What got you into gardening?

I had generally ignored the garden in the houses that we lived in, and in one we had a "tribe" of dogs runnng rampant through 3 gardens flattening everything. (They weren't my dogs.) When we finally moved to a new house, the garden had been rotivated by the builders and was just a sea of churned-up dirt. My kids looked at it and said, "Well it's going to stay like that, no one is going to do anything with it."
I levelled it all out and ordered turf just to prove them wrong. I created beds and started to buy gardening magazines and eventually began to have some idea about what I was doing.
Having said that, I regularly panic about my garden...Is it ok? Will I get everything done? Have I accidently killed or neglected something? I must learn to relax!

 

I started gardening when i was very young. It was a new, huge post war council estate and the soil was sticky yellow clay, but when you are 5 you don't know that. I was given my plot and i grew annuals on it. I was fascinated by the sunflowers and how fast they grew. I started to do most of the gardening and was encouraged by my elderly aunt who had a lovely garden and she started giving me perennial divsions and rose cuttings. So I started reading about it but my parents would not let me pursue it as a career - no money in it (this was before the explosion in garden centres). When I went off to university and spent years in flats I did no gardening. However when we got married and lived in a rented house for a few months I started growing a few radishes and lettuce in the garden and cut the grass and pruned the roses. So our first own house had to have a decent sized garden and i had an allotment started before we moved in. So at the beginning of married life I renovated an abandoned allotment and completely dug over a garden (heavy clay again). At the beginning of married life we were practically self sufficient in veg and fruit - the garden had lots of fruit trees. In my present garden it is just ornemental but i have gone for rarities and unusual perennials. Have taken over my father in laws garden as he has got frailer and am back to veg and fruit growing. I now want land, like a few acres. would happily spend every waking hour tootling around gardening. Just a shame the days are not long enough.
Also into selling plants as a sideline. Found there is a local market for unusual things so rather than chucking them away. and there is quite a thrill from people wanting to buy your stuff cause its good.

 

GH,

What a lovely read, i guess you and clay soil belong together then

I am sure that your father in law greatly appreciates your help as well. A well cared for garden is so therapeutic i think.

If you get your few acres can i walk around them (joke), i kind of like rambling about the country.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us

 

No i don't belong to clay soil. I reckon i have done my penance for whatever i must have done wrong in a previous life! My present garden is a mixture of peat, sand and silt. Imagine the texture of potting compost. It would be great if the water table wasn't so damn high. Unfortunately it is so soft that the dog only has to jump on the lawn and it makes a hole.
My father in laws garden is sandy loam which is also easy to dig.
People talking about digging things up. In my father in laws garden while digging the bean trench I dug up what I think is part of the skull of a horse. Now the house in 100 years old but the house 2 doors away is 200 years old and that was originally a farmhouse. Wonder what other livestock I will find when I dig the next bean trench?

 

Ooooooooer GH,

Reminds me of the film "The Godfather" that does

I am totally envious of your soil minus the watertable problem. If my dogs were to bounce around on your lawn i think they could possibly dig a trench or three in one jump but a bit larger than required

 

Every spring i have a depression where Poppy, the german shepherd, has launched her self from the patio on to the lawn. It happens in winter cause the soil is usually damp.
She caught me out once. I was cutting the grass and I did not watch her. She literally dug a 1 foot deep hole in 2 minutes. I did not know about it until my lawnmower fell into it!