My earliest dateable memory is of me, aged 4 and a half, sitting on the grass under the apple tree in my aunt's garden and finding out I had a new baby brother. I literally cannot remember a time when gardens and plants didn't figure.
We had a terraced house with a longish, thin garden, but mum had flowers and fruit. There was a pocket handkerchief lawn, for the paddling pool or later constructing 'show jumping ' courses ( I loved Pat Smythe and all things horsey with out ever having been on anything but a Blackpool donkey!). There were lily of the valley, campanula muralis, pyrethrums, delphiniums and mum's precious roses: 'Peace'. 'Wendy Cussons' and a huge 'New Dawn' growing over a rustic trellis that I loved. I had a den in the raspberries and helped pick them and the blackcurrants. In the alleyway behind the houses there were newts and my brother and I kept woolly bear caterpillars in jam jars, held caterpillar races on the back steps and riased them to be garden tiger moths.
My infant school had a nature table, with sticky chestnut buds and frog spawn in spring, so we could watch the tadpoles develop, and we grew broad beans in a jar with wet blotting paper and helped to look after the stick insects. When I was tiny mum and dad had a tandem and took me out in a sidecar into the countryside and when I was about 7 and there was my brother as well we got a car - a 1936 Morris 10 called Blossom and could go out more easily. Mum loved visiting gardens and Dad enjoyed them too, though he didn't do much hands on stuff in the garden. He was a draughtsman and took great care of his hands, so that his painstaking work wasn't damaged or soiled.
I was an insatiable reader and loved nature books and almost learned the 'Observer Book of Wild Flowers' by heart, so was always on the lookout for something new. At about 10 Dad took me on an organised nature walk on the North Downs and I can still remember the Dog's Mercury, White Hellborine and the bee orchis we saw that day. I still have that book. with its mostly black and white drawings, just about hanging on to its binding, and a few other favourites - F. Martin Duncan's 'Book of the Countryside' and Richard Jeffries elegiac books of the Wiltshire countryside.
I didn't know it then, but my mother's family came from a long line of Wiltshire agricultural labourers, so perhaps there is something of it in my genes. Now, wrestling with my own patch of the Peak District, I often feel I have more in common with peasant farmers any where in the world than I would with metropolitan Londoners!
From being a toddler until I left home at 17, I spent evenings and weekends with my father in the garden. My mother just liked the end products of flowers, fruit and veg.
No garden for a few years until I was married and in my mid twenties when we bought a house with a neglected jungle of a garden.
I must have "taken in" what my father did in the garden and succeeded in turning the jungle into a garden over a few years.
I am pleased to say it has been the same with my daughter who "helped" me when she was young.
Hi Buttercupdays - thank you for the detail in your really interesting response. Fascinating to hear about the plants and books you remember from childhood. If only more of today's youngsters had access to these kind of experiences...
My love of gardening came about after living next door to a man from the countryside........I was fascinated that he grew his own vegetables and flowers. Being a city raised child it was the first time I saw a garden being utilised this way. I was intrigued when he would drop in home grown cabbage, sprouts, peas and the odd bunch of flowers. Unfortunately it wasnt until I got my own garden, when I was in my 20's that I got the chance to experiment myself with plants. Have been doing so now for the past 30 years.......loving every minute of it. I grow most of my plants from seed, but have yet to grow any veg. beyond sugar snap peas and tomatoes. My children and friends don't understand the extent of happiness and enjoyment I get from working in the garden, the sense of pride I have when my seeds grow into plants, the sheer bliss of picking bunches of self grown flowers from the garden to be put into various glass jars/vases/bottles in the house. The contentment in watching the insects and bees using their little 'hotels' I placed on the walls of the garden.........dipping in and out of the flower heads. Gardening gives me a never ending sense of awe and amazement and delight. My garden is definitely my happy place, a place where I can spend hours of time without ever getting bored........as for the house and housework?.....well there are only so many hours in one day!
That's a lovely response Mary, thank you. I like your description of the 'never ending sense of awe and amazement and delight' which the garden brings. That's exactly how I feel about being out in gardens and nature, and what I try to instil into my writing... ☺
Thank you all for sharing - a few weeks ago I wrote a piece about how my love of gardening began and asked readers to share their own stories. I was overwhelmed by the response - over the next week, more than 200 gardeners from across the world contributed 25,000 words of personal recollections. Here's my follow-up post with some of your inspiring stories and my heartfelt thanks
I'm actually just getting into gardening. I recently bought 2 Polyanthus, and then bought 4 more, whoops!
I'm planning on buying a cyclamen tomorrow, have some hyacinths sprouting as we speak, and am planning on growing a fuchsia, clematis bijou and african violets, also have some daises growing.
So i guess it began because of the Polyanthus, although I have allllways loved flowers, and always liked having one, but ever since i got amazed at the beauty of my Polyanthus, I really got into it
Posts
My earliest dateable memory is of me, aged 4 and a half, sitting on the grass under the apple tree in my aunt's garden and finding out I had a new baby brother. I literally cannot remember a time when gardens and plants didn't figure.
We had a terraced house with a longish, thin garden, but mum had flowers and fruit. There was a pocket handkerchief lawn, for the paddling pool or later constructing 'show jumping ' courses ( I loved Pat Smythe and all things horsey with out ever having been on anything but a Blackpool donkey!). There were lily of the valley, campanula muralis, pyrethrums, delphiniums and mum's precious roses: 'Peace'. 'Wendy Cussons' and a huge 'New Dawn' growing over a rustic trellis that I loved. I had a den in the raspberries and helped pick them and the blackcurrants. In the alleyway behind the houses there were newts and my brother and I kept woolly bear caterpillars in jam jars, held caterpillar races on the back steps and riased them to be garden tiger moths.
My infant school had a nature table, with sticky chestnut buds and frog spawn in spring, so we could watch the tadpoles develop, and we grew broad beans in a jar with wet blotting paper and helped to look after the stick insects. When I was tiny mum and dad had a tandem and took me out in a sidecar into the countryside and when I was about 7 and there was my brother as well we got a car - a 1936 Morris 10 called Blossom and could go out more easily. Mum loved visiting gardens and Dad enjoyed them too, though he didn't do much hands on stuff in the garden. He was a draughtsman and took great care of his hands, so that his painstaking work wasn't damaged or soiled.
I was an insatiable reader and loved nature books and almost learned the 'Observer Book of Wild Flowers' by heart, so was always on the lookout for something new. At about 10 Dad took me on an organised nature walk on the North Downs and I can still remember the Dog's Mercury, White Hellborine and the bee orchis we saw that day. I still have that book. with its mostly black and white drawings, just about hanging on to its binding, and a few other favourites - F. Martin Duncan's 'Book of the Countryside' and Richard Jeffries elegiac books of the Wiltshire countryside.
I didn't know it then, but my mother's family came from a long line of Wiltshire agricultural labourers, so perhaps there is something of it in my genes. Now, wrestling with my own patch of the Peak District, I often feel I have more in common with peasant farmers any where in the world than I would with metropolitan Londoners!
Last edited: 03 October 2017 12:42:29
From being a toddler until I left home at 17, I spent evenings and weekends with my father in the garden. My mother just liked the end products of flowers, fruit and veg.
No garden for a few years until I was married and in my mid twenties when we bought a house with a neglected jungle of a garden.
I must have "taken in" what my father did in the garden and succeeded in turning the jungle into a garden over a few years.
I am pleased to say it has been the same with my daughter who "helped" me when she was young.
Hi Buttercupdays - thank you for the detail in your really interesting response. Fascinating to hear about the plants and books you remember from childhood. If only more of today's youngsters had access to these kind of experiences...
My love of gardening came about after living next door to a man from the countryside........I was fascinated that he grew his own vegetables and flowers. Being a city raised child it was the first time I saw a garden being utilised this way. I was intrigued when he would drop in home grown cabbage, sprouts, peas and the odd bunch of flowers. Unfortunately it wasnt until I got my own garden, when I was in my 20's that I got the chance to experiment myself with plants. Have been doing so now for the past 30 years.......loving every minute of it. I grow most of my plants from seed, but have yet to grow any veg. beyond sugar snap peas and tomatoes. My children and friends don't understand the extent of happiness and enjoyment I get from working in the garden, the sense of pride I have when my seeds grow into plants, the sheer bliss of picking bunches of self grown flowers from the garden to be put into various glass jars/vases/bottles in the house. The contentment in watching the insects and bees using their little 'hotels' I placed on the walls of the garden.........dipping in and out of the flower heads. Gardening gives me a never ending sense of awe and amazement and delight. My garden is definitely my happy place, a place where I can spend hours of time without ever getting bored........as for the house and housework?.....well there are only so many hours in one day!
Last edited: 03 October 2017 14:27:59
That's a lovely response Mary, thank you. I like your description of the 'never ending sense of awe and amazement and delight' which the garden brings. That's exactly how I feel about being out in gardens and nature, and what I try to instil into my writing... ☺
Thank you all for sharing - a few weeks ago I wrote a piece about how my love of gardening began and asked readers to share their own stories. I was overwhelmed by the response - over the next week, more than 200 gardeners from across the world contributed 25,000 words of personal recollections. Here's my follow-up post with some of your inspiring stories and my heartfelt thanks
https://dogwooddays.net/2018/01/20/how-our-love-of-gardening-began-with-thanks/
I enjoyed reading the article
Thanks Mary - I felt so honoured to get the chance to read all the stories which were shared.
Hi all!
I'm actually just getting into gardening. I recently bought 2 Polyanthus, and then bought 4 more, whoops!
I'm planning on buying a cyclamen tomorrow, have some hyacinths sprouting as we speak, and am planning on growing a fuchsia, clematis bijou and african violets, also have some daises growing.
So i guess it began because of the Polyanthus, although I have allllways loved flowers, and always liked having one, but ever since i got amazed at the beauty of my Polyanthus, I really got into it
I have those woops moments too! Often!!