You and gardening! What is the magnetism?

So there are "Gardeners and gardeners". Might you care to share with us. Your driving force to gardening, be it amateur or professional. Perhaps you changed careers to indulge ingardening. Please whatever, how easy going or professional, please share your thoughts and experiences.

 

What a good question!

Briefly, my mother gave me a great love of gardening. She was very accomplished, very knowledgeable and when I got my first garden, helped me so much. Thank you, dearest mum.
Whenever I grow tomatoes, their strong aroma reminds me of her, tending her beloved fruit in the greenhouse.
I had a photograph of her once, coming out of the greenhouse, ladened with produce in her pinny, bend double with the weight of it all. Her face clearly showed how proud she was to show me what I could achieve with a bit of knowhow, a lot of enthusiasm and most importantly, giving the growing plants "a good talking to" when needed!

I could go on, but I'd end up writing pages and pages and nobody wants that, especially from a newbie like me!

May I ask you to share your thoughts too, Mike?

 

My mum gardened a lot too, just as a hobby, nothing major, but since I had my own little plot when i was a kid I was always interested in it.

Now I am more interested in growing my own food, I like flowers and shrubs too, but I am definitely more of a food gardener now

 

The joy of growing from seed I developed from an early age.

I joined my local horticultural club when I was the youngest member there and devoured knowledge from the speakers and members. Then there was a divide in the passions of the members – the females going for flowers and the males for vegetables. At the shows it was the men who scooped all the prizes in the veg sections and it continues today. I've never grown to show – bigger and blousier is not for me but I love going to the shows to see the giant marrows and larger than life dahlias.

My inspiration gardener was Geoffrey Smith who spoke of growing flowers with such enthusiasm that I was hooked and my bedtime reading consisted of gardening books some of which I still refer to today. My garden is a perfect retreat with so many memories of plants given by friends or family or bought from lovely places visited. I enjoy the solace with the bees buzzing and the birds singing sharing my little patch with nature. Something money can't buy.

I was lucky in my working life to organise open gardens for a charity. In my dream job I visited many gardens, large and small, where I was further inspired. Gardeners are so generous with their knowledge and happy to get novices started on what may become a lifelong passion. It is good exercise and brings so many dividends – the joy when you see the snowdrops and aconites in late winter: the magic when you're able to put a tree seat round the beautiful tree you planted years ago as an ailing sapling.

 

Can still hear him saying "50/50 peat and vermiculite

My neighbour gave me some beetroot thinings when I was 7. That started the veg side off, and a Scottish lady I met in Palestine (probably @silu ) about the same time saw that I was interested in wildflowers and sent me this



Since I met you lot i've even started growing flowers and cacti

 

Didn`t really get into gardening until I took the job at the nursery. Propagating plants became a bit of an obsession, and I found myself inspecting all kinds of plants to see if they were sporting 'suitable' material - even hedgerows when out walking.
More recently my growing love of perennials and grasses are a result of a rather good teacher I have followed on a gardening forum

 

I think my love of plants started when I became a bit too old to want to play in a little sandpit my Dad had made for me in the garden. He suggested the pit could be my garden and bought me some sandy soil loving plants like Mesembryanthemums to grow and look after. I think I liked saying the word Mesembryanthemums as it was the longest word in my "dictionary" then! Like most things in life you get out what you put into a garden with few short cuts that actually last the test of time. You get satisfaction from seeing your "babies" appreciating your care of them . It can be very annoying and unfair when the weather a la NOW or some wild animal, fungus or insect destroys your hard work but then who said life was fair? Most true gardeners are a pretty kind and generous bunch, willing to share their knowledge and experience yet not afraid to try new things. For years while running my own non gardening related business I didn't have the time to garden much. However, I was invited to go and see a garden which was open through the Yellow Garden Scheme. OMG the garden was stunning and created in a god forsaken part of Scotland. If you could succeed there you could just about succeed anywhere. The owners had definitely NOT spent a fortune on their garden but with knowledge and wonderful flair they had created almost 5 acres of gardens with no outside help. Just a husband and wife team. That visit inspired me to believe I too could create a lovely garden. Not sure I succeeded but it's been fun trying.

 

With me, its a bit complicated to explain. Really, I had no interest in gardening before I moved into this house some 28 years ago now. I simply had far to much going on in my life until then.

Way back then, most of the land was a kitchen garden. Something I later realised was typical of the period here in which the house had been built. During the first couple of years, only simple things were done. Planting a hedge for example. Then things sort of developed from there. I discovered that gardening was a challenge that could not really be conquered. At the same time, it gave an outlet for my creativity. So I ended up being hooked.

Put simply, its a challenge that cannot be overcome. Thats the attraction.

 

Years ago I helped in the garden of a gentleman called Ted Smith ; turned out he was chairman of the Lincolnshire Trust for Wildlife & Nature Conservation . His almost encyclopaedic knowledge of garden plants rubbed off onto me .
Pride of his garden were two large 'Alpine Houses' (just open ended g/houses) filled with the most
comprehensive , accurately named collection I'd seen in years ; never will I forget the huge bowl of Tecophilea cyanocrocus in full flower . This is extinct in the wild as far as I know .
The early 80s found me working at Whitestone Gardens in N.Yorkshire ,mentored by Roy Mottram , a botanist and one of the leading lights in cactus cultivation , plus other seldom seen nor heard of succulents .
Finally got my own garden thirty years ago , and carved out from plain lawns numerous borders filled with a generous amalgam of the commonly grown to the highly unusual desirable trees and shrubs ; different perennials play a major role too .
I still work in partnership as a professional gardener and make a good living , but it's always good to get home after a long day , sit out and enjoy my plot of land . Fortunately I have an excellent slightly acidic well draining loam ; this enables an incredible variety of plants to thrive.
Bordered by two very long and broad mixed hedges containing both native and exotic species I planted many years ago , the obvious benefits to the local birds and insects is just an added bonus !

 

I was given a little patch in the back garden to grub about in as a child but I think the bug only really took hold when I moved into my own home in my mid-20s. Its small back garden was pretty uninspiring at that point - main features, a lawn, an overgrown conifer, four forsythia bushes and two overgrown hebes. Something had to be done and fortunately my mother - a keen gardener, as was her mother before her - was there to advise and encourage me.

Over the years I've watched it evolve and made my own changes and derived a huge amount of pleasure from the process. Here in the city I feel very lucky to have somewhere where I can be in touch with nature - growing beautiful plants, watching the seasons, encouraging wildlife.

It's a creative outlet too as others have said - over the last couple of years I've enjoyed redesigning it a bit, taking the lawn out and replacing that with gravel and slabs (much more practical with a dog) and replacing the leaking pond with a smaller more wildlife-friendly pool and a 'limestone pavement' for sedums. This year I want to replant the sunny border and make it look as good as the shady one opposite!

My garden is small and far from perfect but like Mother Nature herself it is also a) generous, b) practical c) forgiving.For instance:

a) I like flower arranging and every day of the year there is something or other out there to pick for the house - this morning four daffodils, bent over by the snow but otherwise fresh and undamaged.

b) The washing's out there on the line and drying in the cold wind. And in the summer it's like an extra room - somewhere to sit out with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and enjoy the view.

c) Make a mistake and it's not the end of the world - the plant can be moved/ pruned/ composted.

I love my garden! Here's a plaque I had made for it last year. The quote's attributed to the 13th century poet Amir Khusrow. It's inscribed on the pavilion in the Shalimar Gardens in Kashmir and elsewhere in India and Pakistan.

 

Clare ; nice idea re:- the limestone pavement !
Ken appears quite content with his 'lot' .
The smilies are for Doghouse Riley , I know he likes them !!

 

Plants are less hassle and more tolerant than most people.

this has been rediscovered in the wild Tecophilaea cyanocrocus Leyb. | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science

 

Good news on the Tecophilea (or aea) ; thanks for the link , will have a look asap .

 

The ‘Crowman’ gave I a gardening head innit