Do gardeners get better with age?

When we were first married our garden was just 16' x 35'. It was a mess when we moved in and so we had a fresh start, levelling it, putting down turf and creating some borders. We had clay soil and my Father, a keen gardener who also gardened on clay, gave us both advice and innumerable plants with detailed instructions on how to care for them. Both my Grandfathers who'd 'dug for victory' in their time, also kept us supplied with veggie plants but despite following their advice 'to the letter', just about everything died.

5 years on and we moved to a house with a larger garden to accommodate our growing family. It was now a standing family joke that everything we planted would be dead within a week, but despite this my parents bought us a greenhouse for our 6th wedding anniversary - at least the plants had a fighting chance at the start of their lives! We had some success, but really only the well-known 'indestructible' plants survived - Russian Vine, Euonymus and Hypericum, etc.

Eventually we moved into our present house, causing my Father to take one look at its 40' x 90' garden and just laugh. He'd still give us plants, (although by now only occasionally!) and the 'growing tips' to go with them, but he was no longer surprised by their almost instant demise.

My father died in 2003 and since I'd spent the preceding 3 years looking after him and my disabled Mother, as well as my own family and working full-time, our garden became seriously neglected (not that anyone really noticed!). Then one day, we looked at the weeds and nettles and decided they had to go, even if the whole lot was just grassed over. Gradually, we planted things and .... they grew! We planted more and they too grew. The borders got wider, the grass smaller and still things survived, we dug a veggie patch and actually got crops and I managed to take cuttings and get them to root.

I swear I don't know any more about gardening now than I did when first married - I've read books, yes, but I know I don't 'take in' what they say and in effect, I still only do what I remember my Father telling me to do. So why, after 30-odd years, do I finally have a garden that's full of healthy plants and of which I (and my late Father) can be proud?

 

Fidgetsmum,
I have often wondered if gardeners get better with age. I have always liked gardening and have had success and failures. I guess I know a little bit more about gardening now then I did when I was in my twenties but whether it is retained in my brain or whether I do it by instinct is another thing.

 

Gardeners get better with experience Fidgetmum.
And what they definitely get better with is the time to do the job.
I think when we are young our time has to be divided between work, children, household chores and other peoples demands and the garden gets what's left.
As we get older there is less demand on our time and the garden gets better tended.
Well, that's where I think the improvement comes from.
Do you think that fits your case, Fidgetsmum.

 

I think its a case of catching the 'bug', which can happen at any age.
My Dad has always loved gardening and is very green fingered and his Dad was a market gardener, who apparantly grew asparagus for Buckingham Palace! (family legend....not entirely sure how true it is!!), but with me, the bug had clearly skipped a generation! When I got my first garden, my Dad bought me some tomato plants, and year after year he would try and get me interested, but if he didn't come round to water the given tomatoes....they'd die :(.
Then a strange thing happened....My Dad went to the Chelsea flower show with my Aunt and Uncle and I watched it fanatically on TV to see if I could spot them. I didn't, but I did catch the bug!
5 years on I now have a healthy, blooming garden and even have my own allotment thats producing a phenominal amount of produce.
Its strange, I'm the youngest of 3 and the other two still have no gardening interest at all. So I'm not sure its age....more infection.:wink:

And I'm sad to say....there is no cure :halp:

 

I do think you get more efficient.

I know with "big jobs in the garden," a "days work" is at my age, 10-4 with a good hour and a half for lunch.

 

The best you get is when you can devote the most time to your garden at any age. Like anything else in life, the more interest and attention to detail you take the better you will become.
It's easier now though because if you want any specific information about plants/gardening it's all there thanks to Google, so if you follow good advice I don't think you can go far wrong barring natural disasters!

 

one can go to college and get a degree in horticulture,
but there is nowt like experience and time to make a
good gardener, maybe we don't know all the fancy
botanical names, but we do know how to grow plants
and take care of them.

Pete

 

I think gardening is like driving a car. Its very easy to learn - you just have to understand the accelerator, clutch, brake and the steering wheel. And remember not to hit anything - its all common sense. You can explain it all in one sentance or five minutes tuition.

But somehow it took me longer. I think gardening is like that. :D

 

Think like a plant, know where the plant comes from, know the climate of the plant.

Its the best way to grow plants, but then I grow plants, not sure that makes me a gardener though.
I think real gardening is some thing more.
Its a combination of a lot of things, and experience must come into it.
But experience is not necessarily anything to do with age.

 

The variety of soil conditions and the hours of sunshine have such a lot to do with gardening. The house moves we have made have affected the type of garden and even in my 7th decade my experience changes because for the first time we are gardening on sandy soil which makes a great difference to my edinburgh clay which was the last port of call .
More experienced I certainly am, whether or not that makes for a better gardener, who knows?

 

To get back to the original question - Do gardeners get better with age?

Age is doesn't really matter at all. Experience and the ability to learn from it does.

 

Dave - I think your are right. Its nothing to do with age - except that experience comes with age.

But lots of people can go through life gaining experience - very slowly. Sometimes its takes a jolt to focus the mind or to cultivate an interest, then learning and experience can increase at a much faster rate.

If you don't take an interest and notice things - you can see a lot and learn very little.

 

Well, this gardener has just got back from a 3 day folk festival, where he had to be put to bed twice & even then had to be shoved into the right room in the tent.

Went on stage, sang "sick man blues" & then fell off. Remember being passed the spliff but didn't remember that I don't smoke anymore.

So, no, this one hasn't got better with age.

 

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Course you do!

You cannot put an old head on young shoulders!

And the final and definate one, and I quote, you learn something new up to the day you die, so says my mother in law! :wink: