What got you into horticulture?

What got you into horticulture? Was it a family/cultural thing, a teacher, a chance encounter or what?
Why do you feel you have to have a well-kept garden?
And what accounts for the difference between ââ?¬Ë?those who do and them who donââ?¬â?¢tââ?¬â?¢?

 

I had a chance encounter with a teacher under a holly bush and now feel I must have a well kept garden to avoid being prickled if I find another.

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On a serious note it was a family thing been brought up with nature /wildlife I think it automatically follows when brought up with it you carry it on through your life

 

An uncle of mine who brought me up for seven years, to whom I was a shadow, was very fond of gardening and his was always immaculate, which possibly accounts for the second question!

I can't answer the third question as I am the first and can't speak for the second! :D

 

Car sickness
We don't!
Opportunity?

 

With me it was a couple of yrs ago and my next door neighbour.He gave me a clod of earth with what looked like thick blades of grass sticking out of it for my front garden.Crocosmia.I was truely amazed when it grew.Perhaps it`s in the genes as my great grandfather was a head gardener for a Laird up in Scotland.I remember his daughter,my grandmother,trying to teach me the names of trees etc. whilst walking her dog,Jimmy in the woods but i`m afraid it fell on deaf ears.Too busy chasing after Jimmy.I wish i`d payed more attention now.

 

My mother was always interested in plants and I remember going into Woolworths as a child in the 50s and looking through the brightly-coloured seed packets which were then arranged on the counters behind which the shop-assistants stood waiting to ring up any purchases on their tills.
I first got the "bug" myself some 30 years ago when I ordered some packets of seed (Aquilegia is the only variety I remember)from an animal charity Christmas catalogue.

 

My dad was a market gardener and is currently a plant breeder, my mum was a keen gardener, and my sister went to horticultural college and is a professional gardener.

However, none of this rubbed off on me until I got my own garden and I wanted to get rid of the patio. I discovered loads of amazing plants and started growing veg as well and now I just another "garden bore" like everyone else in my family

 

Taking over an existing garden got me into it.

I dont feel I HAVE to have a well-kept garden, I just aspire to :rolleyes:

Dont know about the differences, but I feel 'they' are missing out a bit :D

 

Very much a chore that had to be done. We had two large veg gardens and three allotments and as a teenager I detested the time spent on them.
Funny how things change
And after digging miles of straight trenches for spuds the only thing neat and straight in my garden is me :D
As for do's and don'ts...best ask the chap next door why he doesn't do gardening and won't sell me half of it

 

When I moved into this garden. It was 2 and 1/2 acres of scrubby wilderness and I have spent about 10 years slowly bringing under some sort of 'control'. It is never well-kept but has a sort of happy informality - apparently women tend to have a more free-form attitude to gardening rather than men, whom tend more towards the formal or 'well-kept'. I have no idea if this is true

 

I used to help my Dad do cuttings in the greenhouse when I was little - he'd worked in his student summer holidays at a local nursery, and he taught me lots. I also had a little piece of garden of my own. Mum used to talk about plants by their latin names, so I had no difficulty in remembering those - just have some problems in knowing their common names! :D
I came into gardening full time when I left teaching, as a therapy, and discovered I loved it, particularly the heavy stuff like digging and restoring old neglected gardens. I love discovering new plants, and new things about them - and love working out of doors. I was also taught by a real enthusiast - who even tried to teach me about servicing the machinery! :eek: That's not my strong point...... :rolleyes:

As to why some people don't - well, I guess there are people who don't like being out of doors, or getting hot, sweaty and dirty. Can't understand it myself, but it keeps me in work! :D

 

Being given my own little plot in the garden at home when I was little, about 5 years old. As I got older the plot got bigger and bigger. Used to grow hardy annuals and I remember the boy next door, they did nothing to their garden, being astonished at how quick the sunflowers grew. I soon developed a sense of the seasons, and the local wildlife, even though it was a small garden on a big council estate in Greater Manchester.
Who says we aspire to tidy gardens? After being brought up in a big city I wanted my own house to be somewhere nice with proper wildlife. I am a plantsman. My garden is where I grow the things I love - primulas, Meconopsis, Dieramas, anything unusual.
Them who don't? I feel sorry for them. I cannot imagine life without the ability to grow things. I just never have enough land. My garden is bursting.

 

good question Dave W
for me it was something we done to make ends meet growing our own veg ect.and it just carryed on from there it became my employment as well as a hobby for me

 

Whilst my father was a keen gardener, I wasn't until I moved into a one bedroom ground floor conversion flat. The back window looked out on to contrete and a brick wall - but there was a narrow strip of rubble - and my neighbour managed to grow a few beans in her strip. Just too depressing to look at the concrete - so no choice. My love of gardening was born.