Inspirations: Digging in our past for our love of gardening

Whew - was that an ambiguous enough title?

On another thread, charlenesgardens posted a old photo showing her favorite aunt in a very cottagey looking planting http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=4011850 (although I'm hoping she'll come back and post it on this thread) and it reminded me of a pic I have of my grandmother and two younger sisters in front of my GGM's plant collectiion. My mom tells me about the plants my GM always had in the windows - geraniums that she'd over winter on the sills, etc. So I figure I come by it honestly!

Anyone else?

What a precious picture...Jo

Thanks, Jo! Good to see you out and about!

Okay, I got one more, still back in England and same family with a few more members.

Who else but gardeners/ famers would take a formal portrait, out in the middle of field?

OOOOOH Don't you just love her hat!!! Good back drop don't you think?

I wish you had attended the KY RU! I'll be going to the one in Tucson Oct. 20th. Come go with me. Jo

Ooh, I love the twig fence, so cottagey! The beautiful little girls look like porcelean dolls.

My picture is dated 1954 and was taken in Buna, TX. My aunt had the most refreshing gardens. I remember looking forward to each trip to visit her. She had gardenia bushes, roses and always lots of annuals that she saved seed from year to year. She would order from catalogs to get new seeds. The smell still hangs in my memories when I think back to the fragrance from her flowers.


Just to give you a case of garden envy click this link. Mine? No way! I wish! http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldladysgarden/show/

Goodness! What lovely pictures! Jo

Love the thread and pics Pagan :)

My mom had a lovely garden in South Florida when we lived on a military base that is no longer there after Ivan. I can't remember everything she grew, but I remember the marigolds and her teaching me how to deadhead and scatter the seed under the plant for new plants. I remember the smell of my hands afterward and it still smells the same and I love it.

She also grew huge elephant ears.. and yes this year, even though I'm big into the cottage theme.. I went and planted huge elephant ears in memory of my mom. I'll probably take them out and trade for something a little more fitting, but they were fun and a great memory of her garden.

I remember running my closed fingers up the spine of my moms ferns as I enjoyed how all the leaves came off in my fingers and her reaction once she discovered I was the reason her ferns were turning to twigs. :)

I remember her wanting alone time when she watered the garden with her hose in the evening. I have now explained to my kids that mommies sometimes enjoy the time to themselves and I do the same :)

When I moved to GA, I lived with cousins that have an organic working farm. After I ventured out into the world, I worked, went to school and married my husband and we live in his childhood home. One day, I saw my cousins on an episode of "A Gardeners Diary" on HGTV and right then and there I decided that I was going to garden and be a gardener and I am!

I love that my children are being raised to appreciate the outdoors and know about how things grow. I hope they have sweet memories of our garden when they are grown and they are inspired to grow their own :)

Susan

I combed through old family photos looking for something appropriate to post here. Hmph. I struck out.

But, like Pagancat, I am a horse owner, so I stole her idea and posted some old photos on the Equine Forum: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/774422/#new

That's a great story... thanks! See, it doesn't just take pictures for us to "see" where you come from....

Wrightie, you should repost the cart pic here. It's precious.

For you, PC, *anything* ...

This is my mother at the age of ten, on her uncle's dairy farm.

>grin<

It's a great shot, I'm tellin' ya!

Yeah, I need to get it framed. Seems like a great picture to stick in a bathroom for an unexpected giggle...

i have no past....wish i did...but i bought a great picture on ebay....i loved the whole essence of the photo....so i will photo it and put it on the forum in the next couple of days:)

How do you get these old pix onto the internet?
inanda

In my case, the old photographs were scanned in and saved to a disc (and distributed to family members that way).

inanda, just scan your photo to your pc and save it to a file. Then at the bottom of where you post a message see the box that says image: click the browse button and find your photo where you saved it and click it into the image box. BWALAH it's there.

If you don't have a scanner use your digital camera and save it to a file and do the same thing.
Charlene

I have gardened all my life and my Dad and grandparents did too. Mostly to put food on the table in their case. I am the first one in our family to garden just for the fun of it! But I know both my grandmas loved their roses and flower beds too, even though they grew beans and tomatoes so we could eat. This is my Great Grandfather the tall one in the middle, picking cotton. I am sure this wasn't his farm, he was just a hired hand.

yall are so lucky to have a past....all of my past has been erased or stolen so it is so fabulous to see real people in these photos....thanks for sharing with us

Sticks, my photos are your photos. http://www.pagancat.com/tiki-galleries.php

cactuspatch - I never knew how tough of a job picking cotton was - my DH's older aunt was telling us last visit. Not just on the back, but very tough on the hands, too. Hard work. Thanks for putting the pic up!

love love looking at the pics; fabulous history of your family; thank you so much:)

My sister and I used to pick cotton as kids just to see what they were talking about and it doesn't take long before your hands start to get sore. It is really tough work! Of course by the time I was born Grandpa (son of the guy in the photo) had a nice new piece of machinery to pick it! But they would haul out the old bags and send us into the fields when we came to visit. Of course we could stop when we got enough of it!

This is such a delightful thread. I wish I had garden photos of family to share, lots of photos but none are in the garden. My grandmother had a farm that my mother told me stories about. I remember the ongoing tale of the "evil" three-legged snapping turtle that waited in the pond for all that dared to cool
off in the water. The farm is no longer intact. It was sold to developers when I was still a child.

here are 2 lovely pictures of the same pic...it is hard to see:

another:

this is a fab pic from the 1800's (i am guessing based on her clothing)back then they didn't smile in photos ....so i am wondering why they are grinning....are they in love? are they joking around? she has something bulky around her neck....he a kerchief around his....they are both holding gardening tools....behind them is a split rail fence....; i bought this picture off ebay...it was in a beat up frame that it still resides in....i would love to open the back to see if there is a name or something on the picture...but i don't want to mess it up; the frame is brass and glass...someone took some loving care to put the pic in it....who are they....what are they laughing at? I LOVE THIS PICTURE

Yes, he's going to marry that girl! Sweet picture! :)

and such a lovely couple they would be:)

Np pix, but my maternal GM was the gardener in our family. I remember sitting in the glider under her big fragrant lilac tree in the back yard in Denver, veggie beds edged with diagonal bricks on end, fresh green beans, chives, tomatoes and rhubarb, the little Japanese glass wind chime she put in the cherry tree to keep the robins away from her pie-cherries, and the fragrance of yellow 4-o'clocks in the evenings. Thanks for stirring up those good memories, pagan!~

Absolutely - great things on this thread, thank *you*!

I just spent a few days visiting my father's childhood home, which is now owned by his brother. The house was built in the mid 19th century. While there, I was able to learn some of my late grandmother's favorite plants and also brought back cuttings from some of the lilacs that she planted many many moons ago. I hope I can figure out how to root them!

One thing that I especially enjoyed learning about her is that she grew wonderful roses. She was renowned for often taking the cut roses given to her by my father and others and sticking them in the ground with a bell jar placed over the top. The result was that she successfully started her own rose shrubs that way. According to my aunt, Grandma loved 'Peace" rose...

This is really a great thread to read. Those of you who have posted pictures are very lucky to have them and to have family members still with you who can identify those in the shots.

The stories that go with the postings are equally interesting as well.
Maybe they'll find out later that gardening is "genetic" !!! LOL

I hope more people see this thread and add more stories and photos.

Pagancat...wonderful photo of your grandmother and great aunts. When do you think the picture was taken? "Ethel" was a popular name was my grandmother was born (she had my mom and her twin in 1919). They were her last kids and I came along late too so have only vague recollections of three of my grandparents.

Photo below is of our "new" house, built in 1884. By the trees and shrubs, the photo must have been taken some time after that. The tree in back of the side porch is still there but on its last legs. Woodpeckers and squirrels find it great. Every spring a male woodpecker goes up to the top of the highest dead branch and pecks away to attract a mate. He sounds like a jackhammer up there.

The picket fence is gone and the trellis on both sides of the front porch are gone as well. Be a while before I can afford to recreate the fence but I would like to put up at least one of the trellises. Anyone know what they would have had growing on it circa 1900 and what that huge dark shrub between the side and front porch might have been?

D_P, I adore your picture. I have spent a lot of time in Madison, CT so know Clinton well. That is one of my all time favorite areas of the country. At one time, my husband and I were trying to relocate there, but it didn't work out. Lucky you! Regarding your trellis, I believe that roses and clematis have been favorites for growing near doors for a very long time as that's quite common in "the old country."

I wanted to add to the post about my grandmother's plants. One of the cuttings that I had taken from her house yesterday was of a "syringa" so I had assumed that it was a lilac. After doing a little sleuthing, I believe that I was wrong. That one is more likely a "mock orange." Apparently they were/are sometimes called syringa. Has anyone ever heard this? So, my cuttings included a white lilac and a mock orange as far as I'm aware.

This message was edited Oct 5, 2007 8:13 AM

david...serious house envy here....love that photo:)

You're right, Jasper - that photo is actually from Ethel's daughter, my 2nd cousin who lives in British Columbia. She's in her late 70's and is an avid kayaker. I'm lucky also that she has a scanner and could send me a copy!

Thank you David, and back atcha! Great photo! They all had those names - Ethel, Edie (Edith Francis), Dorrie (Dorene, I believe) and later came Ivy and Harold. And there are Margaret and Marguerites all over the place. The pic was probably taken about 1903 to 08- my mother was number 5 of 7 and was born in 1930.

How cool that you live in that house. I remember seeing my grandparents house (and wondering how they *ever* got 7 kids in there!) but it was destroyed a few years back - and had none of the personality yours does.

Edited to add: Wrightie, you know more about those plants than I do, so... ? Are the leaves the same?

This message was edited Oct 5, 2007 12:22 PM

Nope, the leaves are different. The syringa / mock orange leaf is smaller and has serrated edges; this might be it: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2727/

Huh - the one at my childhood home must've been a double?

Ya got me. I'm still learning!

Very great thread! I'm one of 5 kids, and all of us got the gardening gene from our dad. And as someone said, in "those" days, the gardening was done to just put food on the table. But somewhere (and now I have to go look) is a picture of my grandmother, whom I never met, standing in her garden of vegetables, with a beautiful arbor and a climbing rose nearby. In my dad's later years he converted half of his back yard to a garden full of flowers and veggies. Me, all I want is to be outdoors, poking at things to see what's growing, and to marvel at the beauty of life. Dad gave all of us kids that, and I'm very grateful.

Sanna

It truly is a wonderful gift, the appreciation for the natural world that was passed to us. Hope you find that pic, Sanna, I'd love to see it.

On a related note, I had a visit from a cousin this past week who brought maaaannny old photos from my mother's mother's family (the same as the one I posted above) that I've scanned in. Another gift from the past (and my cousin!).

A great aunt, back in Surrey Co., England.