Now here's a challenge. What kind of gardener are YOU?

NO, NO! not a a good or bad gardener. Perhaps more like. What is your preference. What are you good at etc.
Some luve growing veg and perhaps exhibit. Others love flowers, and here we enter the specialist realm. So friends, tell us. How do you use your back yard, your plot etc.

As a starter. From being a kid, ive been poor. However my brain has been active. My love for plants has perhaps been likened to my love for my wonderful wife of fortinine years. I have had a go at most things. Sowing seeds and waiting. You win some and you lose some. Much of my gardening has not only been a journey into the unknown , but an experiment. It might come as a surprise. My love is for the rose. Yet my favourite remains the carnation. Sod it. I just cannot grow...carnations.
So much for a plant scientist. So friends, lets go. Tell us your gardening secrets, loves and losses.

 

Untidy with a bit of this and that, tend to like a challenge and enjoy finding the right conditions for something to flourish. I will admit that a number of things tend to hang on by their finger tips rather than flourishing.

 

Roses are my favourite plants, but I also grow flowers and a few shrubs and herbs.
I grow potatoes, tomatoes, and I have some currant bushes, ( red, white and black. )
The garden tends to get very wet in winter, so I plant most of my bulbs for spring in bottomless boxes, which I then fill with compost. I find this tends to work better when trying to grow daffodils, tulips and carnations. ( I put the boxes in various places around the garden or on solid paths, or the like. They're also great for growing tomatoes in.
Seed sowing is not one of my best jobs, more failures than successes.

 

I will try any flowers or veg but they seem to grow one year and die on me the next.so do flowers or veg like me lol

This year although i grew both i also first time grew a janus de paris pumpkin which i was given by mistake by garden centre in place of courgette

All i got a first was flowers and leaves then 1 pumkin started to grow it grew and grew it was bigger than a football so next year i try again but will also grow something new cause knowing my luck likely next year no pumpkin i must be spooked lol

 

Shrubs, trees and veg, mustn't forget the blooming Nasturtiums

 

I grow most everything....fruit, veg, ornamentals
Living in a mild part of Cornwall, tender perennials are a must. The soil is a well drained sandy loam so, again, ideal for tender plants.
I like to grow a range of grasses. Variegated shrubs too as well as a couple of "dwarf" conifers and heathers.
Not really too keen on annuals......cosmos though will always have a space or two here as will Tithonia
A ruthless gardener.......plants are given a chance but if they dont look good they are destined for the compost heap
A tidy gardener though......in a way I look forward to the winter months because the evergreen structure re emerges when the summer planting dies down.

 

Trees have always been my favourite plants but having limited space I've had to cut my cloth accordingly. I have a beautiful red crab apple "John Downie" which has given me much pleasure in the thirty five years since I planted it. It is glorious in the spring, summer and autumn so superb value for money. Two other trees, recommended to me when I started my garden, were Acer Brilliantissima and weeping birch. They are slow growing and after 35 years they are just tall enough to have tree seats under them. They are like old friends and have paid dividends with their beauty.
Roses I have a love/hate relationship with because they bite and are prone to so many problems. I prefer the shrub roses but they are so fleeting in flower and look awful for the remainder of the year. However they are so breathtakingly lovely when in flower that I grow them for the brief pleasure they give. Scent is important to me and I love flowers and leaves that smell. It is one of the joys of gardening to brush against a sweet smelling flower or herb.
I grow fruit trees but have given the veggies a miss after many a disappointment in the past. My neighbour grows amazing veg which he generously shares so now I stick to the pretty side of gardening.

 

Mostly flowers and shrubs here, plus herbs. More recently I've planted a "Jelly King" crab apple tree and a "Strawberry Grape" vine and am hoping that both will fruit for the first time next year! I also enjoy foraging locally - have made crab apple and quince jellies this year from foraged fruit, and blackberry and sloe liqueurs.

I am drawn by the beauty of plants, and the challenge of finding them the right spot within the garden, then seeing them grow and flourish. I also do my best to attract wildlife to the garden, so I get the pleasure of watching that too. Birds, butterflies, bees, frogs, worms are especially welcome ... slugs and snails, less so. And as for squirrels! But Ken (see below) does his best to keep those out, as well as foxes and neighbours cats!

I'm interested in the overall design of a garden too - two fun recent projects were replacing the lawn with larger flower borders + gravel and paving, and replacing a big old leaky pond with a smaller more wildlife-friendly one, plus a limestone "pavement" on which maiden pinks and my much-loved selection of sempervivums are now doing well.

Overall I guess I just love getting out there and working in nature - and also being able just to sit out with a cup of coffee/ glass of wine. Though not at this time of the year, of course!

 

My type of gardening , well I don't bother with veg now - except my Chillies . Tried toms , spuds , beans et al , but I find the supermarket far more convenient. I do like growing from seed , it's always fascinated me watching them germinate - or not ! These days I grow 1/3 from seed , 1/3 from plugs and a 1/3 from the GC. Trying more perennials now with some success

 

That about sums me up too. Basic rule of thumb is if it's easy it probably ain't worth the effort!
Particular fondness for;

1. Salvia, I have forty odd species/cultivars now.
2. Exotic/rare bulbs.
3. Succulents and cacti
4. Puya.
5. Tricyrtis
6. Solanaceae family

Pet hates;

1. Tidy/formal gardens
2. Lawns
3. Gravel
4. Daisy-like flowers
5. Pansies
6. Daffs
7. Big n' blousy Fuchsia, and any Fuchsia that ain't the right colour!

 

Coming from farming stock i guess that explains my trying to grow stuff in the garden.

Enjoy my palms,cycads,treeferns and exotics. Keep growing far too much garlic and tomatoes. Cant resist big bad taste hanging baskets,and munching my home made jams.

Pet hate is shade and the moss it brings with it.

 

Started out growing veg along with bedding plants, progressed on to shrubs and trees, mostly from seed, and the more unusual the better, although quite a lot of the "unusual" stuff I first grew from seed in the late 70s is now pretty common.

The garden is basically untidy, with plants being planted in aspects that suit the particular plant , rather than where it might look best.

Overgrown and over planted, but I just cant get rid of some of them.

 

What kind?

"Often reluctant."