Where did you get your love of gardening?

My grandmother and mother loved to grow flowers and because it was WW2 we had a big Victory garden both at my grandmothers and in Ithaca in a vacant lot behind the house.
Vedgs were grown for canning and then for the big new invention the Freezer Locker .
My grandmother grew a flower garden with Regal Lilies all in a row. I remember her fretting over all the bulbletts and where they were to be planted when she divided the plants.
In early spring the farm hands would just roll over the entire flower- vedg garden area ,with the manuer spreader.
I doubt the manuer had cured more than a day.It was full of straw and weed seeds.
It was early March and there were still ice puddles on the dirt road.We were visiting for Easter Vacation.
In Ithaca we got manuer from Cornell Vet barns.
Most of our house took up the lot, houses were side by side so there were no landscaped beds. The vedg garden seemed so big when I was 7 ,I suspect it wasnt.
My mother was clever and inventive and found a small space for my first flowers.

This is me at 7
Our house was on a steep hill ,as are nearly all the houses in Ithaga.
The back yard was deep cut and the houses on the street behind were at eye level from the kitchen window.
I'm not sure there was much sun.

My grandfather with hand cultivater age 84.

My grandmother. She loved to take me on a "walk about" around the yard and tell me about the things she and Grandpa planted and what to expect. They were special times those walk abouts.

I too got the love of gardening from my Mom, I can remember back in the late 50's when I was a kid she would use scissors to edge and I use scissors sometimes even now. She had a big love for hosta's and I do too. I know she'd would be proud of me for what I can grow today :>)

ge1836,wonderful pic's you posted. Brings me back!!!!!

Christine

Thanks, they were special people.
Passing on the love of gardening is so important.
I didnt realize it at the time.

This little rose lover was 50 in November. She has beautiful gardens.

I grew up with gardening. Both sets of grandparents had them and my parents did as well. Most of the time, working in the vegetable garden was a punishment for us (kids) but I did learn a lot and grew my own gardens until recently. One grandmother had horses, and the manure was used to fertilize all the veggies and flowers. My dad always asked for a trailer load of it as a birthday present! Thing was, the grandparents were in western MA and dad lives across the Hudson River in NYS! Too funny!

My grandparents were always patient with us, and it was essentially through them that I learned about trees, flowers and creating gardens.

After reading the other responses, I've realized once again how different my family was from most. My grandmother lived with us when I was growing up, and she had a vegetable and berry garden. She never asked us for help and we never offered. I think she liked being alone in the garden.

I know my mother did. She had a garden too, but we weren't allowed to spend any time there. I barely remember anything about it, but I think she grew mostly azaleas. She always gardened alone.

I started gardening because the first house I bought already had a garden. I didn't particularly like it, but I couldn't let it die. The next house I bought also had a garden I had to keep alive. My husband never worked in the garden, and he pulled everything out and paved over the garden when we divorced and I moved out.

I didn't start growing anything of my own until I moved to Piedmont, which has the best gardening weather in the world. It would have been a sin not to garden there. I never had a passion for gardening, though, until I moved into my present house. I started gardening here on a major scale mainly because there was literally nothing else to do in Sebastopol. I gradually became addicted to it, and now I spend at least five or six hours gardening every single day.

When my son was growing up, he occasionally did things in the garden for me because he needed extra cash, but we never did gardening projects together. What can I say? I come from a long line of solitary women gardeners and I'm just carrying on the tradition, I suppose.

I cant think of many woman gardeners who do it as a group.
They form clubs and have forums on like to talk gardening ,share ideas but Gardening is a one person thing.
Here my DD has an established plot thats in full sun.
She has a mega-job and doesnt have time to garden as much as I do( mental health for me)
We share the plan for deck containers, mine will be more planned this year, hers wont. She buys what she likes, and since thats mostly flowers ,I garden with coleus so the whole affect doesnt look like a funeral procession.
You sound like you inherited a care for plants,or you would have never tried in all your houses to have one.
Efforts paid off I see.

I got my love for gardening as a kid in Catholic school. The nuns had this magical garden inside the high wall that surrounded their convent. If you were brazen enough to sneak a peak when the gate was ajar, you could see this extraordinary sight. I was transfixed at what I saw and that's what started my obsession. I had never seen so many flowers and roses in my life !

As kids, my friend and I would walk home from school and pass the convent. One day the nuns were talking about the need to weed so my friend and I offered to do the job - Lord knows why since neither of us knew a plant from a weed! The nuns agreed and the next day we were there weeding for three hours instead of being in school. When the nuns returned for lunch they saw us and asked what we were doing. The sweet young nun must have gotten in trouble when we said, "But Sister Margaret Mary said we could weed". We were sent home and told to report back, after lunch, with our uniforms on. Some thanks that was!

Nuns are extraordinary gardeners, aren't they? Every convent school I ever attended had beautiful gardens.

Do you think they needed to destress after teaching children all day?

They can't get rid of the angst they must feel at the end of yet another day of teaching unless they garden. I enjoyed seeing how each nun would do what was within their powers. The older ones would take bags of debris while the younger ones did the actual planting.

Have you ever planted cyclamen?
Where did you put it?

Mine go downhill, indoors, by May. They never bloom (or even grow) again. I've never tried planting them outside.

One of my sisters lives in the high desert here. When I did her yard for her, she brought out a slew of cyclamen plants she had. I told her they wouldn't grow outdoors here and to keep them inside. She planted them anyway and when I went back in January, every single one of them was huge and full of flowers ! Go figure.

Some are meant for outdoor planting but, as usual, space is the problem.

I am the biggest sinner.
I promised no more plants but Seneca Hill has the biggest collection of Cyclamen and a few for full sun.
Couldnt help it

Here are the sun ones They will look great with Sedum

I love this one
All these are hardy and bread for our regeon

I have no idea where it came from! My mom or her parents never gardened. My dad's parents had a vegie garden but died before I was born.

Then when I was very young our elderly neighbor had a flower garden. She'd be out there in her dress and hat with her apron on. I don't remember talking to her.

Then when I was a few years older our neighbor had these short trees that we could hide and play under.

Then I was a bit older and we snuck into the Dr's place as he had a pond and falls and fish.

Then after our house burned mom bought a place that had peonies and roses. But she still didn't take care of them. Oh I forgot the lilacs.

Then when her parents died we moved into their house and she took some of the peonies with her and the lilacs. She had the cutest no care front yard with them and Tiger lillies and lily of the valley! Just the size of an envelope. Then DH and I bought her old house. I tried a vegie garden. I didn't weed very much either.

We moved and bought where we live now. Did the vegie garden again and again. Didn't weed as much as needed. Also didn't take care of the few flowers that were here. I did transplant the lilacs and peonies which I still have. The gardens are expanded and weeded lots better now. I have found what works for me.

The only thing I can figure out is all the magical experiences influenced me. It just took a long time to get my act together. None of the other kids are interested in gardening! One out of 6 isn't bad!

Where did I get my love of gardening? From my mother. She had a huge vegetable garden and did all the work except for a little help from Daddy with the plowing and howing. We had to have this garden for the food when I was growing up. I always hated to work in the garden and did most of the housework (my sis and I) and Mommy gardened.
Fast forward several years and I became a gardener. I do the flowers and my DH does the veggies. I never did develop the love of veggie garden but I love my beds and borders.
I also love growing the plants from seed and cuttings. This is a favorite gardening activity for me now. Since I love to grow things from seeds I am coming around full circle and becoming more like Mommy every day.

It must born in us.
Think of the gardeners whe werent tought just followed the urge.
These are my combos.
sun cyclamen with cape blanco sedum

here is the other cyclamen with sedum sieboldi

ves522: I interpret your story as "it was meant to be" !

My folks weren't the least bit interested in gardening, but they did what they could to foster my interest. They did appreciate other people's gardens, but just didn't have the time or the resources for it.

I never knew such Cyclamen existed. Very Cool !

Found thm at Seneca Hill

I love reading your stories. They're so sweet and personal. My grandfather on my mom's side had a large vegetable garden, where he grew most of what grandmom used in summer. She never canned anything though. I guess after the depression, having 8 kids, and WWII Victory gardens, she was done with that. I wasn't supposed to go into grandpop's garden, because he didn't want his plants trodden down, as my naughty boy cousins did when they visited. My sister and I were very well behaved, although one time I broke off a stem of peony trying to smell it. I was so distraught, and was very surprised when I didn't get into any trouble. Neither grandmom nor grandpop ever raised their voices, but still that garden was sacrosanct. One thing I remember so clearly is the ringing of the church bells at noon. The church was very close by and it had (still does have) a beautiful grotto with a water fall and rock pool, and a life size statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it had a brass miraculous medal from Fatima embedded in the rock. The detail on the medal had been worn almost smooth by all the thumbs that had rubbed it for a blessing over the years. Some years later, my dad had a garden where he grew mostly tomatoes, but I wasn't allowed there because it was on the other side of the railroad tracks in back of our house. I guess I was about twelve and I could see the garden from my bedroom window, but don't recall having much interest in it, so not being allowed to visit it was no big deal. Our first home as a married couple was an adorable 2-bedroom cottage with a huge black stove fireplace. I didn't know what a cottage or a cottage garden was then, but this house had it all, beautiful trees, including a weeping willow whose limbs overhung the driveway, flowering shrubs, veggie garden, spring bulbs of every kind. It's where I learned the names of flowers. It was adjacent to an 800 acre Friends school with a lake and woods full of wildflowers most glorious and unknown to me, lady slippers, trillium, dutchman's breeches, dog tooth violets, blue bells. I still have the notes of the various flowers and ferns going back to 1973 in the margins of my wildflower field guide. The school had an orchard, and we could gather as many of the apples as we wished that were left on the trees after the scool harvested or the windfall apples on the ground that were unblemished. A half mile walk away was a family-owned fruit orchard where they grew various fruits, berries, daffodills, summer flowers, and baked beautiful pies on the weekend. Our first home was an idylic and lovely place, and it's where I found that I was a gardener at heart, perhaps not as creative as my grandfather or as hard working as my dad, but just as much in love with a garden.

What beautiful stories!

My parents had hydrangeas, hollyhocks galore, roses and daffodils but it was my dad and my brother who tended the gardens, not my mom.

It wasn't until we moved to our second home that I had the pleasure of meeting our neighbor, Pauline Isabelle Reid Loeffler - the real PIRL. Her garden plot was between her home and ours. I spent a lot of time helping her and learning the reasons she did everything and how she did it. Keeping up her garden was a labor of love since it had been her late husband who planned it and originally planted it.

I'd awake each day to hear her sweet, soft, Southern voice singing hymns in the garden.

She died at 102+ and I'm grateful she got to see our gardens out here - 80 miles from where we first met.

Mrs. Loeffler was my friend, my "other mother", and my inspiration. Our lupines owe their place in our gardens due to her love of them. I still have the irises, yarrow and other plants she gave me and can't imagine calling what we now have "gardens" without them and her gift of the love of gardening, the most important of all.

awwwsome

Yes, she was!

Mrs. Loeffler's house is on the left in this photo of a Google screen, then the lot that once had all the flowers, and my house on the right with the two cars shown in the driveway.

Sadly, the house was torn down and a huge new home in place of hers. There's a fence cutting through what had been her garden and a pool where the phlox, yarrow, and delphinium once bloomed. I'm so glad I don't live there anymore and never had to see the destruction take place.

Pirl, Your story is so lovely. You must have been a joy in Mrs. Loeffler's life, sharing her love of gardening and learning from her. Your garden is gorgeous. I recently took a Google journey back to the address my grandparents lived at. Sure enough, I could see from the overhead view where the garden had been in the back yard behind the garage. The house had been added onto and there was a pool where the old sour cherry and grape arbor had been.

Thanks, Pam. It kills me to see the current Google photos as it must hurt you to see property has been "improved" by destroying the beauty you found in your grandparents garden.

Here's a link to the garden tour we were part of in 2005.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/528730/

Please leave a comment and a post so I'll have them there eventually when I print it. There is even a photo of a photo of Mrs. Loeffler on the thread.

Pirl, What a feast for the eyes. You learned your lessons well from Mrs. Loeffler. It's more than can be enjoyed in only one visit. I am going to return to the pictures and read more of the posts. You must have one of the most highly visited threads ever. It's a very appreciative group here at DG.

There are so many creative ideas and I learned something completely unanticipated, "a grunting animal will come to your garden if you put out a statue" of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Oh, dear. I have statues of grunting animals in my garden. I shudder to think what that might evoke.

I've had my share of grunting people and people I'd like to grunt at!

Thanks for the kind words, Pam.

I grew up gardening. Mom grew a few things, but it was mostly Dad. He had a large garden and grew vegetables, flowers and berries for sale. He also was a Christmas tree farmer, and I inherited that business. I was never made to work in the garden, but always did, to varying degrees. Dad had another full time job, and also had a coal business, so he was busy, and I helped out where I could.

But my real love of gardening came from my beloved Aunt Helen. She lived in Rochester, and before I started school, I stayed with her a lot, actually more than I was home. She was an extremely loving and caring woman, giving me the love my mother was often too busy for. Aunt Helen had no children, so I was it. She took me almost daily to Highland Park in Rochester so we could walk through and see what was blooming. She is the one who loved lilacs, and irises, and they will always be my favorites. Aunt Helen lived to be 90, so I had many good years with her, but I still miss her terribly.

I love Highland Park and always go to see the lilacs before the festival.
My friend who has been a native for a long time says there was a carosell or big gazebo there when she was little.