What lovely memories.I was also very young and my little friend Deirdre lived in a tied house with her parents and siblings attached to Blom and son the Dutch bulb people . The garden was used to grow all the new bulbs developed by the company .My abiding memory is of tulips ,tulips and more tulips .I myself only grow red Jan Bos ,named after her father .
I guess mine started during a 'difficult' childhood. There was just my dad & me so gardening started as a chore really, to earn my pocket money. We only had a typical 60's semi-detached garden laid mainly to lawns, so not particularly inspiring. But when my dad erected a greenhouse and made an adjacent veg bed, gradually I became hooked and wanted my own bit that he wasn't allowed to touch.
As I got older my interest went off in a slightly different direction and I studied Botany at Uni and got a scientific job after qualifying. But I suppose my real gardening epiphany came when I married and moved into our first house and all our joint gardening impulses just melded big-time. It became a joint passion that we share to this day, nearly 40 years later.
Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
@LunarSea I'm sorry to say school was a waste of time for me I struggled. However I loved biology and remember studying worms. Also making pretty patterns from the gills of fungi by placing them under a jam jar. I am so pleased I have had these interests all my life. I consider myself very lucky.
I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
I don't really remember when it happened, I think it just developed naturally as I've aged.
When I was a kid my brother and i would play in the garden but were more concerned about digging the biggest hole we could before our parents noticed. We also spent most of the time with our friends building dens in the woods or playing football, out all day but back for tea (this was in the 90's and it's amazing how the world has changed for the worse since then). I cut the hedges for our elderly neighbours, pruned fruit trees with some guidence and I guess was gently mentored into it. It only really became a passion I'd say when I had my own garden so could choose what I wanted to look after, then the seed grew and you want to experiment a little and learn about new things.
and you want to experiment a little and learn about new things. That's the thing with gardening isn't it @thevictorian and what makes it even more interesting, the fact that there's always something new to learn and to experiment with?
I used to hate gardening as a kid, probably because I was dragged to garden centres all the time by the parents. But maybe that seeded something I never realised.....
Spent my childhood in my mother's and grandparents' and aunts' rose gardens. I used to like collecting pansy seeds and growing them in plastic pottles. Still do. And I like growing roses I grew up with, though I am not sure what all of them were now.
But also worked every summer on my aunt's hydroponic tomato and veg farm for many years, which is probably why I don't like growing edibles that much! All that faff for one yucky tomato, when you could have an armful of flowers?!
Perhaps there are some forum members who have just discovered gardening and think they are hooked? If so I applaud you, it's a very difficult hobby to have right now but once hooked it will never leave you!
Hi GarderSuze. I'm definitely one of those! My grandad gardened and grew tomatoes, and his greenhouse was my happy place as a kid. I've always dabbled (badly) and always had house plants, but got well and truly bitten last year when I was on the couch recovering from gallbladder surgery. I am now the proud owner of a bespoke potting shed, two greenhouses, two compost bins, more tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines and chilli's than I can shake a stick at and, right now, some very beautiful flowers (although didn't get my gladioli this year, which have always been my favourite 😟). Hardest graft I've ever done, happiest I've ever been! 😁
It's knowing what to do with things that counts - Robert Frost
I was really late to gardening. It wasn't until we moved to our current house a few years ago that I began and that was simply out of necessity because there was so very much to do. There were only overgrown shrubs and trees everywhere. I always knew all I wanted was to grow just enough flowers to have in the house, nothing ambitious. The more I did the more I enjoyed it until I realised it's something truly wonderful - much to everyone's surprise!
Posts
The garden was used to grow all the new bulbs developed by the company .My abiding memory is of tulips ,tulips and more tulips .I myself only grow red Jan Bos ,named after her father .
As I got older my interest went off in a slightly different direction and I studied Botany at Uni and got a scientific job after qualifying. But I suppose my real gardening epiphany came when I married and moved into our first house and all our joint gardening impulses just melded big-time. It became a joint passion that we share to this day, nearly 40 years later.
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
When I was a kid my brother and i would play in the garden but were more concerned about digging the biggest hole we could before our parents noticed. We also spent most of the time with our friends building dens in the woods or playing football, out all day but back for tea (this was in the 90's and it's amazing how the world has changed for the worse since then). I cut the hedges for our elderly neighbours, pruned fruit trees with some guidence and I guess was gently mentored into it. It only really became a passion I'd say when I had my own garden so could choose what I wanted to look after, then the seed grew and you want to experiment a little and learn about new things.
But maybe that seeded something I never realised.....
But also worked every summer on my aunt's hydroponic tomato and veg farm for many years, which is probably why I don't like growing edibles that much! All that faff for one yucky tomato, when you could have an armful of flowers?!