Well, Billy, I'll try answers, answers! My little (future) Garden of Eden is about 1/3 of an acre, about three times as deep front to back as side to side. The trees that were here when I bought this house were maples, maples, maples. Throw in a couple black walnuts, and a sumac or two and you pretty much have it. Execept for one locust tree. My neighbors all tease me about cutting it down; probably only has half a dozen branches at the very top that still produce leaves, but this ole beauty has holes and crannies where things live. I know for certain that there are a pair of flickers living in it. I tell everyone that it's an architectural statement and that anyone who harms it is in deep DEEP trouble. The back of my place is bordered by the Connoquenessing Creek. I'm not very good at measuring, but guess that it's about 50 feet wide. Great wildlife. My yard when I bought the place was cow pasture. Have poured money and sweat and blood (literally) into making it look natural. No Versa-Lok block here. Went to the local stone quarry and ordered tons of sandstone rough-hewn boulders to use as retaining walls. Even made a couple trips to personally scramble all over mounds of scrap stone to find things the right size and shape and color to use. And with the help on my super-hero, Nathan, have done it all by hand. Ourselves!!!
So of course, this is all theraputic. Without all this 'stuff' to co-ordinate and fuss over, I'd probably just be sitting in a corner babbling to myself.
My motto is: "Grow stuff or go goofie!"
Personal Survival
Wow Tootsiepotts, Eden to me is having water nearby - I don't. Having trees with flicker, woodpecker or squirrel holes - our neighber's tree, and that was cut down when they moved a small home to their property, and a yard bigger than 180' x 1101/2'. And, I only have 91' on the north because our block is at an angle. My north, is really NNE. We have two garages and three lots that were each bought separately. There are three walnut trees an ash, and a silver maple that I swear sucks the water from my rose bed. I used to be mostly sunny, now I have very sunny spots for fruit trees. But I love it right here! I'm on the edge of town and I have nice, quiet neighbors that I get along with. There are no houses to my west, which is my deep front yard. The house sits in the middle. ( Look who's rattling now.)
Sanna...I know I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I do try to keep up. I liked your comment about how Starbucks will save grounds for "people like us..." We are a different breed, aren't we? I know sometimes I'll be drooling over some new plant I've discovered, and when I try to tell most people abut it, their eyes sorta glaze over and they look at me with that "get a life" expression. Wonder what it is about us (and I know I'm not the only one!) that has us delighted at the sight of that little bump in previously flat soil that means something about the size of the period at the end of a sentence has decided to turn into a plant? Perhaps it's like being a kid...amazed by everything around us? I know I've refused to let go of that fun. My Mom taught me that if you forget how to play, you turn into a grouchy ole fogey. For me, growing things is play.
I try to remember that I get the same glazed look whenever someone starts talking about their kids.
LOL
I am reading a book by Geoffry Charlesworth called "The Obsessive Gardener". Its hysterical to hear him
talk about all the variations on the obsession. I tend to be the seedaholic type.
Its certainly great to have so many kindred spirits here, isn't it?
Tam
I'll have to add that book to my reading list...even if it takes a while for me to get to it. Right now it's pretty nuts here (and I love it) because between the plants I plan to keep and the cuttings I've started and the seeds that are peeking green at me, I've got about 400 living things depending on me for water. I ordered some 'humidity domes' to fit the trays I'm using (from the same company) and they arrived all distorted out of shape as if they had been exposed to extreme heat on the journey from Tennessee. Heaven knows it didn't happen on my 41 degree back porch today where FedEx left them. I've e-mailed today, and if I don't get a satisfactory reply, I'll be posting on the Garden Watchdog. Sooooo. I'm watering more than I have time for...zzzzzzzzz
I know just what you mean! I've got pots and pots of all sorts of goodies at various stages plus lots of
annuals left to sow. I just love this time ... all those seeds germinating, the bulbs starting to emerge and
the renewed hope that spring always brings.
Happily Obsessing!
Tam
Fun thread, It is so nice to be on DG and feel normal. LOL I have more seeds started in the basement and cuttings in the GH than I can plant in the flower beds. Everybody needs 100's of brugs, 100's Daturas, and more Hoyas and Orchid Cactus than most botinical gardens in town. LOL Yesterday I caught myself wondering if we REALLY need grass in the front yard. Could I bring in a couple of truck loads of dirt and make two more BIG beds with out DH noticing?? LOL
Betty
I once read a comment that said:
"If you can see dirt, you need more plants."
I feel like ordering bumperstickers and sending them to all of you. I always joke about needing to buy more property 'cause I'm running out of room. But I figure, better to struggle with planting room than a psycholigist's waiting room.
So...Betty, you don't need grass in the front yard (or anywhere else) just tell DH that he won't have to mow as much!!!
Now...I really hate to sound like a moron, but who is DH? I've been seeing this abreveiation since joining DG but I'm not sure. Does it mean Dear Husband, Dumb Horses' A--, or what? Please enlighten me, because it's a liiitle disconcerting not knowing.
I'm so glad to hear that there are many of you who not only depend on the technical side of growing things on this site, but how also like to share the side that makes us all comrades...we're nuts about growing and it helps us all from growing (going) nuts. :o)))))
DH = Dear Husband
And any time I kill a plant, I think I've got space for another plant!
The first day I posted on DG someone came back after my post and said ROTFL I thought I had really done something bad! It is a little strange the abbreviations that people use. Somewhere I found a list of the abbreviations, it helped. (Roll On The Floor Laughing)
Yeah - And LMK threw me for a while! Let Me Know
I am so very glad I found DG about a month ago...I'm a first time homeowner with about half an acre of neglected land and I've been going gangbusters buying books, digging out stumps, pulling ivy, composting, and planning my gardens. DH definitely thinks I'm obsessive...every once in a while I haul him around the yard and tell him what I plan to do in each location and he gets that glazed look in about 20 seconds...of course I probably give him the same look when he attempts to explain the intricacies of, say, professional baseball. And he'd rather go shoe shopping with me than make yet another trip down to the plant nursery. (Not that I buy lots of shoes...what little disposable income I have goes into tools and plants.) I find the entire gardening experience highly theraputic...reading books and catalogs...nurturing little seeds...harvesting that first ripe tomato from the veggie garden...smelling my lovely lovely black homemade compost...and on particularly stressful days...the total body workout from de-sodding and turning over heavy clay soil. I have a history of mental illness as well and the garden is better than meds for me. :)
Since I'm just starting out I don't yet have the gorgeous gardens and greenhouses and hundreds of seeds that many of you do...but give me a few years. :)
Going to go check out "The Obsessive Gardner" now.... :)
pam
Phuggins, I wish I were you right now. I love to clean land up, and the total body workout feels great at the end of the day! Happy gardening to you!!!
Thanks billyporter! Are you at the gorgeous-gardens-and-hundreds-of-seeds stage? :) (It sounds like it from your earlier posts?) Sometimes it feels like I put in a lot of backbreaking effort for little visible result...it's good for me, and it's good for the garden (hopefully), but sometimes I wonder if the neighbors are thinking, Is she just making MORE dirt over there?
Of course, I'm making SOIL, not dirt, but I'm not sure they know the difference... :)
pam
I wish, I have a small yard compared to most and I get more shade every year. It's nice in July when it's hot, but I would love to have a lot of fruit trees, a bigger garden, more flower beds and shrubs. I did start a couple beds last fall. I had a large bed entirely run over with quack grass. I moved every flower out and hand dug and sorted every shovelful. (no exageration, I should have taken pictures.) I'm using it for garden this year because my garden has arborvitae, asparagus, A burning area made of cement blocks, and a large compost pile. I think I found every last clay marble too. It was a lot of work, but I enjoyed it too! I would love!!! to have a greenhouse!!!
As one of my many hobbies, or interests, I collect unusual pictures and/or ads from magazines. My personal all-time favorite was a full-page picture of Vincent van Gogh's Irises. The small caption under it said something like:
The artist who painted these flowers committed suicide. It is a good bet that the artist who grew them did't.
It was an ad for Miracle Grow!
Van Gogh was absolutely brilliant but he also suffered from Bipolar Disorder. That is the reason that I think I identify with him so much in all of his art work. He is my favorite artist. If he could have had help with his disorder, who knows how long he would have lived. I am bipolar also, but luckily these days there are therapits to help people like us.
Jesse