Where did you get your love of gardening?

Yes, there was! A carousel. I forgot all about that. How long have you lived in Rochester?

Ive been here since 1957 but my friend lived here as a little girl between 1940's and 50's ,then returned in the 60's as a married woman.
She did a suite of etchings for the centenial and one of the images was of Highland Park with the (now gone) carosel as an embossed part of the image.
Really nice.

I feel so deprived. LOL. Everyone seems to have had a mother, grandmother, aunt, or some other adult who handed out gardening tips and handed down a love of gardening. Wasn't anyone else here raised in a home and community like mine, where adults never talked to children except to warn them against damaging the adults' belongings? One day my son was playing in another room and I heard a loud crash. I ran in to make sure he was okay, and then I suddenly had the most vivid series of memories of my own childhood. Whenever my sister and I were playing and made a noise of some kind, we would hear our older sister, my mother, or my grandmother yell: "What are you breaking?" I don't remember anyone ever coming in to see whether we were still alive. On the other hand, they didn't care what we did when we turned into wild teenagers either, so we were able to run free without fear of punishment.

somehow think you got the better deal ! LOL

You may have missed out on the attention when a knee was scraped and then had to be cleaned with that awful Borax soap, then dried (what pain!), then iodine was applied. Lord, that hurt!

The first injury, which I can recall, was emotional. I was about 4 years old and on the way upstairs and my brother (9 years older) was on the way downstairs and he "pushed past me". I entered the kitchen sobbing so my mom asked what was wrong and I told her what happened and added: He didn't even say excuse me!

It's sad that you missed out on all the mothering. At least you were able to be the good mother to your own son.

I don't think we had iodine in Asia, at least not in my home. I had a case of boils once on one of my knees, and my grandmother pressed cobwebs and slices of onion against them while she muttered some sort of chant in a language I didn't know. The boils disappeared very soon afterward.

A fresh slice of onion does work wonders on wasp and mosquito bites. I'm not sure about the cobwebs.

If spiders make spider webs then what are cobs?

I'd like to know the answer to that myself !

My mother used to use this horrible pink stuff on us when we got a cut. It burned like fire and was (I think) called something like " tincture methiolade"...and it literally took months for it to wash off your skin.

I remember iodine (brown color and stunk) and Mercurochrome (red and didn't hurt like the iodine).

I personally don't think any of those liquids did a thing to heal the wound...they were just applied as punishment for being stupid !

My folks used merthiolate, too. After once or twice, I wouldn't tell them when I cut myself! I think it's now considered cruel and unusual punishment.....

Zuzu, My childhood would have been just like your had it not been for my Aunt Helen. My mother was a very distant person. I had a very loving father, but he worked constantly. But my mother was never one for hugs, or words of encouragement. I never recall any physical contact from her. Why she had me at age 42 I sure don't know. I wasn't abused at all, nor neglected, really. And yes, when I turned a teenager I was just set free to do what I wanted. No restrictions at all. By the time I was 16 I was on my own, living in a college sorority.

My brother who is 18 years older than I, always said it was because mother lived thru the depression, but so did many other loving, caring women, and mother never had it as bad as many did.

She never would have considered discussing gardening or anything else with me. So you are definitely not alone, but luckily I had some buffers.

It's always sad to me to hear such stories.

My parents lived through the depression and yet I couldn't have asked for more loving and supportive parents in all ways possible. My memories are so idyllic that only my memories and my childhood friends verify I had a charmed childhood and the years beyond.

My mom spent so much time in the kitchen that I think we talked much more about food than plants though she did love her magnolia, which was outside both the kitchen windows and the dining room windows.

I'd give up all my plants for one more hug.

I had a charmed life too altho my dad was stern.
My mother and grandmother were the affectionate ones and encouraged every wild scheme I had.
I was the first of three and bewildered my parents.
"Marches to a different drummer "Is how they described me.

It's not sad, Pirl. It made me who I am. I'm a strong woman, as I had to grow up quickly. It made me be a good and loving mother to my daughter. Jamie stayed last night, and he would sure say I was his favorite Grammy. I had great times with Dad that I remember well. And my Aunt Helen filled in the void wonderfully. I was lucky, so lucky to have her, where some kids had no one.

That's so funny, Polly. I had an Aunt Helen too. She was great fun and would have been a perfect buffer, but I didn't meet her until I was in high school. She stayed in China for years after the rest of the Russians moved on to other parts of the world, and she put out a Russian magazine for children. She wrote all the stories and did all of the illustrations herself and had a huge circulation. Families all over the world subscribed to the magazine to keep their children in touch with the Russian culture. I think most Russian emigrants who are in their 70s now would remember the magazine as part of their childhood.

We had some good times together after she moved to the United States, but she wasn't part of my family's inner circle. She was my father's sister and my mother's side of the family always looked down on her because of her eccentricities, which included always answering the phone "Meow" and hanging a lovingly framed letter from Smoky the Bear, complete with paw print, in a prominent place on her living room wall.

She actually was an Elena, as I am, but both of us were renamed Helen by public officials when we moved to America.

It's so nice that you both had Aunt Helen's to bring you joy.

Zuzu - did your Aunt Helen have cats? Could that have been the reason for her "Meow" way of answering the phone? You have reclaimed Elena, I hope!

My own mother and her sisters and brother were all unloved so that's what made my mom swear she'd never do that to her own kids and she didn't, thank God. All my memories of her are wonderful.

Well, let's hear it for Aunt Helens!

Mine was a little different too.

Do you have any of her magazines? What a great heritage you have.

I went to court when I was 21 and reclaimed Elena.

Yes, Pirl, my Aunt Helen always had cats and loved them to pieces. She did some beautiful paintings for me when Michael was born of Puss in Boots and a lady cat, Puss in Boots' girlfriend, I presume, in ornate clothing.

As for the other thing, I suppose that's the predictable pattern. My mother was a spoiled brat. She grew up to neglect her children. And my sisters and I doted on our children, even when they didn't deserve it.

I don't have any copies of the magazine, because my mother didn't subscribe to it. My aunt had all of the copies, of course, and I saw them at her house, but her sister claimed them after she died and I don't know what happened to them after that.

Puss in Boots and his girlfriend disintegrated years ago. When she moved to this country, she had so little money that she couldn't afford canvases. She painted on pillow cases she bought in department store bargain basements. Bargain-price pillow cases just don't hold up over the years. The only pillow case painting I still have is of a bunny named Yurka. Aunt Helen's magazine listed Yurka as the editor and publisher and always included many drawings of him telling the stories.

I used to have a lot of Chinese paintings she did on silk, but they were "borrowed" by various family members through the years. She won the first prize several years in a row at the art festival in San Francisco's Chinatown, much to the resentment of the Chinese artists who entered the contest.

My Aunt Helen always loved cats too.

Maybe there is an Aunt Helen mold somewhere. Made just for people who need one.

I still get teary every time I think about her. She is buried in a local family owned cemetery, so I have planted irises, her favorites, there. My daughter was lucky to have know her, also, and has great memories of her too.

Painting on pillow cases! Who would have thought. What we can do if we have to, even to satisfy the art inside.

She sounds like a wonderful woman, Zuzu. How blessed you were to have had her, even if you only knew her in later years. The memories of a woman like that are priceless.

My mother. It didn't take until I hit the age of 40, though.

Before 40 aren't we normally too busy with other things? I know at that age I was a 'little' shallow, too. I was more concerned about my looks. I actually hung out in bars, rather than greenhouses. Hard to believe now.

My mother had been an only child and came from one royally messed up background. Then she went and had 7 kids and did the best she could based on what she knew...which wasn't a lot !

She was sort of a "Hitler meets June Cleaver" type...if that makes any sense! Not overly demonstrative, but enough to make us feel loved and secure...yet terrified of incurring her wrath. Yet, she was hilariously funny. Go figure...it was a very odd mix.

Perfect example: One of my sisters accidentally pulled the garage door down on my head when I was 6. 2 minutes later I had a river of blood pouring out of my head, and a lot of pain. I ran into the house, she took one look at me, gasped, grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me back out the front door saying, "Oh good grief ! You're getting blood all over the new carpeting". THEN she went into panic mode, and next thing I knew we were going about 110 mph to the emergency room in our station wagon. By that time she was more freaked out than I was.

She tried a few times to grow flowers etc. but just didn't have the time, yet she did what she could to foster my interest in gardening.

No complaints here...NONE !

Wow, such fascinating stories and family histories!

I got the love of gardening from my Mom but it wasn't until 1984 when we bought my parents house, the one I grew up in, that I actually started gardening. At first it was mostly out of obligation to keep up the garden she already had here but soon I started researching and shopping for my own plants and putting my own stamp on the garden. I quickly got rid of the back lawn as my collection of plants grew and soon tha garden didn't even resemble anything that my Mom had planted.
My Mom started collecting daylilies at one point, joined a daylily club but I never paid attention, I was too busy raising my kids at the time. The daylily bug hit me in 1997 and within a year, I had almost as many daylilies as my Mom. She and I traveled to Florida together one year to tour the daylily hybridizer gardens and then we also flew to Cincinnati another year to attend the Daylily National tours, 3 days of touring gardens. We also do the Flower and Landscape Show together every year and whatever local garden tour comes along that interests us. We are each others greatest enablers. We often go to a nursery together with the intent 'just to look' and we always end up recommending plants to each other until we end up laughing at how ridiculous it is to even think we could have gone in without finding something we 'need'.

Arlene, your line at the end "I'd give up all my plants for one more hug." brought on the croc tears, I live in fear of loosing my Mom. I lost my Dad two years ago this Tues. to that horrid disease cancer, brain cancer at that, such a horrible thing to watch and then my best friend to cancer just over 2 months ago. I guess getting older means you start loosing your friends and family.
Ok, off to get a cosmo, and look at cheerful spring pictures.

This message was edited Feb 8, 2009 6:03 PM

Magnolia planted in honor of my mom.

Too bad it can't hug me as she always did.

I love that garage door story, JD, and I love your mom, Sue. She's so much fun.

My friends were always my buffer. I've had great friends all my life. Two of my best friends today date back to the 7th grade. Some of the people in my family were certifiable lunatics, and life at home wasn't much fun, but I feel more sorry for people who had a hard time outside the home. I hear so many people say they hated high school and I loved it so much. I go to all of my high school reunions (the 50th is coming up in 2010) and I still see a lot of my high school and college friends regularly. I have friends who were my students 30-40 years ago. And then there are always new ones -- neighbors and my DG friends.

It's beautiful!

My Dad started collecting cymbidium about 10 years ago, had quite a collection. He just collected them though, my Mom always felt sorry for them and fertilized and watered them. He did divide them eventually when they got too crowded. We used to tease him and say they were boring, day in and day out, the same blooms for months and months, they never looked different. With a daylily, there was something new to go look at every day, or roses, always something different and changing. But after a while, seeing these cymbidiums in full bloom, you eventually get drawn in and there was this beautiful green one he had that I just fell in love with. A year before he got sick, he divided it and gave me half. I now treasure it and in the fall I repotted it and just last month noticed it's finally settled in enough and is sending up a bloom stalk. Cymbidiums now remind me of my Dad.

This was the first year I got it, new blooms yet to come.

This message was edited Feb 8, 2009 6:25 PM

It's gorgeous, Sue.

What a beautiful living memory you have of your dad, Sue.

I never liked gardening.
Hard to believe, for those of you who know me, but I didn't garden for many years. When I was growing up, my mother had lovely flower beds which I was not allowed to touch or even go near. She was afraid I would touch her forget me nots or something, I guess.
My grandmother (Ninna, in my stories) gardened for food, and so did my great Aunt Bett, but having been with them for most every day of my first 17 years, I learned everything I know about plants, good or bad, and tucked it away in the darkest corners of my mind. Most of what I learned stuck with me, as far as planting for food, or which plants were best for remedies, and which were the very best for dyes. But once I was away from that, I put it all behind me. Then people started dying. My Gramma Laurie, and I asked for a start of her rose bush, and planted it here where I live now. That was in the early 70's. Then Gramma Combs died (these are both great grandmothers) and I was given one of her Rose of Sharon starts. So then I had two plants in what was then about an acre or so. And I had a baby magnolia that came with the house. Then when Ninna died, I asked for her iris, just one, but then I had it. And Aunt Bett passed away, and I got her ditch lily, again just one.
And so it went, and as the years passed, and folks died, whatever plant I associated with them, I got a start of it. Strangely enough, I have nothing of my mothers. That doesn't sadden me really. Mom was OK, I just didn't fit her mold, or what she thought I should be. Now when I want plants, they are those that I knew from my childhood. Old plants, like beebalm, spiderwort, red buds, dogwoods, hibiscus, chicory, lambs ears, hydrangea, cleome, mints, rosemary, basil, and tons of my uncle's daylilies live in my gardens. By the time I retired from teaching and took a look at my yard which by then was only 1/2 an acre (we sold the other lot) it was filled with plants from the mountains of eastern KY. And it was full of memories.
Now I just add to it. And as I write stories, I remember more of those plants and often I go back to the mountains and look around till I find what I am looking for. And luckily, I have friends on DG who add to my collection from time to time.

I guess my love of gardening was there all the time, I just didn't realize it. And I have all the strong women in my life to thank for that. In their own ways they taught me a lot, and they gave me so much knowledge that I just keep remembering.

Cyms are always so impressive when they are in bloom. Aren't you lucky your dad passed one along for you to enjoy!

That means your gardening "genes"were dormant but in full bllom now !

Beautiful, Sue. So glad your Mom is still alive. And that was a rough way for your Dad to go. What a nice plant to remember him by.

Amazing how we go back to the plants of our childhood, Sharon. When I first started gardening I wanted the best of the newest. Now I'm still excited by new plants, but the plants of my childhood are what attract. Especially the historic irises. And I can understand your mother not wanting you to touch the plants. Lots of times when my granddaughter was little, I would cringe when she walked through the flower beds. But a little patience and guidance goes a long way. Your mother must have had a strange mold, if you didn't fit it, LOL.

The first flowers that got my intense interest were Glads. There was an old lady whose house we walked past every day on the way to school.

She had hundreds of glads in her front yard. Nothing else. Every color imaginable (or so I thought at the time) and they were up to the top of the 6 ft. fence. All those colors fascinated me, the reds in particular.

My mom bought a box of the red corms at the supermarket and we grew them. They multiplied like crazy and I still have a few of them somewhere.

JD I loved your description of your mother as a combo of hitler and June Clever.
Thats how my four daughters described me for years "The benevolent dictator"
I raised them alone so it was necessary.
"A woman's got to do what a woman's gotta do"

I forgot to add that when that movie Mommie Dearest came out, mine used to say. "Oh honestly ! Why don't they just let that poor woman rest in peace?"

alrighty then....

That reminds me of the little boy who always heard his mom saying she wanted some peace and also wanted to rest so he bought her a bouquet of flowers for Mother's Day that had a card - "Rest in peace".

Pirl, that is priceless.

I have a daughter who in personality is so much like me she has decided to never have children.

But we always have laughed a lot, and together.....I guess the laughter counts for something.