Working class/middle class gardening...

Was thinking of joining RHS until we went to one of their gardens in Devon, no senior citizens concessions plus they wanted an extra �£5 for me to take my camera monopod in, (it doubles as a walking stick and camera support) The rules stated tripods and artists easels to be charged for, but jobsworth in the ticket booth couldn't tell the difference between one leg and three.
We told them to stuff it and went elsewhere.
Cheers MIKE

 

Wow! Then what happened? :D

 

Exactly...it matters that you love your plants and nurture them.

 

I am thinking of taking the RHS course in Horticulture soon at the local college.

 

We witnessed a 'scorched earth policy'leonora..

 

I am not to "working class garden" stage yet...(ahahah)
I don't have in mind a formal garden though, with round trees and very tidy.
I more have in mind a kind of "mediterranean-exotic jungle" , with nice round stones in the right places and a bit of mistery here and there.
But I definitely want to have the satisfaction of producing my own vegetables...
Once I know what I have got, I think I would be quite good at designing it.
Worries about class...? No, I have plenty of worries which come first!

 

Why would you want senior citizen concessions - the RHS is a Charity, for �£40 odd pounds a year, you get free entry to their gardens, and on some days their affiliated gardens - you get a members day at Chelsea (if thats your inclination)participation in seeds from the gardens that you wouldn't get in a garden centre, and The Garden every month. Cheap at the price.

My first membership was a gift from a friend which I then kept up.

As for a class system in gardeners - well there are people who like growing things or people who like to show off. Those for me are the two classes.

[ 15. May 2007, 11:04 PM: Message edited by: Fran ]

 

Why would you want senior citizen concessions - the RHS is a Charity, for �£40 odd pounds a year, you get free entry to their gardens, and on some days their affiliated gardens - you get a members day at Chelsea (if thats your inclination)participation in seeds from the gardens that you wouldn't get in a garden centre, and The Garden every month. Cheap at the price.

My first membership was a gift from a friend which I then kept up.</font>[/quote]I think I might already have explained that this is how I became an RHS member - not a gift, but I won a competition to go to Chelsea, and I joined the RHS there and now go every year...actually this year it's a week today!

I think everyone here is in agreement about that!

 

Lovely story shiney - and yes agree that great thing us gardeners have in common is we all get our hands mucky!

 

"Why would you want senior citizen concessions - the RHS is a Charity, for �£40 odd pounds a year, you get free entry to their gardens, and on some days their affiliated gardens - you get a members day at Chelsea (if thats your inclination)participation in seeds from the gardens that you wouldn't get in a garden centre, and The Garden every month. Cheap at the price."

It depends on where you are coming from, �£40 is half a weeks income for me so therefore it is a luxury I can do without. Many years ago I enquired about the National Trust membership for a retired married couple (�£50+), I was recommended by a relation to join the Scottish National Trust (�£30+). I sent them an email enquiring if as I am English, resident in England, I was eligible for membership. The answer "We would welcome you with open arms". I was a member for many years.

 

Found a few reviews of Hoyles' book, mostly favourable, and pointing out that it's an aspect of gardening that has hardly been touched on - and hasn't been touched on again!!
maybe I'll do an MA in Garden History at either Birkbeck or Greenwich, and redress the balance in my dissertation.
(Mind you, the fees at Birkbeck are astronomical...)

 

So then, if you are working class do you grow "common" brightly coloured flowers like dahlias?

And middle class more unusual and expensive plants?

Lovely story shiney

Personally I grow what plants I like and experiment, for example I never thought i would grow roses because I didn't used to like my FIL rose bed as it was very formal with no underplanting, but I am now growing them but informally in amongst other plants in the borders and I used to avoid yellow plants for some reason but now like them.

 

Well yes, I've always understood this to be the case!! :D Although of course fashions change in gardening, like everything else...
The other day I read somewhere that "fuchsias may not be the most upmarket of plants...." (an ad for buying mail-order fuchsias).
(a) I didn't know they weren't considered 'up-market'.
(b) So what anyway? :confused:

(Oh, I suppose since people like me started growing them on their council estate patios, they've taken a downward turn! )

I just grow what I like - mainly herbs, fruit and veg actually, but yes, fuchsias because I LIKE them, violas because I LIKE them, lilies because I LIKE them!

 

I do my best to keep class wars out of my garden, but am not always successful. I recently had to speak severely to my Alliums. They are right middle class snobs. They used to be called Allium aflatunence (for a very good reason I might add). But Oh No!, that wasn't good enough for them, they changed their name to Allium hollandicum which, according to them, is where all the best flowers come from.

Anyway, I found them looking down on the forget-me-nots which surround them. But the Alliums are so two faced that they can look in all directions at once. You never know if they are paying attention, when you are speaking to them. They just keep nodding regardless. So at the same time as they were looking down on the forget-me-nots they were also looking up with reverence to the honourable Filipendula rubra 'Venusta' syn. palmata rosea syn rubra Magnifica beside them.

Well the Filipendula don't care - they looks down on everything, Alliums and forget-me-nots alike. The poor old forget-me-nots know they are common, and you might think that they would feel downtrodden, because they have to look up to everything. But secretly they know that their time will come. They know they can propagate faster than everything in the garden, and they will ultimately rule the world. :D

 

Brilliant PeterS :D

I'm going to look up Filipendula now

I too have alliums and forget me nots in abundance, it's about flowers that you like that's all important, personally I don't like begonias or marigolds but that's nothing to do with class.