BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Container Gardening What made you become a gardener?

Hello Everyone,

Why did you start gardening? What lifestyle influences were there that made your interest in plants and flowers and pots become a reality?

Life is a casserole influences, and while it is difficult to choose just one or two, perhaps you can remember something about what made you fall in love with plants and pots and worms and weeds!

Why did you Start Gardening?

Please come back to the forum and share your stories - cheers now

I loved this article and could identify with it. My mom has gardened nearly all her life and I can remember following her around outside when I was little. I didn't catch the gardening bug until I went to work at a local greenhouse in my late teens. One of my jobs was to plant the new seedlings of various flowers. Inevitably, the seedling flats would contain one flower that was not the same as the others. The seeds got hung up in the seeding machine and would drop a marigold seed in with the impatiens, etc. I was allowed to rescue these strays and take them home to plant. I can remember telling my mom and grandmom what I planted that day and showing them my treasures. They, of course, knew every flower. That was when I felt an even deeper connection with them and it inspired me to continue gardening.

Hi Sandra,

It is amazing just how impactful gardening is in a person's life. It ius an international language, ageless and mysterious, I am still thrilled when I see things happening in my containers or when I bit into a carrot and remember the size of the seed that produced the crunch!

Grannies and Moms are wonderful beings and oh so clever. They just know. I love going through my Granny's recipe and scrap books. I come across all sorts of stuff besides food recipes. I find poetry, homilies, proverbs, household cleaning tips and all sorts PLUS as you can imagine gardening stuff.

She, my Gran, had the best geraniums growing outside her bedroom window and all used to remark on them - profusion of long lasting blooms etc. Well in her one recipe book I came across a note to herself which says "... If only they knew and if only I knew why, but maybe it's because I empty my wee wee pot out the window every morning."

Well they say that urine makes a good soil conditioner, so just maybe that was why? Smiling as I write this and see her face in my mind's eye.

Plants are treasures, you are right.

Cheers now

P S Thanks for liking the article - I thought I would take a break from growing something. Will do it again sometime.

Great article, and great anecdotes from both of you. As for me and gardening, would you believe religious reasons? Herbs are sacred in Wiccan and pagan religions, and that's what I grow. And aside from that, it seems that even someone with the blackest thumb can grow herbs! They're incredibly hardy.

Hi Ro and all,

I am not an expert or even that knowledgeable about world religions but getting interested in gardening for religious reasons makes a great deal of sense to me.

I believe that all the major religious texts speak extensively about food, diet, and lifestyle and use gardening and plants and all in parables, moral life advice and so much more.

As much as there are people who grow Shakespeare gardens or art gardens or French potager gardens as single themes, at a garden club meeting some time ago I met a couple who stick to a biblical theme and try to follow the injunctions about diet and cultivation etc. only in their space.

Herbs are real friends and yes, I love growing them too - a person really has to try hard to not get a crop.

Extend that non-black thumb of yours ... why not? Grow something flowery and pleasurable.

Come back to chat anytime Ro and say thanks
Cheers

For me it was a couple of influences. I grew up on a plantation and the main house had a sun room full of pots of plants - I loved sitting in there in winter, nice and warm, feeling all that green energy. Then I loved the fields of veg in summer. As an adult and living in suburbia I loved my pots of herbs and tomatoes right on the porch next to the kitchen door. And now, living in a cold climate I love my greenhouse with many pots - there the veg will ripen as we have a short growing season outdoors.

Ro-

I think choosing to garden for religious reasons makes lots of sense. I am not overly familiar with Wiccan practices, but I believe they use a lot of natural/earth concepts such as herbs. It would seem to me to be a extension of your religion to grow the herbs used in your religious practices and a way to revere Mother Earth.

Susan-

I loved your memories of the sun room. I could see myself curled up amongst the plants on a cold winter day.

Hello everyone,

I was speaking about this subject with a couple of friends last night and the Mom was very funny, much amusement all around.

Her daughter is now an old teenager, but she tells us that the child when she was around 7 or so was learning about germination at school and growing beans in cottonwool etc. - I remember those experiments we did then too.

Anyway the girl came home from school one day and demanded that her Mother immediately go and buy some pots to grow their own green beans. Nothing else mattered to this little girl but being able to take her own grown green beans to share with the people at school.

NOTHING else mattered in life - NOTHING! Not brushing your teeth regularly, not world peace, not even tomorrow heralded by the sunrise ... NOTHING.

Well that was how she got started in gardening as before that she had not taken much interest in growing her own things and just bought ready-made pots and had a garden service come in and 'do' for her.

Last night we sat in a beautiful summer to autumn garden full of peace and beauty.

Sometimes life turns on a tickey.

Cheers now

Yes, Sandra, exactly. It is a spiritual practice.

Lestie, I've done Morning Glories before, and they're super easy to grow. Gorgeous flowers, too.