How to Spot an Avid Gardener

Thought we needed to start a thread on this. I'll start. You know you're an avid gardener when,

As you're showering after a day working outside, you notice that the tub is filling with water. You look down and realize that all the miscellaneous "stuff" that you accumulated with your head in the bushes has now been rinsed out of your hair and is plugging the bathtub drain.

And then you wonder what on earth you must have looked like all day with all those sticks, leaves, and seed pods sticking out of your hair.

When you are walking around unaware of a inch thick layer of mud on the bottom of your shoes.....

1. you engage in dirt manicures on a daily basis - free & no tips!
2. you can still see what you're doing 2 hours after sunset.
3. while checking out at the grocery store, you gently replace the little spider that's dropped its web down from your bangs back onto your head.
4. you regularly practice sensory deprivation regarding the numbing cold that has invaded your now popsicle toes, because you MUST finish what you started an hour after the sunset.
5. you have a backup set of garden tools in the trunk of your car, just in case.....

When it's 10:30 on a Saturday night and you're on DG getting ready to go finish painting the "sun" room so you can over winter your tender botanical babies indoors.

Your magazine rack is jammed full of seed catalogs.

Loving this thread!!!

You're perfectly happy to curl up in bed to read the plant encyclopedia-again.

You panic because you can't find your new 8th Edition of the Sunset Western Garden book because the plant you're looking up isn't in your copies of the 6th or 7th editions, and it's not on Dave's either.

Your gardening Favorites have their own folder-and it's on your quick links bar....

The dog goes in before you do.

Ohhh, Katye, I so relate to your list! Especially the 2 hours past dark, can I add building a greenhouse so you can garden during stormy weather. The last time around, I bought myself a REALLY chicchic car - I mean, REALLY (it was slight revenge, as DH has decided he doesn't want to drive anymore - too much on his mind! When did a DW ever get to announce that ruling?). Anyhow, the first thing I did was go to the nursery in it and loaded it up - compost bags, muddy tools, BIG potted stuff - the works. The nursery guys jaws just dropped - What, They never saw a gardener before? Leather seats are really functional - you can wipe them down. Excellent.

"You can wipe them down. Excellent" rOFLOL!!! I carry large sheets of plastic in the trunk for just those occasions!

You know that gardening season is all year long. Last year I visited a small nursery in November. It was pouring down rain. The person on duty came out, none too happy, and asked if I needed help. I was looking for a special hydrangea called 'fuji waterfall' and thought they may have it, I said. I had called all of the nurseries in the area and had no luck. I was driving by, thought I would stop in. She replied 'It's November!". I said, "How long have you lived here? Don't you realize that gardening season has no end in Washington state? Fall is an excellent time to garden." I believe the look she gave me was one I would not want to repeat. They had the hydrangea. Only 1, and it was in FULL BLOOM!!! It was also 25% off. NOW who is the crazy person, I ask you????

Your favorite winter accessories are the headlamp your kids gave you for Christmas last year, and your halogen lights on a stand.

Your favorite anniversary gift was the load of organic compost your dh ordered.

You forget that you actually live in a dwelling that needs to be cleaned occasionally.

Visitors to the garden ooh and ahh with amazement and think you must be wonderwoman, but all you can see is that this plant needs to be moved, that plant is being eaten by slugs, the color combination is not quite right, etc.

You know the finer points of gardening tools the way other people know the finer points of electronics. But you don't know what electronics are.

You react about DH touching your good pruners the same way he does if you go near his power tools.

You think driving 50 miles out of your way to get a free plant is a completely reasonable thing to do.



Oh, there are so many here I totally agree with-especially Pixy's second-to-last one. All I see are the problems....(Which reminds me, need to take advantage of another beautiful day!)

Katye, about the spider-I usually move them to a plant, but here's sort of a related story. A week or two ago I had my car in for some work and I got shuttled back to the house. I went to go in the garage and there was a gorgeous, gigantic praying mantis on the middle of the garage door. I got a piece of wood and carefully moved the praying mantis to a safe spot in the garden bed before opening the door. As the door opens, I hear a noise and realize that the shuttle driver had waited to see I was safely inside before leaving......

This message was edited Oct 28, 2007 11:35 AM

Susy - no plants around - I was in the grocery store.
The checker was mortified: obviously not a gardener!

Katye, oh, LOL!

The avid gardener, working on hands and knees weeding, comes in for the evening and finds a slug has crawled into to the cuffs of your pants, after you have made dinner and getting ready for bed when you find it, and wonder how long its been there.

Walking around the garden and into a spider web and have the spider hanging off your nose, and gently remove it on to a plant, and tell it you are so sorry you have to made a new home elsewhere.

Mow the grass when it is wet, and track it all over the house, when you need to use the bathroom.

This is a great thread!

.....when your house is too big and your yard is too small.......

When you care only to work in the yard and to heck with the house>>>>>

This message was edited Oct 28, 2007 5:45 PM

When all your clothes have grass stains on them.

You give directions by plants along the way.

Your garage has stacks and stacks of old flower pots.

Or pots are everywhere, cause you have no real place to put them.

(Had to edit last post, forgot a word)

Tillysrat --I can really relate to the one--the yard looks great, but the heck with the house hehehe

"Thats my story and I'm sticking to it". LOL to funny
I have to be outside, my DH allways has the house to hot, can't stand it.

Al - I didn't think anyone else did that! And I get the weirdest looks.......

Soapwort and Al: me too!! I have more working-in-the-yard clothes than going-to-work clothes. And why don't other people notice the plant landmarks along the way . . .?

You can stand and stare at a garden bed for an hour without moving, thinking of all the possibilities of moving this or that, or including this plant or that one.

You engage small children in games of 'slug hunt'.

Here's the absolute worst one: You cannot leave for vacation in the late spring or summer because you'd be leaving your garden behind and who knows what could happen.

related to Kayte's comment about sensory deprivation: When everyone else is getting cold and going inside, you just add another couple of handwarmers to spare pockets and keep going. Then when you get inside you realize hypothermia is setting in because your hands are shaking too badly to actually do anything. In order to get warm, you must take a long hot bath.

Pixy - I must add this:

after taking that very much needed hot bath/shower, you dress warmer, and return to the garden bed you were staring at earlier in the day in order to finish thinking about what could go where with who, and when. Why? Well, don't even go there!

Lol! That is correct!! Using my halogen spotlights and perhaps an umbrella.

Ohhhh, relief. I am not odd, I am just a gardener.

This is wonderful - .

And,

All my good clothes have grass stains on them (and trowel holes in the pockets), my gardening clothes, its best not to talk about them.

Do you find that you put your yesterday trousers/socks/layers on, because you're just going to do one more thing this morning, and then 2 hrs past dark you still have them on (having done the grocery shopping too, and gone to the doggie doctor - and really there was no sense changing just for that), and then get up the next morning and think - "well, I'm not doing a dark load this morning, so I might as well......"

Just reading through this threrad and having fun because I do ALL those things. DH looks at me so funny. I just have to laugh at the expression of confussion he gets. LOL

Also...You go down the street to ask a neighbor about the care of a certain plant and end up three hours later with MORE cuttings and have given away some yourself.

A thousand times yes, Laurie!! If I have two days back to back that I don't have to 'go anywhere' in the morning, I will frequently skip the shower at the end of the day (at the beginning, too, I'm afraid) since it would be a complete waste of time to get clean when I'm just going to go outside and get dirty again. Hmm. I just realized this is the same excuse I use for allowing the housework to go far past the time it should be done. No sense wasting effort on something that I'm just going to have to do again, anyway. Anyone ever think about why that excuse doesn't seem to hold up when doing things like pulling weeds, cutting back, deadheading, etc? I never seem to say 'no sense in going out and weeding that bed since I'm just going to have to do it again anyway'. LOL!!!

Here's the rationalization for going to the store with filthy overalls on: "I see guys who do manual labor coming into the store all the time in their working clothes and no one seems to notice or care. I'll just act like these are my working clothes - which they are. I'll put a trowel in my pocket and let it stick out, then they will know. "

How about this one: "I'll use the contractor's entrance and no one will notice how dirty I am."


You know you are a true gardener when you are always on the lookout for 'free' plants that have self seeded on the side of the road, obviously looking for a garden in which to grow. I once kept my eye on a seedling from a desireable tree in my neighborhood for 8 months before it went dormant and I could go out and dig it up. It was on the edge of the road, just outside the fence. The city was maintaining the roads and clearing brush and I was going to have to hope that I got to it before they did. I'm still not sure how that happened but I didn't want to dig it up unless it was dormant, even though it was quite small. I keep a small spade in my car for just such 'emergencies'.

Good for you, Pixydish! I should start doing the same thing.

Seriously, you should! Also carry a bottle of water and a pair of small clippers for that clipping that you simply must take! I'm a certified member of the Plant Liberation Corps. Our motto: working round the clock to see that every viable plant has a healthy home.

Sign me up!

I am pledging myself to starting a branch (that's larger than a twig) in the UK! I think we should get those guy-tool belts loaded with secateurs, trowell, water bottle, and foldover spades - I've always envied the way they just jump out of their vans and strap on their kit 'ready for action' - "we get going, where the plant is growing!" UK members, sign up here.

Here's my addition. You know your an avid gardener when: You go outside in the early a.m. to stare at your plants (for inspiration & to see if anything has grown or bloomed in the 6-8 hours that you were sleeping-ha!) and you start pulling weeds in your pajamas.

When you sneak out late at night to prune your neighbors shrub, by streetlight, cause it's sending out suckers and you feel sorry for it.

Weeding in pajamas! So true, so true!!
"We get going where the plant is growing!" I love it, Laurie!! I do believe that sometimes stealth is called for at time, like 'plant ninjas'. For instanct, when collecting (whoops! I mean 'pruning') a neighbors shrub suckers, it may be necessary to dress all in black and wear little soft shoes. Camo face paint optional.

You run to the store to get milk and come out with a plant and no milk, you get home and you DH voluteers to go get the milk so you don't bring home another plant!

You just got dressed for work. You notice a weed on your way out of the driveway and jump out to pull it. Fifteen minutes later you've gotten yourself dirty again and have to change. AND you're late!

... when you weed-as-you-go at other people's houses.

... when you have his & her's pruners always by the front door. (I'm dead meat if I touch her pink ones)

... when you have too many tropicals, it's late October and you're out at midnight before the first freeze comes, digging like a madman with those halogens, scaring the neighbors into thinking you're a crazy axmurderer.

You go on vacation and scare the crap out of your friends driving you somewhere with "OH, LOOK AT THAT!!!"