steps down to the garden. She'd give me a list, send me off to the greenhouse, and direct me from her porch on where each plant should go. I also got my love of cooking from her.

I have a New Dawn rose my grandmother brought to NC from NJ. When she died, I dug it up and brought it home. Here's a picture.

Heather

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I started about 6 years ago when I started to go stir crazy from being a stay at home mom. Hence, my moniker Dirtrx- "Dirt Therapy". Gardening gave me an outlet without commitment. I could do ten minutes or two hours whatever I had to spare. My mom is a big gardener. She always had a garden. I think I avoided gardening because all I remembered from childhood was digging potatoes and carrots in the heat.
I was notorius for buying plants and then letting them die still in their six pack. DH called them my Darwin plants- survival of the fittest! Then I got involved with the plant swaps and had a chance to experiment. I also found the wintersowing forum. Gardening is no longer my method of survival but an beautiful obsession. Shannon/Dirtrx

My mom always loved to garden and she tried to inspire both my sister and me, but we were having none of it during our "formative" years. Then I bought a house, in 1997, and it was overgrown and uncared for but you could tell that it used to have a loving gardener for an owner. My mom was a great resource and I found that once I started to garden I was hooked. I loved spending the day clearing overgrown weedy eyesores and seeing beautiful brown dirt (back in MA it was brown, not this red clay stuff) waiting for me to make it beautiful again. And while I was a novice, it was so easy for me to improve my garden by planting anything, because it was ugly before I started, that once I started, there was just no stopping me. Then my sister bought her house and the same thing happenend to her. Now the three of us, although we live in Florida (Mum), NC, (me) and MA (my sister), now we are all avid gardeners!!

I had a rough time last year because both of my girls were so young that it was hard to devote any time to my garden last year, but this year they are so excited to help me water everything, that it's actually fun to garden with them this year. Plus every time my Mom comes to visit she is always teaching my girls the names of all the different plants and flowers and I'm pretty sure she's reeling in another generation!!

Some day, I might like to do a vegetable garden, but for right now, I am all about flowers, shrubs and other perrenials.

Also, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one whose interior has suffered now that the weather is better!! My house used to be clean, now it' "presentable". Just don't look under the couch or in the closet LOL!!!

as others have said, my house suffers, too, because i want to be playing in the dirt. well, plus i wasn't ever the best housekeeper, but... any excuse will do. lol ! and, like some others, my love of gardening probably started with my grandma (mom's mom). she was amazing- had a veggie garden, fruit trees, lots of flowers and shrubs and didn't mind pesky grandkids messing in them. my granpap also liked to garden, but i think she was the prime gardener in that family. i fondly recall popping the seeds on her balsam, playing with johnny jump ups, picking her lily of the valley and being fascinated by the ants on her peonies. oh, and stuffing myself to bursting with prune plums. mmmm. i didn't really do any gardening then, but it fascinated me. she gave me my first plant, a green dracanae that i still have. at first about all i could keep alive were cactus and that dracanae.

i steadily got more housplants as i killed less, and was lucky enough to live for 2 years in her house after i got married (after she was living with my folks). i appreciated all her work outside while i was in college firsthand, and with new eyes. unfortunately, the people who bought the house after she passed away and we moved tore out most of her life's work, much of which was very old and carefree.

my dad was a big veggie gardener, and couldn't understand why none of us were much interested in helping. i tried to grow a few things at home- mostly flowers, which baffled him. then, as i got older and out of the house and 3 states away, veggie gardens were the one thing he and i could discuss at length on the phone. he was a quiet man, and it was about the only thing we discussed without him falling asleep on me. :) how i miss planning our gardens together- i still think of him as i get my new seed catalogs and plan out each year.

i spent idyllic childhood days playing in the woods appreciating all the green stuff- ferns, trees, jewelweed, trilliums, sweet williams, violets, sedum, iris, daylilies, periwinkle and all sorts of treasures i found in our woods. it was an old homestead from 100 years before and in addition to the wildflowers, much had survived in the woods that they'd planted. my love of wildflowers and ephemerals doubtless springs from those halcyon days.

we moved a bunch of houseplants south in '91 with us, and then at our second apartment, i began to do balcony gardening- i think that's when the bug bit hard. i was ecstatic to have my very own yard when we bought our house and immediately began messing in the dirt to plant things. we've been here since '93 and i have a nice sized garden in the front & the side. now my big plans are for our shady back yard. not real sure what i'll do when i fill it up, but i think that'll take me a long time.

my dad's sis played a big role, too. as a preteen i spent one summer with them because of my mom's health issues and i learned much about edible landscaping. i've always loved fruit, and it seemed that they had yummy stuff tucked in every corner of their yard. when i began to plan my own garden many years later, it was the memory of her garden that inspired much of mine. she was touched and surprised when i told her that.

i'd be remiss if i didn't mention the 4th big influence and that was lady i met while volunteering at mordecai shortly after we moved here. she was in her 70's and had such spunk! she has an amazing garden at her husband's homeplace in louisburg with oodles of old roses, daylilies and iris, among other gems. she was a huge contributor to my garden in its infancy, and my knowledge bank. i consider her my mentor, and my adopted grandma, since one is gone and the other is far away. i love passing along her plants, and helping to spread her influence far and wide.

garden webbers have played no small role the last few years, too, and i look forward to learning much more from you guys and making many, many new friends! i feel like my love of gardening came from so many sources and feel very lucky to have had all of them in my life. i consider it a duty to pass along plants to anyone starting up. it's the very least i can do in memory and gratitude to those who helped me so and fed such a great obsession.

Some of my earliest memories, at maybe 4 or 5 years old, were of my grandmother walking around her yard with me and showing me her flowers and telling me the name of each one. Actually, both of my grandmothers were avid gardeners, as well as my mother. Like someone already said, it is in my blood. I always found things that "grow out of the ground" to be fascinating, even kind of magical, it is hard to express in words. The first time I actually grew anything was when I was 15 and still living at home. It was a rose bush, and I was so proud of it. I am 55 now and just retired. It is so wonderful to finally get to do all the gardening I want to, without a full-time job getting in the way! You better believe that I now take my 3 year old granddaughter around and tell her all about "Mimi's flowers". I hope it gets into her blood too!

I just got a little teary-eyes reading vicky7's post. My mom brings my girls around just as you said and points out all the plants and helps them weed and water and I just hope that they'll grow up to have the same memories of her that you do of your Nana.

What a great question! I love answering this one.

My husband and I moved to NC 4 1/2 yrs ago from Atlanta. He lived there for 20 years after moving from the UP of MI. I moved to Atlanta in 2001. When we moved to NC both of us had never grown anything more than a few annuals and one or two tomato plants. We were both city/suburb people.

We now have 4.4 acres in Stokes county. Three years ago we decided to try growing some veggies with the encouragement of a friend who had farmed in Minnesota for 20 years.

We now have a 1/2 acre (maybe bigger) garden. We grow everything from Asparagus to Zucchini. I can a ton of stuff, we donated 1800 lbs of produce to community food programs last year and we are hooked!
We just bought a running David Bradley walk behind tractor, have a 2007 rear tine tiller and a brand new electric fence since last week when we lost 52 broccoli plants to a woodchuck. :)

I have 18 rose bushes and a new bird habitat flower garden, two fig trees and one dwarf peach tree.

Can you tell I am addicted? I had to leave for work yesterday morning at 7 am and was in the garden at 6:30 planting beans. I got it bad.

Thanks for letting me share my passion.
Susan

When I moved to my first house in 1991. After I moved again met my neighbor and fell into a deep rose addiction, it was all downhill.

Carla

When I was but a mere child! From long line of gardeners.

Heather, that New Dawn is amazing! I've been momma-codling mine along for too long now. How old is yours? And what have you done to it? Almost ready to turn mine into a shrub.

It sorta came to me genetically through my dad's side of the family. He has always had a garden, as did grandpa, but being German they only grow potatoes, turnips and onions and maybe some carrots or beets. I hated working in the garden as a teenager but enjoyed harvesting and making food out of the end product (still do).

My current state of addiction really came as a lateral transfer from an animal hoarding problem I suffered from for years. Plants are much more accepted by the general public.

Like so many before me, I fell in love with my plants due to my mama showing me her flowers and telling me not to touch the touch me nots untill their seed were ripe and I would always touch them anyway and was amazed when they popped! We spent 18 years in Virginia with me taking cuttings and such from her gardens to my house in VA. Some lived and some could not take the cold. Then we moved south near Columbia SC and I brought as many as I could. My hubby told me I could not dig up the whole yard before we moved, but I sure tried. I now have some of my papa's peonies, mama's tiger lilies, elephant ears, hybrid lilies, hosta, and have my hubby just as engrossed in flowers as I am. I tried to get my two children interested..no go..I have a 4year old neighbor and he has been coming over to see which flowers are blooming for 2 years now. He gets so excited to see the ones we saw last season back! I love the dirt, the seeds, the vines, the trees, all their flowers! Everything in my garden reminds me of someone dear in my past! Happy gardening!
Theresa