A lovely thread, thank you for creating. I certainly have many happy memories of being in the garden.
Ones that spring to mind are: Planting red pelargoniums in pots with my Grandma (always red), Picking mint for the Sunday Lunch with my Nana, Having my own little Wendy House, in which I practically lived, Pegging out washing, mainly dolls clothes, to copy my Mum (just to be clear, I also helped my Dad with car maintenance too), My Dad chasing the guinea pigs round the garden, with a fishing net, to catch them, Making mud pies embellished with flowers, Revising for my exams outside, listening to my Walkman (mainly the latter), Those horrific 70s sun-loungers which catch your fingers and graze your knees just by looking at them, Spending hours just chatting with my Mum whilst gardening and drinking cuppas (miss her so much).
I think I owe my interest in gardening to my grandparents. They used to live opp a cricket pitch and can remember being in grandads greenhouse and seeing frogs and lots of amazing veg and plants. In summer the garden had so much colour, scent and they were magical times. i look back now and it strikes me how much gardening knowledge they had and just wish I could have harvested that knowledge to serve me now.
Not actual garden memory, but I also fell out of a tree. Age 6, climbing a tree in wellies - only wearing wellies because it had been raining. (You can tell this isn't going to end well can't you). I don't actually remember much of the incident but apparently I was about 30 feet up when I slipped and fell. I'm told I was fortunate that I hit several branches on the way down as they broke the fall. One of them also gave me a compound fracture of the lower left arm and a plaster cast for 3 months!
Moving house as a ten year-old where there was a beautiful brick-based, wooden-framed greenhouse in the garden. Begging my dad to grow some seeds, and the disgust on the faces of my family when huge orange and black caterpillars appeared on the lettuces one day. Poor greenhouse went to rack and ruin as parents preferred to get their veg at Waterworths! Fond memory though, of a single visit to an uncle's allotment and watching him dig up some cabbages. It was like magic to me!
My father watering a weed that grew in the yard at home ,when I was small .He watered that weed all summer .He didn’t have a garden ,but wanted a plant to look after. When we moved into a house with a garden he became an avid gardener growing lots of veg ,shrubs and flowers.He was a lovely man ,honest and kind.
Rubee, what lovely memories of your father. When I bought my first house a plant appeared every year next to the front door. It had yellow flowers, but I hadn't a clue what it was. Two or three years later I tired of it and dug it up. It was a potato! The postman and milkman must have thought I was weird.
I used to love playing with the raindrops on the lupin leaves when i was a kid. So much so that my mum dug them up and got rid of them in case i poisoned myself. Now i am all grown up i've planted loads and still play with them in the rain. Maybe just not for hours at a time now
My parents were members of the nice-splash-of-colour school of gardening. A pink rose next to an orange marigold and no sense of colour coordination.I have memories of straight paths, regimented beds and everything so bitty - one plant, bare earth, another plant. The one thing I really appreciated was the bank of loganberries on the back fence.
Actually I paid little heed to the garden because it led directly to a park with a string of other parks and woods following the stream that passed through. My memories are of playing football and cricket in the park, making rope swings over the stream, climbing trees in the woods, taking the dog for long walks ... all so much more exciting than gardening!
Lovely thread, I can just taste the peas I was podding while sat on the back step, not sure how many reached the dinner table, trying to ride the farmers pony in the field down in the village with a bit of farmers glory string tied around his neck. That is the ponies neck not the farmers ha ha
Ah nostalgia x I remember my grandad's garden in SE London. Beautiful blowsy begonias in the summer and the musky smell of his prize winning chrysanthemums and picking loganberries warm from the sun reflecting off the brick wall they were trained along . Then with mum and dad. Dad always loved wildlife and we dug natural ponds in every garden we had, a tradition my brother and I maintain today. Mum was the keen gardener and I learnt so much from her,now I have to look after hers for her but I'm not as keen on roses as she is.
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I certainly have many happy memories of being in the garden.
Ones that spring to mind are:
Planting red pelargoniums in pots with my Grandma (always red),
Picking mint for the Sunday Lunch with my Nana,
Having my own little Wendy House, in which I practically lived,
Pegging out washing, mainly dolls clothes, to copy my Mum (just to be clear, I also helped my Dad with car maintenance too),
My Dad chasing the guinea pigs round the garden, with a fishing net, to catch them,
Making mud pies embellished with flowers,
Revising for my exams outside, listening to my Walkman (mainly the latter),
Those horrific 70s sun-loungers which catch your fingers and graze your knees just by looking at them,
Spending hours just chatting with my Mum whilst gardening and drinking cuppas
(miss her so much).
i look back now and it strikes me how much gardening knowledge they had and just wish I could have harvested that knowledge to serve me now.
Fond memory though, of a single visit to an uncle's allotment and watching him dig up some cabbages. It was like magic to me!
and flowers.He was a lovely man ,honest and kind.
Actually I paid little heed to the garden because it led directly to a park with a string of other parks and woods following the stream that passed through. My memories are of playing football and cricket in the park, making rope swings over the stream, climbing trees in the woods, taking the dog for long walks ... all so much more exciting than gardening!
trying to ride the farmers pony in the field down in the village with a bit of farmers glory string tied around his neck. That is the ponies neck not the farmers ha ha