My story is just 6 years worth, but important nonetheless because those 6 years have undoubtedly made me the gardener I am today.

My VERY first plant I ever bought, small leaf rhododendron, planted in the yard of the first house I ever bought with my now husband. Maybe off to a bit ambitious of a start with rhodo in our climate - as you can see I knew nothing about prepping soil, yes that is all rocks and existing overgrowth. That plant never stood a chance....

Fast forward to a year later: (obviously had NO CLUE what I was doing, I just knew I liked plants lol)

Fast forward to a year later:

Onto my first veggie garden (this took a LOT of clearing out, it was filled with gravel and rocks before):

and my first tomato ever! I remember how happy I was to see it growing:

The rest is history! I made more mistakes than I can count back then... and I still make mistakes all the time. But the best part of gardening is growing from all of those mistakes and proving to yourself how much you've improved. And ending up with something you're proud of (fast forward 5 years later in our new house):

I'll start at real beginning: I think my first gardens were in my imagination and memory which were deeply informed by watching my mother garden and growing up with that garden. My most vivid childhood memories are of things that happened there: the smell of her mixing dried cow manure with water (it really smelled like s....t), a large square planting of narcissis, kneeling on a bee while smelling a flower, gathering mint for iced tea, the Queen Elizabeth rose and her explanation of black spot, makiing tiny bouquets using The Fairy rose, spring azaleas, discovering her gardening without her shirt on in her bra on a hot day, and the magnificient pink magnolia that the neighborhood kids and I climbed on. It was in a spot we called the jungle..with a few hemlocks and ivy. Then there was the summer month when the mulberry tree made walking to the back yard truly disgusting. The tree stayed because the birds were more important than my distaste for walking on mushy, fermenting berries.

It's clear to me that my gardens were and are informed by these sensory memories and a desire to re-create aspects of them in my adult life. My design abilities are truly limited. I have visions of what I'd like to create such as "the curve" or the pleasing combo of hostas shapes ....but the execution is truly a trial....often time consuming and disappointing. As I've gotten older and endure pervasive osteoarthritis (and knee replacements ) and have some financial resources I've given myself permission to occasionally hire people who can translate a really big idea into reality.

The various gardens I actually "created"....and I use both "gardens" and "created" very loosely.....are many. I started when I was 20 with a patch in back of our first apartment next to a burger joint. I tossed a packet of flower seeds on a barely prepared tiny plot with the ever present smell of frying beef and french fries- not flowers- in the foreground . The next 40 years are another installment ......

My first garden memories are of walking looooong rows with a hoe, chopping weeds out of the potatoes, watering tomato plants, setting onions, and harvesting lettuce, all for my mom. I hated it. I did, however, watch with interest as she planted four-o-clocks and observed them blooming in the late afternoon.

My paternal grandfather was an accomplished gardener and I remember watching him graft an apple branch onto a peach tree. He grew peonies, iris, grapes and made wine, had bees and harvested honey, etc. Crazy old man, I thought at the time. He was not kid-friendly and was gruff and unhappy. He died when I was 18.

After I was grown and had my own home, I planted a vegetable garden maybe only once or twice, as my childhood memories of vegetable gardening were still pretty strong. Then I branched out into annuals - petunias and marigolds were favorites. Later I began to teach myself about perennials, and now, as I have recently retired, I am developing more and more perennial beds.

I'd have to say that GardenWeb has had a heavy influence on my gardening over the past 10 years. Our current home has a heavily shaded backyard and during the winter months I camp out on the Hosta forum. As I build my new beds, I am trying to learn from you all what are described as 'graceful curves.' Tough for me, as I possess as much artistic ability as a rock.

And I wish I could talk with my grandfather and learn the things he knew. I realize now that I have a lot in common with him. I just didn't know it.

I think my love for gardening began when I was a child, although had you asked me at the time, I would likely have told you I hated it. My mother and father gardened, largely vegetables. As kids, the thing we probably hated most was being told we needed to help weed the garden. We could never understand why they had to grow more yellow string beans, cucumbers, zuccini, tomatoes and green onions than we could ever use. We also were not great fans of having to take our family produce to all the neighbours, many of whom were old and wanted us to stay and talk, when we just wanted to leave the produce and run.

Flowers and plants were not a big deal. There were always geraniums in window boxes, coleus in the shady areas (and growing on the window sills in the house during the winter). We had one climbing rose growing against the wall of the back kitchen, which was always in bloom and the smell returns as a memory every time I think of it. We were very poor, particularly after my dad died, so there wasn't a lot of money for luxuries and our gardens were largely utilitarian and work intensive.

On the other hand, my father had been born on a farm (that is still in the family in Breslau, Ontario although it is no longer the well kept place I remember). As a child, going there was always a remarkable adventure and a joy. My grandparents and uncle (who all lived on the farm) grew cash crops, and raised some chickens and livestock. Around the house, however, was a garden that was a child's delight. The laneway into the house was framed with cherry trees which we could never get enough of (and which always resulted in the runs - I know, too much information). Hollyhocks and lilacs bloomed everywhere. There were peonies and roses galore. Composted manure kept them in wonderful shape. In the side yard beside the house was a huge two seater garden swing that we spent hours lounging on, performing on, etc. There were apple, peach, plum and pear trees, too. We could not get enough of it. There was also a pergola of sorts that had a plant growing on it (which I have never seen since), that had seed pods. When they were ripe and you touched them, they exploded, sending us into fits of laughter. The little grenade seeds of the four oclocks also fascinated us as did the flowers of the trumpet vine that graced the front of the house. We would put them on our fingers and pretend to be vampires, monsters, etc.

One other place added to my childhood gardening experiences. We lived around the corner from a family who ran a small landscaping business right in the heart of our residential area. It probably was an acre or two in size. The daughter of the owner, Jenny Fieck, was a botanist, biologist and all round tree hugger from the day she was born and she hooked many of the neighborhood kids in. We spent hours watching and catching butterflies, offending the bees, having funerals for dead animals. Her father had fashioned little caves out of weeping mulberry trees, and these became forts, teepees, castles depending on the imaginative idea of the day. Thousands of tulips bloomed in the spring, and there were lilacs that scented the air in the entire neighborhood. Jenny even had a small pet goat, named Capris, who ate everthing in site, and played with us like she was one of the kids. I think memories from those sun filled days stayed in the recesses of my mind waiting to break out later in life.

When my wife and I married, I was on my way to law school, and we did not have a lot of room in student residence, but some friends gave us a small asparagus fern, I babied it, and discovered, much to my surprise that I got quite the charge out of watching it grow in leaps and bounds. The asparagus fern was joined in short order by a myriad of other indoor plants - common and exotic - as my interest in them grew. By the time we were ready to move into our first house, I had over 300 plants in a two bedroom apartment. I might have ended up being an indoor gardener, but for a major disaster that occurred when we were moving. I had enlisted the help of my five brothers to move me from Toronto to Newmarket, and we only had a very small truck, so it took several trips to get everything to Newmarket over the course of two days. We moved in the dead of winter. On the morning of day two, I discovered that the load that my brothers had decided could wait until the following morning to be unloaded was full of plants. They had all been severely damaged by the cold and died in short order. I was so traumatized that until this day, I have only one or two plants in the house.

When my first daughter came along, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and we determined that a ramp needed to be built into our little house. It was then need to ensure that the ramp did not hurt the cottage like beauty of that little house that resulted in my first outdoor plantings as an adult. With suggestions and donations from neighbours, I planted bulbs, shrubs, annuals and a couple of hostas. The beds flourished, and I was smitten.

When the time came to look for a large house, I wanted a garden for my kids to play in, full of colour and beauty, and I selected an old fall apart Victorian house with a view of Lake Simcoe. I am sure that the neighbours thought an idiot had moved in. I planted things where I knew I would eventually want them, but without the beds that would eventually draw them into a cohesive whole. In the first spring after we move in, tulips spouted along the walkway in small "holes" that I had created the previous fall. The next fall, I planted a magnolia (which the nursery told me would not survive) in the front yard, all by itself and several feet above the lawn level. I think it may have been the only Magnolia in Keswick at the time. It survived. Within a year, the plan was taking shape. Perennial beds graced the walkway, and an oval bed had been established around the Magnolia, filled with my mother's peonies and Irises, and some dwarf burning bushes. Lilacs and hydrangeas followed. Another bed was born across the front of the property. I had a master plan in my mind, and just added to the bare bones as I had the time and resources to do so. One day, a woman drove into my driveway in early April and said that the Master Gardeners wanted to have my yard on their tour in early May. I looked around at the empty beds and asked what they would want to see. She told me that my work had been noticed and that everyone in her group was dying to see what came up that spring. The Magnolia bloomed, the hundreds of bulbs I had planted did, too. I was overwhelmed by the compliments I received and became a driven man, trying every year to make the yard more dramatice than the year before. Eventually, the backyard also became my palate. Somewhere along the way, I developed an addiction for peonies, phlox, daylilies, and then hostas. I was somehow talked into being the president of our local hort society for a couple of years. I was slowed down at one point when I had to have my hip replaced, but am now going full steam again. Sometimes the beds get unruly and ratty looking because I get too busy at work ( I am the director of legal services at our local children's aid Society). But eventually, I restore them. People always talk to me about how much work the garden must be, but after my hours spend dealing with family problems, domestic violence and child abuse, the garden is a refuge like no other. It is a spirtual place for me. When my atheist friends ask me about my belief in God, I tell them that I have only to look at my garden. The garden is poetry and evokes a poetic response. Standing in my garden, I cannot believe that the beauty inherent in everything that grows was the result of accident or cosmic randomness. I think Richard Dawson is the one who is deluded. i know that many will disagree with the spiritual part of what I say, but I believe it firmly.

My wife and kids think I am nuts, and that I should be slowing down in terms of new beds given that I am over 60 now, but I know they love the attention the garden gets. Gardening is in my blood. Its in the blood of my many gardening friends as well. And I have noticed that gardeners almost without exception are quite simply the nicest, most generous people.

Sorry to have been so long winded. I have left out plenty even to bring it to this length. Someday, I am going to write this story out in full, with all the little details, if for no other reason than to leave it with my family. Lets here some more stories. I like this thread!

It's interesting how often the origin of our love for gardening dates back to childhood experiences, with grandparents often playing a prominent role. As properties get smaller and families spread geographically further apart, I wonder where the next generation of gardeners will get their inspiration from?! Those of you with grandchildren (and children), indoctrinate them well! :-)

Wow keswick_sniders, I think you have an author inside you! You really drew me in with your story, thank you! You definitely need to write it for more to enjoy.

All the stories have been interesting and inspiring. Thank you all.

My dad was always an avid gardener, and my paternal grandparents as well, but we were more expected to do household chores opposed to garden chores. As a child, I never got my hands dirty in the garden, but when I bought my first house, I realized the happiness I got from seeing plants come back year after year and I wanted to keep going. Of course I think involvement in childhood is a hugely important factor but for me, I think there's a genetic element at play. A 'seed' (so to speak) transferred down the line making each generation thereafter susceptible to catching the bug. I like to think that was the case with me, who had no gardening experience as a child.

TR2--there are many, many other 'projects' you could choose to immerse yourself in. It seems strange to me that you don't want to give your childhood any credit for your choice.

I'm always struck by the similarities in our backgrounds Tex/TR2. We lived out in 'the boonies' too and social activity was largely family-oriented. Grade 1 was quite a shock - 30 kids my age - what the heck am I supposed to do with them?! :-) But there were a couple of them I had met before and one in particular is still someone I keep in touch with now even though we had lost touch for many years. Interestingly when we reconnected after 20 years of not seeing each other, we had a lot in common still, including that we are both avid gardeners. She immediately recognized the garden here as being inspired by the landscape of our childhood. Gardening is one of those ties that bind people together....:-)

Debbiecz3 - Thank you for the cudos. I love to write.

Texas Ranger - Despite what you say, I have to think that your childhood memories did shape your garden imaginings and interests. I agree with you that having a project, being outside, etc. all play a part, but there are a million other things that you could have chosen to do while outside. You say yourself that you are not sports minded. Your project could have been building a little league team, installing a pitching area to practice your fastball, etc. But that didn't strike your fancy, as you indicate. But gardening did. Any number of things could have helped to shape that "streak" in you, but I have to think your childhood experiences factored into the equation.

I know in my case I am not talking fluff about my past. There were many things about it that were not good - my dad's early passing, the feeling that everyone had more than us, my mother's depression and trouble with alcohol after my dad died, but the gardening bits (even those that didn't seem great at the time) really have impacted on me, my view of life and what is important, etc. I love garden projects, garden work, garden books, my garden club. I moved from the city when I finished law school because I couldn't bear the thought of my kids living without a yard, and nature nearby. I wouldn't give the years spend living here at the lake up for anything. I wanted for my kids some part of that magic that I had. I can go days just exploring nurseries and talking to the people I meet there. I believe that, because important people in my life as a child, who were touched by gardens in a way that improved their everyday lives, sparked their generosity, amused them, awed and inspired them, shared some of that wonder and love with me by creating spaces that let my childhood imagination fly, I am a gardener today.

Don't sell your childhood short. When I read what you write, the obvious irritation (maybe too strong a word) that you feel for your sister's curb appeal approach and your brother's non-gardening, tell me several things. You take gardening seriously, You love what you do (dirt and all) and your believe that it means something. Each project is like another canvas upon which you release your imagination, and fall in love with the process of creating. In all of those things, you are absolutely right. I don't think you came by those strong feelings and sentiments, however, absent your young life experiences. I for one would like to hear / see the version you described as fluff.

Woodyoak - There is a community garden not far from where I live where every Saturday morning I see dozens of kids with their parents, weeding/staking/ harvesting, and having a great old time. I think that is part of the answer to your question. Our local garden club has also had outreach programmes for youth that gave gardeners an opportunity to touch many children who had been involved in planting anything. The seeds are still being planted.

sorry, I left out the word never in the second to last sentence... "who had never been involved in planting anything."

TR, please do not delete your postings. You have obviously given much thought to your response and your reflections on a previous version. No one knows us like we do ourselves, except maybe a twin. All the people we meet and all our experiences, and our genetic makeup influence our interests and our talents. Some of those influences are stronger than others with different ones for each of us. So what if your childhood gardening experiences weren't the major influence? You have identified and shared your reasons for gardening.

I started to garden in 1969 because I wanted fresh vegetables and a few flowers. it wasn't until the 1990s that I really became an avid gardener and that was because I wanted something else to do, a project. The doing was the important thing, the experimenting was more important than the results. Soon I will leave my gardens and I expect again to be where I was in 1969, a tiny patch for a few vegetables and maybe a few flowers. I will look at other areas of interest for a new project.

Regarding siblings: I come from a family of 11 children and I am the only avid gardener. Some siblings grow a few vegetables and flowers but none are interested enough to learn botanical names or join a forum, or even have much interest in talking about gardening. I wish some shared the enthusiasm I have but I have friends whose eyes light up when we talk gardening and that is enough for me.

So it remains that to several of us, TexasRanger insists on denying his childhood, even though he describes it so clearly.

A puzzlement.

Kezwick, fluff means padded or inflated. I was referring to my first answer a year ago to this question, not other people's responses in this thread.

I'm not angry with my younger brother or sister. They were raised differently and interestingly (to me) neither are gardeners, we are different in several ways as a result.

Junco, you are way out of line.

My story: The gardener that I am today.

My father had a food garden, and a rose garden. My grandmother told many stories about her gardens, and those of my other grandmother. I did not do too much in the garden until I had a home of my own, and my father gave me a rose. He also gave me a membership in the American Rose Society.

My garden grew, my children grew, I taught school for years and years, I accumulated a total of 276 large rose bushes, and loved it.

A few years ago I realized that to garden as an older person, I needed to realistically decide how to maintain the garden without having to bring in help. (I have never had help, and wanted to be as totally independent as possible.) I dismantled all arbors and trellises. I created definite beds, and destroyed all the grass in and out of the beds. I planted crape myrtles on the hill that goes down to a creek, and little by little have removed or destroyed the roses on the hillside.

Recently Rose Rosette Disease has become a problem for rose growers. I am no exception. I am not going to continue discarding and re-planting roses. They are large, heavy, and difficult to handle. Therefore for the first time, I am looking for perennials, bushes, and whatever I can find to blend in with my roses. My present rose count is around 100. They plus my 16 crape myrtles give me a garden that I love.

I first joined the garden web in the late 1990's. I have been very active on the Roses Forum, Antique Rose Forum,Oklahoma Garden Forum, and even have my roses on Help Me Find.

I like the Perennials Forum, and feel that I can receive some good information here as well as the other sites.

Of course even though the garden has helped me be the person I am today, my dogs are the real helpers. I could never be the gardener I am today without my three Golden Retrievers.

Sammy (female)

Texas Ranger 2 - I knew what you meant by fluff and I knew that you were only referring to your own story. I took no offense. I was simply making the point that those kind of memories loom large (and are probably somewhat idyllic and exaggerated), but they make us who we are. I didn't think you were angry with your siblings (I said irritated was too strong a word), but I did sense in what you had to say that you felt that they had missed something important by not having the same love of "real" gardening as you. I have five brothers. None of them is the gardening fanatic that I am. I don't "get" it, but it doesn't change the love I feel for them. One is now deceased. Two are gardeners much like your sister. They have a few shrubs and every year put in a nice, tidy display of annuals. The other two couldn't care less and have very full lives doing anything but gardening. Their idea of a garden is a nice deck with a few cold beers and an expanse of lawn. We all had the same parents. I recall asking my one brother why he didn't garden at all, and he related it back to all the weeding, etc. we did as kids. He made a point of telling me, however, that when vacationing, etc. he loved to visit other gardens. They were beautiful to look at, oases of calm, and they reminded him of all the work that he didn't have to do. The point being that those same life experiences, depending on one's disposition, etc. may have the exact opposite or different impact than they had on you (but the impact will still be there). I still would like to hear the "fluff" version of your experiences.

I had lurchers...and rumbustious offspring and a massive phobia of bees and wasps.- gardens existed only as Friday night television diversion before nipping off to the pub (Gardener's World). Until my 9 year old daughter decided to 'clear up' the stomped earth and dog toys in the area which passed as our back yard. To be a good mum and show enthusiasm, we went out and bought a lavatera...which obviously grew like Topsy in the (well fertilised and fallow) earth. Goodness me, piece of cake, this gardening lark...so we bought a Japanese anemone (because I liked the name). Again, we got lucky, with huge burgeoning growth, convincing me of my innate green fingers. Seeds next - easy ones such as nasturtium and again, a lucky choice but horrifically, I was already succumbing to an infection which would take over and dominate my life for the next 2 decades...and the deal was sealed when a free packet of aqulegias produced a plethora of flowers.

I enrolled in horticultural college (5 years) and am now a Ma.Hort.RHS, work as a jobbing gardener and bought a woodland (not to do things by half). The garden disease is roughly equivalent to measles in it's contagion because, falling like ninepins, the offspring, partners and grandaughter have all fallen into line - with various fads ranging from fruit, succulents and cutting flowers - and eldest followed me into college too - we sometimes work together.

The bee and wasp thing, while never completely vanishing, diminished from the early days when I once ran away from my daughter as she was in the middle of being stung...and threw my 2year old to the ground when a bee landed on him whilst carrying him (the shame) - I also had to be walked home, with my T.shirt over my head, on more than one occasion...but hey, I try not to get trapped in the greenhouse but otherwise consider myself more or less cured.

LOL camps! Nice to 'see' you again! You've got to post some pictures - and commentary! - on this summer's progress in your woodland... How's the dog coming along too?

My love of gardens and gardening started when I was not much more than a toddler, following my grandpa around his garden, his was a very English style cottage garden, rambunctious and colorful, full of foxgloves, canterbury bells, pinks and lavender. A rustic winding pergola covering a flagstone path was covered in roses, there was a bench halfway along where I used to sit daydreaming, drinking in the scent of roses and the nearby lavender. I can still remember getting down on my knees to smell the pinks and carnations grown along one of the paths, still favorites of mine today.

...Most of my teenage years were a bit of a blur but I managed to survive, having to quit school at 16 and find a job to support myself was a real awakening, but hey you do what you have to do :).

Married at 18, family followed at 2 year intervals, stopped at 3, money tight having a garden was still only a dream. We were renting a little cottage near the beach, on a very tight budget I managed to buy a packet of cosmos seeds so, armed with my trusty gardening tool, a dessert spoon I pulled some grass and dug with my spoon a bit of bare earth and planted my seeds. The cosmos grew, I was fascinated with the finely cut foliage, flower buds were just starting to show when we moved :(.

The next place we rented, this place didn't have a garden either but not to be thwarted and by this time I had another garden tool an old fork (things are looking up). Again it was a packet of seed nasturtiums this time with two tools the going was a bit easier, I planted my seeds and soon those distinctive looking little leaves popped through. I watched them like a hawk waiting for the day I'd see the first flower buds appear, didn't happen we moved.

....but not too unhappy this time we had managed to save enough for a down payment on a small house on 3 acres, still didn't have money to spare for gardening tho. By this time someone had given me a shovel so at least I could dig a good size flowerbed bed in anticipation. Big smile, a lady gave me a box full of dahlia tubers I was on my way, the first garden of my very own, I planted they grew, you guessed it we moved, better job with a future for DH so we sold our little place and moved to Ocean Falls where again we rented, company town.

I did manage a tiny garden here but when you live where it is continually raining 172.8 in. annually residents had 'rainpeople' as a nickname, there were only certain plants that did well other than ferns and the like. I started an African violet collection, I finally had some plants I actually got to see flowers :). I think I had them on every windowsill in the house, I became quite obsessive about them, couldn't wait for the next catalog to come in the mail to see what new offers there were, I had standards, trailing, minis, I even had one with variegated leaves. We lived in Ocean Falls for 6 years.

....We moved back to the island (violets came with me) and bought a small house in 1965, we are still here today and the only way they'll get me to move is if it's feet first, there is a 4 lane highway outside our back fence but the nature park with a small stream just across the road out front makes up for it. At last I could have a garden, the back yard was all lawn, the front as well. What can I say there's only a little patch of grass out front and no grass other than ornamental in the back now. I went nuts, I had to try my hand at growing everything that interested me, I had and still have collections, I went through fuchsias, begonias, brugmansias, succulents michaelmas daisies, clematis.

I got a phone call out of the blue one day and asked if I would like to come and work at a nursery during peak time, I jumped at the chance not so much for the money which of course would be spent on plants but for the wealth of knowledge I would be soaking up from this cranky at times old nurseryman, I loved him to bits :). I worked there for 3 or four year, until he retired and sold the nursery. I worked for the new owners for about a year but it just wasn't the same. it was time to spend more time in my garden.

I've done the growing for show thing, actually did a bit of judging for quite a few years, but it's my garden in our back yard what I love the most. My garden is very hodgepodge but it suits me just fine. MUCH, MUCH, older now, I find I am planting more shrubs but perennials are at the top of my list of must haves. I like plants that have a fragrance, so around the end of May beginning of June the air is filled with perfume and color, then it slowly peters down to a green jungle (I'm working on that) my gardening style has become eclectic to say the least, but my grandpa's garden at his cottage on the seashore is the one this obsessive, compulsive self taught, gardener dreams about. That's my story in a nutshell and I'm sticking to it LOL.

P.S. Woody and others, I'm loving all your stories of how you came to love gardening.

Annette

My story began before many of you were born. In 1972 we bought this house in a small town in northern Ontario. We liked it because of it's large yard. We wanted to start a vegetable garden. Money was tight but we figured tools were necessary if we were going to garden. You'd laugh if you saw the produce from that first years gardening. We didn't know that our yard had all the top soil removed and sold. The ground was hard as a rock but we managed to dig some of it up and plant--a waste of time as it turned out because what grew was too small to eat. It's a wonder anything grew in that horrible soil. We had friends who had a lot with lots of trees. We offered to clean up their leaves if we could have them. We spread a thick layer of leaves over part of the garden then ran through them with the lawn mower and got a bit of top soil and put it on top of the leaves. The Next year our garden plot was much better. We continued to add leaves and compost until the whole garden had good soil. By this time I had the gardening bug.

Then I turned my attention to flowers and let my husband take care of the garden. I started with a small flower bed along the back of the house and that has turned into many beds all over the yard. Money was tight so I decided if I wanted flowers I'd have to grow them myself. I constructed a couple of cold frames that were simply wire hoops covered in plastic in that back flower bed. I planted fast growing annuals right in the soil and then transplanted them where I wanted them. I had to do some research on which ones to plant. I think I went through every gardening book in the public library. This worked well for a few years and my flower beds grew and grew with cold frames in most of them. Then 1 year my dear husband built me a greenhouse and I was able to grow different flowers. Eventually I also added a grow light station in my basement.

Every spring I can't wait to get started planting. There is something therapeutic about having your hands in warm soil and watching those little sprouts push their way out of it

Like Keswick, my love of gardening began when I was a child, but I didn't realize it. My grandmother had a magnificent rose garden and an arbor covered in roses above her front gate. My mother was a flower gardener with a magnificent rock garden. I loved how beautiful it was...unless I was pressed into wedding. ;)

My second husband and I bought our home 17 or 18 years ago. We have 1/2 acre which is a decent sized lot here outside Washington DC. Unfortunately, the back was nothing but ivy, vinca major, and, gasp, bamboo. Ugh. It took more than five years to clean it out. Our property backs to woods (maybe not for long since our elderly neighbor died and her children will probably sell her 12 acres to a developer) which has been wonderful. We have added understory trees and large hardwood trees front and back. Lots of hosta, shrubs, ferns, etc.

Then, we adopted a mother/son tag team of crazy dogs. Now, we have a dog park out back-dirt and weeds in most of it. Sigh. Still, it is a happy yard and I keep replanting after they trample or dig up what I have planted. Their idea of the perfect garden is quite different from mine, alas, and don't get me started on the lovely stone walls and steps that they must dig up to get at those rotten chipmunks. I am waiting for them to collapse (the walls, not the pups).

The mongrel horde is calming some now that they are getting old, so I hope I can keep these 63 year-old bones flexible enough to keep trying to make a garden like all of you seem to have. Please just don't stop by when I am trying to get up from sitting in the dirt as I weed! It is not a pretty sight and I live in fear of anyone seeing me. heh heh.

I am loving all the stories, the gardening beginnings. And I thank you all because in the telling you remind me of things I had almost forgotten. When cyn427 pleaded that no one stop by when she is sitting in the dirt, I laughed out loud. There seems to be an unwritten cosmic law that when you are a gardener, those people who you would prefer did not see you unless you were looking like you just stepped off the pages of Gentlemen's Quarterly or Vogue, will show up, instead, when you are at your absolute filthiest.

Campanula UK's remarks about her bee and wasp phobia reminded me of the time I went into my dark garden shed, reached up and grab my electric weed wacker from above the shelf above the door where it was stored, immediately felt some pain and the whole side of my face when numb. I thought I was having a stroke until I felt something on my leg, too, and when I looked down, I saw a pair of wasps stinging me in the dim light. Then I realized I wasn't having a stroke but that my face was being stung as well. I ran out of the shed with the weed wacker only to realize once out in the sun that wasps had built a nest between the wacker and the wall, I had torn it in half, and was running with half of it still hanging on the weed wacker. My face stayed numb for a few hours. I am much more careful now!

Like Dowlingram, I started to read gardening books... but the library was not all that close to home and I bought most of them. Everytime I was in a used book store, a new book store, a garage sale, I was on the lookout for a good gardening book. I have amassed quite the library of gardening books, and field guides to birds, insects, weeds and God knows what else... but I think my wife is downsizing it when I am not looking. I also have a hard time resisting gardening mags, especially in the dead of winter.

During my first few gardening years, I did not grow seeds. Then my wife's aunt (who is a Roman Catholic nun with a penchant for gardening and had always started seeds indoors) was moved from the small convent where she was staying in Newmarket, ON. Before she left, she asked me if I wanted her lights. Two large flourescents with four 48 inch bulbs each, and her plant stands. Of course, I took them and now, depending on the year and how busy I am, I have hundreds of lupin, delphinium, sweet william, alyssum, aubretia, geranium and other seedlings growing under lights as soon as the Christmas decorations are put away. Our house has no basement, so these things have to be set up in bedrooms, the family room, etc. The police actually came to the door once to see if we had a marijuana grow up in the house because of the flourescent light they could see emanating from the windows at all hours.

We gardeners are a peculiar lot, in a good way. And we are eternally optimistic. A few years ago I wrote a poem about that optimism. I am going to try to find it and post it here, hopefully, for the enjoyment of you all.

I like it! Thanks.

so true, keswick!!

Thanks for the comments. I must have been half asleep when I typed it into the comment. The line that looks like Lewis Carroll wrote it should read: the lawn is brown and splotchy NOT : the lawy in brown and ... Sorry!

keswick_sniders I loved your poem, many parts of your journey into gardening although on a different level hit home with me, along with happy times there were some tough years to get through as I was growing up. Not only does a garden give one a lot of joy and pleasure, it, at least for me when I was very young without going into detail, grandpa's garden was a place where all my little worries and cares disappeared. There was a tall patch of grass behind his vegetable garden where on a sunny day I would lie down in amongst it and watch all the billowy clouds roll by, sometimes even take a nap, the warmth from the sun, a slight breeze, lovely.

I used to have a huge library but have since passed many of my books on to up and coming gardeners, magazines, I had a bookcase full of them which I used to pull out and reread during the winter months, those have now been handed on to others. I've only been using a computer for a few years and still on the learning curve, very thankful I have DH to straighten it all up when I hit a snag but those times I'm happy to say are getting less frequent.

I'm sure most of you have discovered not only does a garden give you satisfaction at creating beauty even if it is just in your own mind, like me, a garden is a great healer. For those of us dealing with disabilities, illness, hardships or even emotional issues that can wear one down a garden becomes a sanctuary where you can relax and toss all your cares to the wind at least for a little while, that is... until you look down at your favorite hosta that some damn slug has used as a smorgasbord the night before, but after a little searching you find the culprit, the crunching sound heard when you bring the heel of you boot down on the little sucker... ahhhh such satisfaction... all is right with the world again :).

Gardens, so many different styles of gardening to choose from, it's a place where you can do your own thing, whether it's acreage, a few raised beds, containers or even just a simple window box to start with, welcome to the wonderful world of gardening, enjoy.

WARNING!!! it can become very addictive LOL.

Annette

Just beautiful, Aftermidnight. And your right, a garden becomes a lovely place to just be at peace with yourself (and your maker, if you believe you have one). There is a lovely little passage in Les Miserables (the book, not the stage play), where the garden belonging to the "monseigneur", the prelate who eventually starts Valjean onto a new life path, is described in terms of what is there and what it means to the monseigneur. The garden does heal and refresh, does renew hope, does render peace. I really do believe that is why we are drawn to it.

Keswick, love the poem.

Need to correct one misconception, though. It isn't having folks see me sitting in the dirt that I worry about-it is having them see me on all fours as I struggle to stand again! Sheesh. So embarrassing. ;-)

Annette, you are right as always!

Cyn, you've been peeking over my fence, I can so relate LOL

Annette

cyn427 - LOL - Yeah, the getting back up can be pretty embarassing, especially when all possibility of doing it gracefully is long since gone. But I am one of those gardeners who, even when I don't mean to, ends up filthy.. and that's when unexpected company arrives. So I look like Pig Pen from the Charlie Brown comic strip, and an old sailor on his sea legs all at the same time.

Well written views on gardening aftermidnight--- my favourite quote is " you can bury a lot of troubles, digging in the dirt" author unknown.