When And What ?.

When did you get interested in Gardening ?.
What got you interested in Gardening ?.

Personally when I was younger I had no interest in gardening.
I liked to lay on the grass sunbathing,with my dad cutting the lawn around me saying,"Son I'll leave the mower at the bottom of the garden,and when your finished could you cut that bit your on" ?. WHAT! I could just see my son trying that on me ,he would have had a mohican hair cut.
I loved my dads rockery garden,as it was handy for hiding my cigarettes under the rocks,(as i was only 12 years old)..

I didn't get interested in the garden till I was in my late thirties.
What got me interested was my first attempt at planting Dahlias .
I purchased several boxes of them and planted them in the front garden for the local children's Gala Day. My head was so big with the accolades I received from people passing with the parade admiring the display,it got me hooked..

When or What got You Interested..

 

I worked my way through uni by working for an old fella who ran a caravan storage site but originally he had been a commercial grower so I learnt quite a bit as he still used to grow all his own flowers and veg. Working there is what lead me to start up my own small gardening business.

 

My dear, almost blind grandad awakened my interest in growing things. I used to come home from Primary school and run up the hill to his allotment. A little cooee from me and he would say. "Just the lass I need. Come and help me look for caterpillars on these cabbages"
" Or help me wind up these beans."
"Or you choose a nice marrow from your Mum and then we''ll go off to the green house to pick some tomatoes."
Oooooh, I loved the smell in Grandad's green house and that damp heat - you could feel things growing! I would go home with a bag of goodies for our dinner as pleased as Larry.
My parents were not interested in gardening. Too busy trying to earn enough pennies to raise two growing girls.

 

I'd alway's help my Mum out as a kid. Would try and help with weeding. I like to know the name of plants because I thought they looked pretty or smelt nice or to check they weren't a weed! I always preffered enjoying the fruits of her labour and my grandparents. It's only as I've got older and now am living in properties where I can have a garden that I want to do things.

I remember my grandad used to tell us that he had sharks in his waterbutt to try and stop us sticking our fingers in. Also the sweetest raspberries picked straight from the vine and how peas ever made it to the dinner plate I have no idea. I know my Dad didn't grow them one year as Mum and I ate the crop before it could be cooked.

 

I used to live with my grandparents when I was younger and my grandad, Pop as he is known to us all had a huge allotment that backed onto the garden. We used to spend hours over there and he also gave us our own little patches to grow our own stuff, carrots, onions, radish and alike. My Grandparents then retired and moved to Wales so it all stopped. It wasn't until this year and my son started getting interested in what I was doing so I decided to put a raised bed for veg and started growing all the plants from seed and now I'm hooked. It also brings back so very happy memories from my childhood. I drove past the allotment that Pop used to have and it is just an overgrown waste land now, such a shame as there must have been around 75 plots on there, I suppose a developer has bought it to build houses on.

Rusty

 

When my dad got a palm seedling and it ended up surviving and growing in our garden. I went from thinking gardening is really sad, to thinking exotic gardening is ultra cool in a day... the quickest turnaround in opinion ever, I think

 

I got interested in gardening when my dad used to take me to collect sheep muck in a sack to feed his tomatoes,on his allotment there was the obligatory corrigated iron hut with his tools in it but best of all there was a blackbirds nest aswell,i'd sit and watch for hours the 'blackie' coming and going to her nest......my dad took great delight in hearing me say 'forsythia' as i was short tongued as a nipper and it was the only word i could pronounce properly.....memories of scorching hot summers in my dads GH ,him with his collar and tie on no matter how hot it was....and do you know...he's still exactly the same

 

There seems to be a common theme running through this thread, I'm another one who learned all about gardening from a parent or grandparent.

We were lucky enough to have a large garden, in which I spent many hours as a child following, watching and 'helping' my father. He was a keen vegetable grower and would pass on little tips and nuggets of information which had been passed down to him by his father and grandfather, who had both been market gardeners back in the days when it was still possible to make a reasonable living from growing fruit and vegetables.

My grandmother lived next door and kept a lovely 'cottage garden' bursting with colour and fragrance. With the patience that only grandparents possess, she answered my endless questions about all the different plants and insects to be found therein.

Without realizing it, I gradually absorbed all this knowledge from simply being there, watching and listening.

I never really understood just how much I had actually learned from them until years later when I left school and started working in horticulture. I began to realize that what I assumed was just 'common knowledge' was in fact nothing of the sort and that I was in possession of skills and knowledge which would enable me to follow a career which continues to this day.

 

my mum was and still is an avid gardener, spends every spare penny on plants, i did have an interest in it as a kid but when i was around 13-14 i went door knocking to see if anyone wanted their lawn cut and any gardening jobs for my pocket money. the real interest started from there and has never waned

 

My grandad got me into gardening from when I was about 5, we lived with him for about 18 months when my parents split up and it started then really (as he became my 'father figure') and has never left me. I used to have my own little veg patch in his back garden and he used to take me on walks over the fields, which also started my interest in wildlife too

All I can say is thank you grandad if you're watching; from the great garden in the sky, for this fantastic interest and passion you gave me

 

For some reason I developed an interest in native wildflowers & trees when I was about 7.

I was on holiday in Israel & couldn't identify most of the plants out there (did suss out the Garden of Gethsemany was full of Olives though) There was a nice Scots lady out there who sent me the Ladybird book of Wildflowers when I got back. Still got it.

I had a patch in the corner of my Dad's garden that varied from having a few radishes & beetroot in, to being laid out like a formal estate garden in miniature (Had a 1920's book on estate gardening & a mini brick maker.

This would regularly get destroyed when I succumbed to the insane urge to dig a massive hole.

My Dad must have dispaired of me, he'd come back from work to find me down a hole that I could bearly climb out of, piles of clay sub soil all over the place (we lived on an old brickfield)

It was hard going till i'd broken through the rusting remains of the old Austin 7 my brother had previously burried in the garden.

Later on, I got to work with my Dad as a Groundsman looking after 23 acres of Estate Gardens. Best job i've ever had.

 

I forgot to mention. Grandma and Granddad had a pottie under the bed for night time tids. All this went to the GH for the tomatoes and to the allotment for the grandest cabbages on the allotment site. He also grew lovely white celery at Christmas in black soot from the fire. He owned a coal merchant business so no shortage of black gold in their house.

 

Up until the age of six I was reared in a garden that was nearly an acre in size and surrounded by farmland. My mum raised chickens, geese and tended the flower beds, my grandad who lived with us grew all the vegetables and my dad not a gardener, mowed the lawns and cut our huge hedge 128ft with hand shears, it ran across the front of our property.

Although it was in my blood I didn't really start gardening until I was in my 30's, I had been busy raising my three children, which I'd had within five years. With more time available as they became less dependent, my interest in gardening grew. Now I'm not so much a gardener as a plants person, I prefer to grow, whether from seeds or cuttings and of course the majority of these go into my garden.

 

Just loving this thread,
thanks everyone,
Jenny