What got you into gardening?

I'm not quite sure - although I think it's in my blood, my parents love gardening and my grandparents grew lots of veg as well as having decorative gardens, and I had a great-grandad who was a market gardener and one I think who was head gardener somewhere - I have inherited a cup he won for apples, at a county show I believe.

The first things I grew "all on my own" were in pots in the backyard of a rented house, then got an allotment when I moved, then finally bought my own house which had to have a garden with veg, herb and flower growing capability! But I can't remember what inspired me to start the things in pots (I do remember that the slugs ate most of it though!)

I am so sentimental about growing runner beans, they are the things that I most remember my mum's dad growing and he used to help me plant one or two plants right by their house that were my special ones, that always tasted better than all the others (lol, he did all the looking after them but I was only about 5!) - he passed away about 5 years ago but I always feel like he's close when I'm planting and looking after my beans

 

I think it was in my genes. My grandad, I lovely old country man, worked for (I think) Suttons seeds in Norfolk for most of his life. He helped to produce many of the standard flowers and hybrids that got the firm its top position in the horticultural world but never got more than a pittance of s wage. But them days, the wealthy got rich by walking on the backs of the poor.

So later, after almost all my life in nurses homes, rooms and flats, I was thrilled to have the ability to CHOOSE a house with a garden. That was an amazing thing to be able to do. And even more amazing to actually grow stuff and vegetables to boot!

Ain't nothing like having your own bit of land - nothing at all!

 

Plain and simple it's in my blood!
My Grandad came from a long line of farmers in Lincolnshire and as you know on farms you grow things to eat whether its vegetables or animals they all go towards the pot!

My uncle was a gamekeeper too (how country is that!) so there was always meat to be had, it wasn't until we moved to what was once called Humberside before I realized not everyone had tasted pheasant!

As most kids we had our own little patch in the garden where we were allowed to grow stuff mainly for the dinner table.

I wasn't the most successful kid as I was well known for playing with my guinea pigs Bubble and Squeak on my patch and as most of us know they do love their veggies too!

Sadly my mother re-married and her 'new' husband didn't like kids never mind them messing around in 'his' garden so that kinda put me off gardening for many years.

After my children were born the buzz came back and I started doing a child friendly garden instead of your standard 'green patch' and like me they had their own little patch but sadly they are too busy doing 'stuff' to bother with it now...maybe later when they have a family of their own they too will get the buzz back!
Helen.xxx.

 

My dad was a head gardener on a large local estate (private not housing). As a result of that, as a child I hated gardening, but in that perverse way kids have, not gardens themselves. I still have horrors about having to grow lupins and daisies but once I had discovered exotics (no NOT erotics) with their different challenge, I got absolutely fascinated. Oh, plus the fact that Boss lady said that if I didn't do something with that b****y jungle out there, I wouldn't get fed. :D

 

hi a.c
think it must have been when the grass started
cumin through my bedroom window i realised i
couldnt put it off for ever. think it must have been when i moved house went from a dark back yard
to a big large garden that had no plants no soil
and about six bloody ton of limestone,<lazy ******s> on all four sides of the garden. once i shifted the limestones
that took about six months that was it not having a clue went garden cntr bought any thing
i liked the look off and thats it.sit back watch
it grow or sometimes die move stuff about and cadge some cuttings off friends and have a
good potter about and keep up wiv the jones`s
then realised why go to the pub when its cheaper
to get pi...d in the garden

 

Sarra, sounds like the right kind of incentive :D

Inter, your story reminds me of my own , i swear they had buried people under the patio when we moved here, started to get scared about what we would find, in the end found 3 cat skeletons and something i do not wish to talk about :eek:

OK ya twisted me arm, found bones of an animal we couldn't identify under the jungle they left

 

Wonder what it was Paula?
Not exactly on topic but my little sis bought a house which Mary Ann Cotton lived in,and when i was doing the renovating i pulled all the old ceilings down and found bones. :eek:

 

Oooer Mackem,

My boy would be interested, he wants to be a forensic scientist :D

He's changed his A levels to Math, Biology, Chem, P.e., dropping p.e. in second year...again off topic :D

 

For me it was growing up on a wholesale/retail Garden Center. We had quite a few fields and raised Tree/shrubs and vegetables. We also had a lot of production greenhouses and a landscaping business.

When I needed to do something later in life it seemed a natural. Haven't looked back since.

 

As I think I have said before, I got into gardening originally through being dreadfully car-sick.
I got back into gardening when we bought a house and my wife said "Just dig it over for me." She never got to touch that garden again!

 

For me it was simply buying a house in the country with a piece of a field about an acre whcih simply looked awful until we did something about it

 

Well, it was my landlady in the 1980s....I lived in a house owned by an old Czech lady, and one day she said to me, 'If you're going to sit in this garden, you may as well make yourself useful - go and get the secateurs and dead-head the roses'. And....it all started from there! I'd never even had a house-plant before! But I gradually learnt about gardening, I garden completely organically and grow lots of herbs and veg - I had wonderful tomatoes this summer!

 

I just remember seeing the brightly coloured flowers in our North London garden when I was young and learnt their names and also became interested in houseplants as well. Started work ('68) in a then well known nursery and have been growing under glass ever since mainly for Local Authorities. Nearly forty years on I am still learning.

 

My Mum. we were brought up in the East End of London. We had a small garden at the back and mum grew roses etc. I remember her giving me a litle spot that was "mine". The first thing I grew, from seed, was radishes and I remember being amazed that I could eat what I had grown. Eventually Sports and Girls took over most of my time but wherever I was after that, I always grew something. Now, it's part hobby and part work but work I enjoy.

 

I got the gardening bug when I had a home of my very own with a small, rectangular plot with nothing in it. I thought to myself, it would be nice to cover those fences with some climbers, and maybe have a shrub or two, and some nice flowers.............never looked back!