While I'd always been an admirer or my mother's roses and flowerbeds, it was the purchase of my first house at the age of 25 that began my interest in gardening.
It was something I'd always wanted, and here I was, in my own little corner of the world, and I could make it as beautiful as I wanted to!
Money was tight, and the house was fixer-upper, so most of my early plants were what I could scrounge from friends. Going to the nursery and splurging on a $50 tree was better than Christmas. On gifting occasions I asked for tools and plants. I spent every night and weekend possible tending my little plot. When a friend hooked me up with a source for manure, I brought two pickup loads home and spread it on the lawn! PeeeU!
I think what does it for me, aside from enjoying the beauty of the garden, is that these guys are alive! They're not just ornaments, they're friends! I lived in that house for fifteen years, until I got married.
Jo

i was about 9 years old and my grandmother took me to the morton arborium near chicago. we walked the long lawn together to the end of the vista and something just clicked. i was passive for years after that but my knowledge grew through family osmosis, we were the most book/plant swapingest family i have ever known. when i had my 3 boys all within 20 months, i couldn't get out like i used to so i started to garden heavily to keep my sanity. while the boys would play in the yard, i could keep my eye on them while i gardened. the first garden book that really impressed me was Sunset's japanese gardens. i read it as a kid and the gardens just seemed to be places where a kid could explore and discover.

First garden inlfuence? Mr. Hining's garden 2 doors down and across the alley. Which meant I had to have my mother walk me over because at 4 I was not allowed to cross the alley by myself. It was a small yard totally surrounded by a mixed shrub border with a lily pond set against the shrubs, a stone floored arbor attached to the garage and covered with a concord grape vine, a gate set in the shrubery and a towering tulip tree over all. I don't remember any perenials. When I was older my walk to school was thru alleys so I could check out all the gardens. I remember seeing my first snowdrops and just fell in love. Same thing with a Japanese Maple. My maternal grandmother had a huge garden with a fantistic shade garden. Another big influence was Springhill Nursury Catalogue. We got it as junk mail in my early teens. I would sneak it to my room to pour over the pictures and descriptions. For some reason I felt I had to keep this secret from my parents, like a teen boy with a girlie magazine under the mattress. Started doing the veggie garden myself at 12 or 13. Would raise marigolds from seed in my bedroom so they would bloom about March. Guess I just have always had a passion.

My epiphany came when I was 14, had a pair of pet Toulouse geese, and my father brought home a crate of cast-off lettuce leaves, overripe vegetables, etc. from the produce store, as a treat for them.

There was a huge ol' blue Hubbard squash in the mix, and when we dumped the crate of produce into the pen, it just sat there for weeks, untouched by the geese. Eventually, the seeds sprouted in the compost pile and formed big, gorgeous vines. I was hooked.

I transplanted the squash and planted other veggies with 'em, and a gardening fanatic was born.

My interest in gardening began when I moved back to Illinois back in the late 80s. My parents' yard was looking pretty sad -- monstrous overgrown junipers blocking their big picture window, weeds everywhere, and my dad was never a big yard man. So I drew up a plan and convinced them to let me do it. I still have the pictures of the bushes (bought at a discount chain retailer) and how silly they looked spaced 4' apart. Now, 15 years later, it is mature and it looks fabulous. I have been interested in gardening ever since that summer, and I learn more every year.

I started out in college killing houseplants, then turned the front yard of a rental into a veggie garden, did the marigolds and johnny-jumpups thing at another apartment. Bought the Sunset Western Garden Book when we bought our first house in 1981, which is when I began to learn about things like soil preparation, fertilizing, and pruning.

My grandmother was a collector of cacti and succulents, lots of odd pots lined up along the windowsills and the porch. My father was a farmer, growing garbanzo beans on leased land outside of town. My mother has the eye of an artist, and that is reflected in her garden design. I seem to have inherited a bit of everything.

But my *obsession* with gardening is newer, a result of frustration with planning, planting, and watching things fail to develop as expected. So a few years ago, I decided to tackle the garden head-on, instead of just puttering with a patch here and a patch there. I'm still very far from where I want to be with the garden, but recent results are much improved and I have occasion to admire my handiwork. Gardenweb has enabled me, educated me, and entertained me. I get a real thrill out of seeing other people's successes and hearing their stories through this online community of gardeners.

Hello, my name is melanie, and I've been a scent and color "slut" for as long as I can remember. My mother tells me that even when I was very little, before I could walk, I was happiest outside in our neighbors' flower garden. She swears she remembers me "sniffing" when their mock orange was in bloom! So I gues one could say my genesis was-my genesis! (To Mr. and Mrs. Rhodenberg--wherever in the ether you now reside--thank you. from the bottom of my heart.)

I started my first garden of my own when we bought our first house in 1984--and have been gardening like a madwoman since. I have TRIED to look past color and scent to include form when making plant selections--but I don't always succeed!

melanie

All childhood memories:
Going into the woods with my father to dig trilliums, adder's tongue, and jack-in-the-pulpits to transplant into our front yard under the cutleaf maples. Watching my grandfather weed his rows of zinnias, glads, pansies, and sweet peas. Collecting wildflower petals to crush and smear on my drawings as "paint." Weeding the big vegetable garden after supper many nights in the summer. Smelling the scents of phlox and mock orange around my grandmother's porch. Collecting maple sap. Being in awe of the ironwood tree's bark in my grandmother's yard - thinking it looked like the muscles in a man's arm. Walking through neighbor old Mrs. Scott's formal gardens and feeling awestruck by the perfection. And this last one is really corny, but I was (and continue to be) truly amazed by the curled spring shape of the sprout coming out of the bean on the wet paper towel in 2nd grade. Never left those feelings behind.

G.

Oh my gosh, Ginger. When you mentioned going with your father to dig up those plants in the woods, I remembered my father taking me to dig jack-in-the-pulpits, when I was small. We transplanted them into the garden, where they throve for years. My father grew up on a farm and always kept a vegetable garden, even when he moved to suburbia. He still grows the tomatoes and cucumbers I give him for Father's Day every June.

Soul sisters, Cady!
G.

My husband got me hooked on gardening. I remember when he first started gardening, I was P.O.'d because he was taking out large chunks of St. Augustine to put in flower beds. I knew he needed a new hobby after he tore the main ligament in his knee and couldn't be as physically active as he used to be, but I thought he was going a bit too far. Being "Queen" ;-) I told him he could only make beds on one side of the front yard, but after his flowers began blooming and he started getting compliments, I let him make a bed on the other side as well.

As a child, I also remember my mother planted a vegetable garden one year, and it thrived. The tomatoes she grew were the best I'd ever eaten. I also remember my grandmother's house in Holland, where she had tons of plants, trees, and various flowers. Her front yard was made of roses, and I can remember her dead-heading them. I thought the dead-heading was a strange thing to do at the time.

There are sequoia planted in Holland because my mother sent seed to my grandmother in the 1960's. Of course, I don't know if they are still alive.

when i was 7 yrs or so i looked up into the canopy of elms above our street and just gazed,i can never forget that light, that space, the coold breeze ... never stoped gazing...
then, that same summer year, i took a bare hillside in a park and started digging, pure digging, digging without a purpose except the next expected-unexpected. Never stoped digging (in today's parks they'd get you for digging!)
I go back occasionally to that same hilside to see what it has become, the elms are gone from the street but linger in the shadows cast by new trees.
-A
-Genesis is the book of the dawning light, the book of hopes and dreams

My father was a gardener and I remember the huge holes he dug with a post-hole-digger to plant a five gallon shrub. No wonder plants that Sunset said grew to only 10 feet turned into 25 foot giants. He had a beautiful garden. I think that got me going as I would save my allowance up so I could go to the nursery and buy cactus and succulents. I also remember some photographs of my grandfathers garden on Long Island. His was a masterpiece and those photos have always inspired me, and still do. chris

"I'll tell you my half-baked story a little further down after we get a few responses. And I'll take my answer off the air . . . . spectre "

OK, spectre, lets hear from you . . .

Was a GOOD band back in the mid-to-late 70's. "And the Lamb, oh the lamb lies down..."

melanie

For many years these were clues to a mystery I didn't solve until much later.

A childhood bouquet full of lily of the valley and wild violets freshly picked and put in a cast off bottle adorned with a pansy lick and stick.

Hostas blooming outside my grandmother's kitchen

The wonder of a lady's slipper found in the woods behind our house.

My first garden of weeds--I swore they were the seeds I had sown!

In art school I painted landscapes.

As a jewelry designer I crafted beautiful landscapes in silver, gold and rusted steel.

In every place I've ever lived for more than 15 minutes I made a garden. When my son got ill at 15 months I started gardening in earnest to deal with the stress. I also started reading and taking him to visit gardens as an antidote to hospitals. Now 13 years later, I followed life's hints...you all know the rest.

Wow, mrr! I bet a lot of people on this forum would love to see how you sculpted pieces in those materials. The rusted steel is a brilliant touch with gold and silver.

OK Ginger, you asked for it:

As recently as early 1995, gardening was something I hated with as much passion as I still hate visiting a dentist. Gardening to me meant picking up the cuttings, raking the leaves, mowing the lawn, and any other task that my Dad would leave behind for me for cleanup. I'd much rather be Dustin Hoffman in 1976's Marathon Man than work in the yard. The garden section of the paper was always the first one I looked for when I needed material for paint masking.

My feelings started to change in 1994, against my will, I might add, when I received a warning letter from my HOA in the Bay Area. I agreed to landscape my yard within six months of move-in, but my two year old yard was a nice mix of overgrown thistle, milkweed, and sharp, pointed triffid-like things that the police insisted I needed a permit to grow. The HOA kept a close eye on me because I insisted (with the legal opinions I waved at the builder's face) that I was allowed to install a 7.5 foot satellite dish because I hated cable (the little dishes didn't exist then). I showed them that I could conform to the CC&Rs by using canvas fabric to hide the dish, I could disguise it as a patio umbrella. They agreed and I had it installed 2 weeks after we moved in.

The problem was 18 months later I had this "patio umbrella" with no patio in the middle of my weed patch. The HOA noticed my inattention and threatened me. So, with the gentle, but unwanted, prodding of the vanity police, I set about designing the hardscape in the yard to fit around the satellite dish/umbrella.

You have to understand that up to this point, my love for plants was still at the level where my DW would say, "look at that beautiful bougainvillea on that house," to which I returned a look that exuded, "you obviously mistake me for someone who gives a $#!+." In 1995, after having a flagstone deck for four months and a great deal of passive-aggressive behavior and avoidance, I finally tackled the softscape by hiring the same landscape team that did the common areas for the development. At our due-diligenge meetings, they asked me what kind of plants I wanted, to which I replied, "green, alive, and low maintenance." They suggested evergreen pears and European white birches. It was only when I noticed the palms in the entry to the neighborhood (queens), that I insisted they include those at the last minute. Little did I know about this latent ability . . . .

After they put in the lawn and the trees, I started noticing all the bare, mulched areas around. Being unlike most Americans discussed in the other thread, if I was going to have a garden, I didn't want any bare spots. So I started researching drought-tolerant plants and stuck lavender here and nandina there.

Then a dramatic transformation ensued in my outlook towards this unwanted, unloved, and uncared for patch of yard that passed for my garden. Sort of like when David Banner gets angry, bursts out of all his clothes except his pants and turns into The Incredible Hulk. Even with all the work I'd done, gardening still meant mowing, raking and pruning and picking everything up and putting in trash cans.

The epiphany occurred when I discovered that I approached life with much less anxiety and anger when I'd picture my manager's face in the ground I was slamming a pick-axe into. You see, I was (and am) a sales dude in the molecular biology arena, and it's a pretty stressful job. Between dealing with Nobel Prize-winning scientists who have egos larger than . . . errrrr. . . (well I won't go there), and bosses who, once they reached the level of manager, forgot what it was like to be in the trenches, my anxiety level was somewhere just shy of visiting my local post office (and not to mail letters). I realized that working in the garden was therapeutical and I actually started to like digging in the dirt and figuring out what plants needed to go where. I began speaking in Latin and it dawned on me that I was sick and needed help. I liken it to the first act in Kubrick's 2001, A Space Odyssey when the early humans realized they could crack skulls by wielding huge bones.

The second revelation occurred when I was in a sales training in southern California. It was in the Summerfield Suites of all places in October 1996. I was walking to my room after hanging out by the pool and I spied this oversized, paddle leaved plant about 5 feet tall. I must have stared at this Strelitzia nicolai (Giant Bird of Paradise) for a half-hour. Then I noticed a totally graceful palm tree (also five feet tall) in the lawn on the side of the path to my room with fantastic blue-green leaves. I didn't know it at the time, but that was a Mediterranean Fan Palm, however, at this juncture, a palm was a palm.

That night, I walked to the AM/PM Minimart around the corner at the Arco and picked up a disposable camera. The next day I took pictures like there was no tomorrow of everything that had that "cool look that reminded me of St. Martin" where I'd spent my honeymoon years before and had just returned from.

When I got back to the Bay Area, I went into my local nursery and asked what all of these fantastic plants in pictures were; I had no idea. Names of plants that weren't in the small library I'd accumulated left me hungering for books more focused on tropicals. A visit to Berkeley's Magic Gardens and Berkeley Horticulture and seeing all of the subtropical flora induced uncontrollable and permanent drooling. My wife spotted a copy of Gordon Courtright's Tropicals in the Magic Garden's bookshelves and bought it for me. One month later, I saw William Warren's The Tropical Garden at Barnes & Noble and my transformation into a raving lunatic was complete.

Eight years, 500 miles further south, and countless dollars and road trips later, I became the pathetic, cringing, shell of a man/tropical junkie that you see before you. Sad story, really.

spectre

hmm...come to think about it, I was much more interested in bugs than plants as a youngster...japanese beetles were living jewels, and some tent catipillars are soft and a pretty shade of blue underneath...

but my best friend's mom was a chrunchy-granola organic gardener, and HER parents (jsut up thye hillside) kept a japanoise garden (part formal japanese, part english cottage, makes no sense to me today- but it was a great place to play hide and seek!)

and I've always loved NATURE better than GARDENS...would rather go camping than to disney, got upset in Girl Scouts when I found out their idea of camping meant CABINS with ELECTRICITY...

but me, gardening? it took the Flats of Oakland to do that...moved into a place I could afford, and found that I could chuck pennies from my rooftop onto the exit ramp of 580 (could see MacArthur BART station from my livingroom)
I'd moved from my folks place under the maple canopy dotted with black walnut...to the concrete jungle.

being poor, I started out by stealing 'ice plants' from the median strip, took cuttings of oleander and camillas from the yards of burned-out houses, and knocked on the door behind the porch full of orchids to ask how the owners did it (in 4 years, we had frost once. feaked people out.)

soon...I had a wall of five gallon buckets filled with oleanders and morning glories on my porch roof, screening the more serious cultivation of a plant all college students are familiar with ...started harvesting the little red plums from the tree that grew along the fence, and bought some vining plants to jazz up the chain-link fence...

found out why my boyfriend didn't want me getting chummy with the cute little brunette wife of HIS best friend, dug up the wisteria vine I'd jsut bought, dismantled my rooftop garden, and moved back east...it'll be 6 years, come april.

now, I've got a hedge to replace, three rose bushes I don't understand very well, and a reel mower that's jsut right for my little patch of lawn. my husband helped me rustle enough rocks to sort of outline beds along the fenceline...the Wisteria's at my folks, waiting for us to transplant it (jsut have to get rid of that HEDGE out front!) and we're jsut really getting started : )

Spectre,

Great story!
But 'fess up... None of it happened. You garden because a voice from your toaster told you to. Right?

Cady:

No, the toaster tried talking me out of gardening because it didn't want me to spend the bread.

spectre

Well, it didn't expect you to just loaf around, did it?

You decided to rise to the occasion.

No, it didn't but it was very concerned about the dough it might cost to roll out a garden.

spectre

This is my first post on this Forum & felt this a good opportunity to jump in...

My Grandparents (both sides) and Dad have always been gardeners. One reason was to grow food. Second because they loved to do it. Everyone had houseplants galore.

I always looked at the vegetable gardens as work because my brother & I were assigned the grunt work. Friends & neighbors would come to visit our house & Grandpa's house to look at the gardens. They thought it was amazing to see all the plants & how healthy they were. I picked up so much knowledge by just being there...but didn't know I was being educated at the time in growing plants, pruning, soil, etc. Also, growing up in a farming community, I was always aware of the rainfall, crop planting times, harvest, etc., even though we didn't farm.

As I became and apartment-dwelling adult in a city, I had tons of houseplants because that's what my adult figures had, so of course I had to do it. I grew the best houseplants, & couldn't figure out why everyone else thought my plants were so great. Doesn't everyone else know how to grow plants?

Through those 12 years of apartment days, talking about when I would get a house, I would always tell my parents I was really excited to have a lawn & plants. Interesting how I talked about how fun it would be to paint the interiors, decorate, and make a house my own....but then I would always turn the conversation back to my bigger dreams of the plants & grass. Even in those conversations, I didn't understand how much gardening was in my blood. I really hadn't had a chance to explore what it was REALLY like in my own home...aside from those houseplants.

When I got my 1st house (just over 2 years ago), I was drawn to the outside immediately, and I've found Utopia. Something that started as grunt work, has become a sense of pride in taking small little plants and growing them to their potential the best I know how.

Gardening is part of my family history. My grandparents have died, and they have never seen my first house, or my plants. Being out there brings me closer to those who I cared for so much and taught me more than I realized.

I also remember my Grandpa's Farm. The pond, the timber, the 3 massive vegetable gardens, and the strawberry patch. When he grew something, he did it big, and he did it right. I now realize he did it for the love of doing it. Why in the world would 2 senior citizens who's goal was to feed themselves need 3 vegetable gardens of the size they were?? My dad grew his own vegetables (3 massive ones as well)...so we didn't need their vegetables.

I have come to realize as an adult they were trying to out-do each other. I know this, because my Dad and I have started trying to out-do each other too.

For me, it's one of those things that I always KNEW I would love to do, but never had the chance to really do it. Now I've started, I know why 3 vegetable gardens are never enough.

PS: I'm also really science-y too, so gardening gives me an opportunity to study something new every day. The outdoors is just 1 big compost pile, you know.
Gayle

Welcome, Gayle! I'm science-y as well--except for the MATH part. BUT--I'm GREAT with concepts!

melanie

"Gardening is part of my family history. My grandparents have died, and they have never seen my first house, or my plants. Being out there brings me closer to those who I cared for so much and taught me more than I realized."

The garden as family history - very well put, Gayle. Also like your notion that the world is just one big compost heap . . .

G.

Gosh, I feel like I'm in heaven, having happened upon this GW site. I was actually scouring the internet for grocery coupons, since I'm poor as a churchmouse right now and the pantry is looking pretty ugly ... and somehow this site came up as a link. Hmmmm, groceries, ficus, coreopis. Somehow they're all nourishing, eh?

I planted my first vegetable garden when I was 14 in 1975. I had never seen any real gardens when I was growing up and my parents weren't gardening fans. But my dad had just died, I had to move away in my freshman year of high school and I was terribly sad and lonely. I wanted to plant something that wouldn't die - my adolescent way of dealing with all that was going on around me. So my uncle helped me till up a large section of sod in the backyard and I dutifully took my babysitting money to the store and bought a bucket load of seeds. I had no idea what I was doing! But I planted them all and watered and waited. Not much grew, except a bunch of weeds, the radishes and the squash ... omigoodness, we ate a lot of squash that summer! I even sent a radish "sample" to my brother in Germany, to proudly show off my creation. It wasn't until many years later that he confessed, because of the 45-day APO mail delivery, that my plump radish arrived a shriveled thing which he couldn't recognize. (He later described it as what he imagined an 90-year old woman's breast might look like - ha!)

Anyway, I took my budding interest of trying to make things grow and thrive into my bedroom that winter and had a virtual greenhouse in there. Probably lots of mold and stuff too but I loved it and everyone wondered how a kid knew how to make rubber plants and diffenbachia survive. I can only think that it must be deeply embedded somewhere in my DNA.

I was hooked ... and the rest is history. Eventually, the house can only hold so many plants, you know? Gotta start moving outside where there is all that dirt! Still love to play in the dirt. My BF is an archaeologist/anthropologist and I knew, when I met him, that any man who likes to play in the dirt is going to be a good darn friend of mine!

Thanks for letting me ramble. Hadn't thought about that shriveled radish in a long time. Great memories!

Robyn

Oh, and a postscript: some one mentioned working with big egos. I am an independent healthcare consultant and 95% of my clients are physicians. Talk about big egos! And stubborn, strong-willed men and women. Good people and great docs, but ... OMIGOSH! Sometimes they drive me absolutely nuts! So, when I've had all of the "I-am-an-MD-so-you-better-shut-up-and-listen-to-me" gobbledegook I can stand, me and my spade fork have one good time! My compost pile has learned to watch out when I'm in one of those "moods." :)

Robyn:

Great anecdotes; especially your postscript. Just make sure you know whether you're gardening or consulting when you have the pitchfork in your hands . . . you might expect to turn a compost pile and, if you're with a egotistical MD, end up with blood and bone meal instead.

Anyway, welcome to the forum, Robyn, and we're glad you're here. Sit a spell, take yer shoes off, and y'all come back now, y'hear!

spectre

Robyn,

Oh boy, been there - done that! I worked for MD's for over 20 years and am the daughter of a trauma surgeon. May I offer a little advice for some of those overblown egos?

Treat them as your equal and they usually respond in kind. If you do get a case of "high mindedness" (there are some really colorful alternate descriptions I could use here) after presenting my case the quip that worked best for me .... "would you want me to perform brain surgery (or appropriate specialty)?" and after a a couple of beats finish with a very sweet and innocent grin..hooked them every time. It helps that I'm not the least bit intimidated by much of anything..I even once told a lunatic Radiologist I worked for to "put away the gun!" that he decided to wave about for effect. Damn I was young!

If all else fails it always helps to ground oneself by digging in the dirt or hanging out with these guys - gardens and gardeners help put things in perspective. You have a sympathetic ear on my part, that's for sure.

Barbara

Hi Barbara,

Only someone who has worked with docs knows what it's like working with docs! Generally they don't intimidate me because I know more about what I'm telling them about than they do. That's why they pay me, eh? It's mostly that they can just drive a person nuts. They want me to change the HMO world (you know, call the CEO of Aetna and insist he change their national rules for this one little 'ole practice ....) and they can be incredibly whiny. So I've been known to actually bend a tine or two on a spade fork heaving out forty pound rocks and throwing them to the ground! Take that!! :)

Thanks goodness for gardening!

Hmmm. When did I become a gardener? I suppose the honest, really honest answer would be at the age of two weeks. I could not be awakened. When I was 2 weeks old I became comatose and remained so for 4 weeks. When I rejoined the land of the living my right arm and left leg were paralyzed.

I had been stricken with both polio and enceplalitis concurrently. The use of the right arm returned within a short amount of time, the left leg was not so lucky. Then began the physical therapy, surgeries, and everything else but mostly the teasing from school children. My classmates and many adults with their stares and pointing and comments either meant for me to hear or overheard by young ears.

I started gardening with my Mother to hide...to hide from the reality outside the fenced in yard. In my yard I could plant pansies and tomatos or watch the tadpoles in the little pond. The marigold flowers were happy that I gave them a drink of water. They didn't care that I had a full leg brace on or "walked funny". I could go about and see that I could do things that other kids couldn't. ME! Who would have thought?

I could take a stem that the dog broke from a flowering plant and turn it into a rooted cutting and a new plant! And it would flower too!! I couldn't run, never did, so I don't know what that is like.

But I could graft a tree! I bet no one else in my grade school could do that. I could hand raise a baby bunny or baby sparrow rescued from the family cat too. Still can't run but I can still hand raise those babies.

Gardening showed me that even I could do things and everyone has different abilities. Now it isn't so much to hide, though the garden is still a safe place. Now the garden is to share and keep old friends and make new friends.

Often, the best people come out of the hardest situations. As my grandmother used to say, "If it doesn't kill you, it'll make you strong." Glad you are posting here with us, Chickadeedeedee.

G.

Thanks Ginger.

I may not post here very often but I do love this forum. I get new ideas, learn so much and have a good laugh too. Everyone is so nice and I can find refuge here too.

I looked at this thread many times and started writing and then abandoned whatever I had written. This morning I got to the real basis of my gardening disease.

"Hello. My name is Chickadeedeedee and I am a gardener." LOL.

It probably also would explain why I would spend over an hour attempting to revive a 3 day old baby starling with IV fluids, IV injections to stimulate breathing because the poor little guy stopped breathing twice and so on. (His is the picture I posted in the introductions thread earlier.)
Starlings and sparrows and others are by many very hated birds. I embrace them. All of them. If it flies or walks or crawls they all want a chance to live and show what they can do and be themselves.

That is all I ever wanted to do. Talk about your restoration projects! I am a work in progress. Just need to tuck a little bit more ground cover right there. LOL.
I can be myself here too. Thanks. :-)

That was an inspiring story of how you became a gardener, Chickadeedeedee. Thank you for opening up to share it.

ChickaDDD:

That was great and the kind of inspiring anecdote I hoped to read when I came up with this thread. Second Cady's comment and thank you for opening up.

spectre

Spectre,

It was a very simple question but very thought provoking as well.

It is amazing that pain from a stress fracture of the ankle due to severe osteoporosis or torn muscles at the elbows will put laundry duty to a halt for a time but will not stop the compelling force drawing this writer outdoors to dig an extension on the water feature. It won't and didn't stop the 900 lbs. or so of stones being carried and carefully placed around the same.

Yes, I confess, Celebrex did make the elbow pain more tolerable but the gardening forces from within are the drive.. . Either that or my mind became scrambled a bit at a very early age and I don't know any better. LOL.

I don't know that I am an "inspiration" just doing what I love to do...gardening and caring for animals. I'm easy to recognize. No leg brace since 1968 or any other support mechanism. Just a bit dirty with perhaps some leaves or a twig in my hair and have mud on my knees.

Glad you liked my story. :-)

What is inspiring is that while many people would give into "can't do it," you just went ahead and did without thinking about it. I know what it's like to be taunted and shunned by kids, and how it can destroy the spirit. Having a loving family is essential for developing the self-esteem we need. It appears that you had that.

Also, you know what many do not -- that there are no limitations when we have the creativity to mold our lives to suit us - not let life mold us to suit it.

... was made when I was about nine years old. The previous year, my very wise mother had purchased a house that had two back yards: one in the front that was the same size as the average yard on our block, backed by a huge, overgrown Laurel hedge; and through a gap in the hedge (defined by a broken rose trellis), one in the back which was "the kids' yard", in which my brothers and I could joyfully dig all the holes to China we wanted.

The northeast corner of our yard had been a compost heap for years. My mother assured me this would be the best soil for a vegetable garden; so I enlisted the help of all the other neighborhood children to help me dig up all the sod, spent all my allowance for weeks on bags of manure and seeds, and managed to grow a lush patch of Nasturtiums, some wonderful peas, and a watermelon that reached 1" across before the slugs consumed it whole.

I also unwisely planted a rose in the shadiest corner of the yard, where it bloomed nevertheless -- but sparsely -- a few years later.

My lack of success was very discouraging, so I gave up on gardening -- although I still enjoyed helping my mother care for her flowers in her well-manicured flower garden.

In my teens, I began to foray into the world of houseplants. I had a friend who was very gifted at caring for and propagating houseplants, and soon I had enough donations from his jungle to start my very own living room conservatory.

That was the extent of my gardening for many years, until my first husband and I bought a home shortly after the birth of our daughter. Housing prices had just begun to skyrocket, so we could barely afford a home at all -- but we bought the best house we could find, a solidly-built two-bedroom, c. 1927, on a lot that measured 50x60 feet. Our total yard area was a 40x25' fenced area plus a 12x20' unfenced strip of lawn in front of the house.

One day about a week after we closed on the house (in mid-October 1988), I stood looking out the living room window at our tiny yard.
"Is this really ours?" I asked my husband.
"Yes," he answered.
"I can do anything I want with it, and no landlord can take it away from us?"
"Yes you can," he answered. "Nobody can take it away from us."
"I think I'm going to plant a garden," I said.

The next few weeks, I went a little crazy. I bought bulbs: ten of this, ten of that, a bag of those mixed kinds, a dozen of these... Soon I had over 300 bulbs to plant (maybe more), it was the end of the season, and I didn't even have the beds made yet!

I gardened all that winter, with the baby strapped in a pack on my back. I set up lights so I could work into the evenings as the days grew shorter. (It wasn't uncommon to see me still digging at midnight, when the baby was safely tucked in bed under her father's watchful eye.)

I don't know how I did it, but I got all those bulbs in the ground, in beds that were deeply dug and richly fortified with manure and bulb fertilizer.

I was determined that THIS time, my garden wouldn't fail to thrive! So all during the dark days of winter, I planned... I read books and learned about loam and zones and soil testing and plants. I made lists of flowers by color, height, and bloom season; I read plant encyclopedias cover-to-cover, marked interesting entries, and then read them again.

I pored over seed catalogues and ordered seeds. Soon I was also buying propagating trays, and three cheap industrial steel shelves to line the south windows of our house. I grew everything I could from seed, because I knew we wouldn't be able to afford to buy many plants in pots.

In early February, my grandfather's will finally came out of probate, and I received $2,000 as a bequest. Grandfather had loved his garden in Modesto, so I knew he'd be pleased if I put his bequest to good use in my own garden.

I bought lumber for the grape arbor. I bought paving bricks (the old cobblestone kind that are fired and weigh 10 pounds each) for the pathway and the patio under the grape arbor. I bought more seeds, more amendments, and ... oh, yeah, for $5 we bought a cubic yard of "chicken-n-chips", composted chicken manure and wood chips.

Oh, Chicken-n-Chips!

Well, such a deal! Enough amendment for my entire garden, all for only $5!

The catch?

The catch was, we had to pick it up and haul it home ourselves. So we borrowed my parents' VW van, took out the back seat, and lined the passenger area with plastic tarp. We put our daughter's car seat in the second back seat, just behind the tarp, and we drove twenty miles into the country to the address shown in the paper. When we arrived, the gentleman took our money, looked dubiously at the VW van, and said we could haul away all the Chicken-n-Chips we could carry. Then he pointed to the pile...

There it was... the biggest mountain of hot, steaming sh*t I ever hope to see in my life.

There were little flies buzzing joyfully around this source of warmth and nourishment. Wisps of steam rose from it in the brisk February air... And the smell was unbelievable.

We cheerfully lifted our shovels and began our task. As we shoveled more and more of the malodorous cr*p into the passenger compartment of the van, our tiny daughter began to grimace in shock and dismay as the smell reached her nostrils. When she realized that her insane parents were going to continue filling the van with this stuff in spite of its obnoxious smell, she whimpered softly.

We drove the van home on that cold day with the windows wide open all the way. Then we unloaded it into our driveway, carefully peeled the tarp out of the passenger compartment, wiped everything down, put the seat back in, and returned it to my parents. They were never the wiser.

My very first flower garden that year nearly caused traffic accidents in front of our house, as drivers would slam on their brakes to gape openmouthed at our tiny yard that overflowed with flowers.

Love,

Claudia

I hated gardening when I was a kid. My mother dragged us out into her garden EARLY every morning during summer break to do "chores" around her garden. Then I moved out, and oddly enough, discovered I missed it. Now I drag my own butt out of bed early as I can soon as it gets warm and will work all day in the garden till it's too dark to see.

Thanks Mom!

Claudia,

You warm the cockles of my heart! My bright blue and white 1970 VW bus, Vortigern, with the second seat permanently removed for the hauling space, is in semi retirement. I was murdering him with a 750 mile weekend commute to prep my parent's house for sale now that they're both gone. Only on my husband's insistance (he would get a little panicky when I would break down a 100 miles from anywhere at one in the morning and have to wait 2 hours for a tow) did I get a new car, well a truck, and we decided on a truck just for it's manure hauling potential.

I can't tell you how many loads of brick, bags of manure, tons of mulch, dirt, furniture, paintings, and plain old 'stuff' that my almost tireless workhorse has hauled around for me over the 15 years I've had him. I've always wanted a VW bus and cried at the thought of having any other car (still feel a bit like a traitor). The bus has become a member of both my immediate and extended family - one of my nephews' first words was "boo bus" and everybody asks "how's he doing?" The all know him by name and Vortigern was/is/and always will be my dream car. Guess I'm a simple girl with simple tastes, huh? My husband says it's the gypsy in me...ha! Though I have to admit with the new UTE I get a real kick out of a heater with a blower (old VW owners will understand this...BRRRRRR), intermittant windshield wipers, and being able to accelerate faster than 0-60 in 10 minutes. But nothing compares to toodling down the road (I have NEVER had a speeding ticket since couldn't go faster than 55!) with the windows rolled down and flashing peace signs to every VW bus we encounter along the way - the universal sign of bus-dom.

Barbara

Hi.

Mike again. (ChickDDD's other half.)

When I was 10 or 12 years old my brothers and I were goofing around in the yard and my Mother's flowers jumped into the path of our play. It was astonishing!

We were awe struck as the peonies, in full bloom and glory, threw themselves underfoot. The daylilies had simular suicidal tendencies and were broken almost beyond recognition. Violets were flattened. You get the idea.

Mom did not believe us either.

In fact she had the same squinty doubtful look in her eye as you do right now as you are reading this.

She did not scold us. She did not hit us. She didn't even ground us! My Mother in her infinite wisdom simply asked us to watch her tend to her flowers and plants.

Silently she started with the violets. On her knees she brushed over the plants with her hand to lift them from their flattened position. Gently she removed any broken leaves and she whispered to them that "the boys didn't mean to hurt you."

The same treatment was afforded to the daylilies. This time as my Mother spoke to her wounded plants she added, " you'll be fine. I know you can forgive the boys for what they did."

The last were the poor peonies. Those poor poor things. Beautiful plants. Broken. Many beheaded. My Mother silently took her scissors and clipped off everything that was broken or trampled. She asked me to help her fashion a little peony splint to straighten a stem and hold it in position in an effort to have at least one flower.

My brothers were asked to help to make a splint each also. With the completion of the last peony splint my Mother whispered to the plants a reassurance that "the boys are sorry and will be careful next time."

Talk about guilt! We NEVER harmed the flowers or other plants again. In fact we were over flowing with tears when my Father was going to cut down a silver maple that had been struck by lightening. "But Dad! It's still alive we cried" as we pointed to a single branch about 3 inches long with one leaf on it.

The year of the plant squashing we started a vegetable garden and each of us helped with the garden as a whole and we each grew our own special plant.

I grew a giant, well not so giant, pumpkin. My brothers grew corn and watermelon I think.

That was it. Never again take plants and flowers for granted. They live in our yard and want to enjoy a non traumatic life.

I can't believe I remember that from so long ago. We were some of the few passangers on Noah's Ark.

My Mother's gentle insight. Her amazing wisdom. Her loving guidance. Actions do speak louder than words.

That's my story.

Mike

That's one of the most inspiring stories I've ever read, Mike, and thanks so much for sharing... It's now easy to see why you deserve someone as equally special as Chickadeedeedee!

As for your mother, it seems quite a shame cloning wasn't available in those days, because that kind of wisdom and kind spirit is sooooooo lacking in so many folks (including mothers).

How fortunate you have been... to have a mother like that, then find a jewel of a wife, to boot. My mother is a wonderful, caring person, too, but I'd NEVER "want to marry a gal just like the gal that married dear old dad," because she's also full of anger, short-tempered, impatient, etc.

I love her, but I wouldn't wanna marry her copy... looks like maybe you did, though.

Lucky you!
Jeff

P.S. Thanks a million again to you and Chickadeedeedee for the beautiful flower arrangement; It's looking pretty ratty at this point, but I may still be able to pull out a piece of liatris or two and root it.

Wow, Mike, I wish I would have read this when my kids were little so I wouldn't have tramatized them with screaming to watch out for the flowers. They will never garden. But, I am much calmer with my toddler nephews and will remember your story.

What beautiful stories. Mike and chickadeedeedee, what an inspiration. Makes me want to cry!

All great garden stories!

The earliest memory of gardening I have are of my grandfathers' large dinner plate dahlias, in a sunfilled square garden plot, wood boards underfoot for walking along the rows. So huge, as big as my face. I loved running and hoping from board to board. We kids made games of it.

However, I didn't start gardening until I was an adult. My parents hated gardening and so made it an awful chore. It wasn't until I bought my second house with a magical back lot with two plum trees that my imagination was finally engaged. Gardening has been a huge pleasure, looking for beautiful and unusual plants to plant, walking the paths with my cats, pulling out weeds etc. I try to get out to the garden everyday if just to stroll through. Always plotting to dig up more grass!

Taking care of plants is such a stress reliever but it also teaches me about sacredness of life and the will those plants have to live. All the plants poking their heads up and out of the ground. I love watching the garden go from browns and grays of winter to the bright green of spring, the dark green of summer and finally the brilliant yellow, reds and golds of fall.

I love you people...I really do.

melanie/sore all over from wall building--but I'm learning!

When I was a young boy, I used to collect 'Four O'Clck' seeds from my mothers Four O'clocks, save them in a babyfood jar over winter, I'll be damned they grew the next year and flowered!!

I've been hooked since, that was about 1060

Mike Cassidy