Why Do I Garden?

Randy over at Creating Our Eden posed an interesting question. How did you develop an interest in gardening? Well, I guess it kind of came natural with me. My grandmother is an avid gardener although my mother is not interested. I never really got into gardening much when I was younger. I thought it was all but a punishment to have to weed. I still don't like to hoe and rake, but at one point I remember realizing that I actually didn't mind weeding flowerbeds by hand. That was when I was 13 or so. I still didn't do it very much and never thought of actually planting anything. Then I got an office job. After about 2 years, my sister told me about a coffee house plant she'd seen at Home Depot. My company had just given us Home Depot gift cards and there was a bit left to spend, so I sent my card with a co worker and he picked up my coffee tree for me. That was my first house plant. It was just a little bunch in about a 3" pot when I got it. This is what it looks like now:

Well, the house plant was a refreshing and happy addition to my little office. He grew and brought me happy thrills with each new leaf. What a fascinating world the world of plants is! I remember being so gleeful and summonsing the whole office to come see when the first two leaves bloomed out. I even took a picture of new baby leaves when another branch started coming on:

So, what does all this have to do with gardening? I don't exactly consider house plant care as gardening, but it does give me a little piece of my hobby when I'm in the office. What this has to do with gardening is, that is how my love of plants got started. When that gets started, well we all know it's non-stoppable! A few years later my boss came and asked me to take care of a few plots with some plants. He told me to plant some things around the trees and make it beautiful. There was no limit to how much I could do. Truthfully, he's a better gardener than I, but I'm sure glad he let me do it. I was elated when he asked. Can you imagine being paid to do what you already enjoy?

I sure had a lot to learn and I still do. My first lesson was that bulbs don't bloom all year long. (Is that embarrassing, or what?) I was pretty much a novice on the subject, but I loved plants. I actually had a very pretty garden that year. My boss had his wife take me to a nursery and get whatever plants I wanted. She introduced me to SO many different things. I got lots of different things and put them in the ground. My second lesson was that you have to break up the root ball or your plants will get root bound in the ground. (Yes, that was embarrassing too.) I had kale that wouldn't grow because it was root bound.

My boss would have people bring me different plants and flowers so I could make it beautiful if he got to thinking I hadn't put enough in or was afraid to ask for more. :) This made so I had petunias, verbena, hyssops, lantana, rose bushes, desert rose, ornamental kale, and lots of other plants, that I developed a love for, in my very first garden. I don't think my love of gardening is going to grow old like some hobbies do. I love gardening. Weeding is so relaxing. You don't have to do any brain work to weed. You can just rip out the weeds and let your thought wander around without anything bad happening. (Good luck doing that in an office.) So anyway, that's why I garden, and that's where I got started. (Now I just need to figure out how to do it more.) Thanks for reading. Happy Gardening!