# Do You Enjoy Gardening?



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I see it as a a chore to help out my parents. But I can see the joy in gardening for its own sake, especially for one that has been manicured over years, much like an art form. If left unattended, then it can be horrid mess but if left groomed, then it can inspire good art including paintings and photography.

Do you enjoy gardening?


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I am indifferent done because it "has to be done". But I admit I dislike the sight of an overgrown weed infested garden.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

When we moved to Kampen 9 years ago, one of the main advantages of our 17th century house (gallery included) was that it did not have a garden. Since then, we have acquired a small ground floor apartment with view on the river, and a bigger gallery, both within 100 meters from our home, and fortunately both without garden. We have the riverside with plenty of benches, and a beautiful city park, both in walking distance - no need for a garden. And we both do not like gardening. At all.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I enjoy gardening - or rather, I enjoy having a garden, looking at it, planning it, and planting things. Weeding & mowing the lawn I find less congenial but worth it for the final result.

My mother and her father were supremely good gardeners and fanatical workers at the leaf face - Mum would spend five hours at a time weeding the garden into her mid-nineties. So compared with them, I'm a lazy amateur. But still...


----------



## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

My family & I, at least back to my grandfather, have all been keen gardeners my eldest son is following; we all like our roses, one variety in particular has featured wherever we lived except that now living in a retirement flat with only a couple of patio boxes I don't have one, I only have a few small ones. Tip for growing roses, if left alone they flower mainly at the top of a stem, if you train the stems between horizontal and 45 degrees they flower on shoots off ther main stem, see the last image below; I did have other plants besides roses!

Ard's Rover, our family favourite, grows high and wide, beautiful scent
















Three of the garden I left when moving here


----------



## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

A "close up" of Ard's Rover

View attachment 155384


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Beautiful gardens are always a pleasure to enjoy - look at, eat in, relax in, play in, whatever.


----------



## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

There's something mindnumbingly comforting about gardening.


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I love gardening.

That's it.

That's all.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

pianozach said:


> There's something mindnumbingly comforting about gardening.


Not for Mum and Granddad - they were madly excited about gardens.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Pat Fairlea said:


> I love gardening.
> 
> That's it.
> 
> That's all.


You either do or you don't. Dead right!


----------



## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

I enjoy growing dental floss.


----------



## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

A "close up" of Ard's Rover, trying attachment again, tried uploading too many or too soon!


----------



## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Yes, I enjoy gardening. Both of my parents enjoy it, although in different ways (my dad is really only interested in growing crops, but my mom enjoys ornamental gardening) and I've been gardening since I was a child. My primary interest in California native gardening and I've planted and maintained many native plants at our house.


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I have no desire to do gardening, vegetables or flowers. I don't mind maintaining trees and shrubs, but not in a manicured landscape style. My back yard has trees and shrubs along two sides and I leave them mainly as is, with only enough trimming to have a few places to pass through.


----------



## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Not as much as mum did...She behaved like she had a ''regular job'' in our backyard...Although she was retired she got up at six am and went home at six pm just digging, planting, enriching the soil...Im a mere amateur compared to her and only take care of inside plants but I plan(t) to get my hands more dirty in futurre!!!:angel:


----------



## WNvXXT (Nov 22, 2020)

My wife has some ampalaya ( aka bitter melon ) and succulents going in the back.

















The front is where the rose bushes are.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Effort free gardening is when flowers self-seed - this summer we've got the descendants of some 'white marigolds' that Taggart planted last year. They were never 'white' really but I love their pale colour:


----------



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

*For the first time in the plant nursery*

The day before yesterday I was sent out by my 90 years old mother to buy 18 geraniums at the local plant nursery. In the past she did this seasonal buying spree on herself with her own car, but last year she sold her Renault Modus. So now I received precise instructions. Two thirds had to be red coloured and one third white / white-red coloured. Our local plant nursery is specialised on growing hortensias, that cannot be exposed to strong sunshine. But geraniums belong to the sunshine lovers. This year the plant nursery sold especially high & big flowered orange-red geraniums (costing 1.50 Euro a piece). Compared with these giants the purely white geraniums looked rather smallish. So instead I got 6 red-white geraniums. My mother had planned to let her gardener do the planting job, but he was short in time (going for holiday with his wife to France to their daughter who is living there with two Pfizer jabs). So my mother did the planting job herself. Now her backyard terrace is adorned by the eye-catching red of the huge geraniums. Let the summer come!


----------



## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

Gardening is one of favorite things in the world!


----------



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Ingélou said:


> *Effort free gardening is when flowers self-seed* - this summer we've got the descendants of some 'white marigolds' that Taggart planted last year. They were never 'white' really but I love their pale colour:
> 
> View attachment 155930


My kind of gardening. My kind of landscaping too. I never water my lawn nor fertilize it. Either one is work that makes more work because the more it grows the more I have to mow. Of course I have a regional advantage here in Michigan. I don't guess you can get away with not watering a lawn in some places, such as Arizona.


----------



## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I do enjoy gardening even though I have a tiny garden. I'm currently watching a few plants that I thought had been finished off in that horrid winter come back to life (but very slowly). I have a spotted laurel, that nearly died, doing this at the moment. The poor fatsia took a battering with the weight of snow too but that's recovered really well.
















One day I hope to have a bigger area to work with.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Merl said:


> I do enjoy gardening even though I have a tiny garden. I'm currently watching a few plants that I thought had been finished off in that horrid winter come back to life (but very slowly). I have a spotted laurel, that nearly died, doing this at the moment. The poor fatsia took a battering with the weight of snow too but that's recovered really well.
> 
> View attachment 155960
> 
> ...


I've always fancied a fatsia. I did once have one, but then almost immediately we sold our house and moved, so I never found out how well it would thrive. It would be nice to have one in a pot if we get our current patio renovated. Do let me know how your fatsia gets on. I hope your spotted laurel does well too. :tiphat:


----------



## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

WNvXXT said:


> My wife has some ampalaya ( aka bitter melon ) and succulents going in the back.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This looks sooo much like my old garden...Mum also put egg-shells in plants...
Anyway the other day We threw away all the earth from plant-pots that werent growing anymore in part of our garden where the soil is lower than the other...Strangely the amount we had in pots was exactly equal to the one needed, like someone measured it in completly random pots from yard and house...!!! I also sprayed my roses and other plants for bugs and diseases...Although there was a heavy rain the plants remained ''painted in white'' from concoction and bugs stayed away...They usually eat all the leaves and flowers as they swarm poor plants it breaks my heart to see...Do you do something similar and how do you protect plants from unwanted guests???


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

We took some photos of our small garden today to make a record of the seasons.

Our rose bush, Desdemona, has grown a lot since last year and is covered in flowers; behind it you can see self-sown flowers from last year, a white foxglove & some 'white' marigolds.The tall flowers are self-sown purple toadflax. It seems to grow wild round here and is very invasive, but it's attractive and not hard to weed out where it's de trop.









We add a bit of height when we can with pots. This ceramic pot was a birthday present from Castle Howard garden centre, filled with white pelargoniums and bluey-purple violas from Gemtown Open Air Market.









In this bed we've put more varied colours. On the right hand side are purple and white allium bulbs that we put in last year - beloved of small wild bees. They also love the tall purple toadflax that has seeded along the window. The red pot has a box tree in it. Snapdragons from the market, and Spanish daisies that we bought online last year - but which are prolific locally too - make up some of the plants.


----------



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Wife likes flowers, I like growing herbs - compared to vegetables, they are cost effective relative to grocery prices and animals dont eat them

11 inches of rain last month nearly killed most of my garden, particularly Mediterranean plants like rosemary and thyme

Got a curry tree cutting from an Indian grocer last summer, doing nicely


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This is our fragrant yellow rose, Golden Celebrations. We're about three years too early, but Deo volente it and we will still be there on our Golden Anniversary.


----------



## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Need to water my house plants...It is so damn hot everything evaporates from them.


----------



## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

At night

...................


----------



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

schigolch said:


> At night
> 
> ...................


Watering at night is a bad idea in a humid climate - get all kinds of rot, first thing in the morning is better


----------



## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Usually I water plants in the garden or inside in evening or early morning...I avoid the period from 11 am to 6 pm in summer.


----------



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Gladilola my wife planted (not sure why the upload rotates portrait iPhone pictures or how to change it)


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I grew vegetables in my youth when I lived in Pittsburgh and enjoyed it. Now I live in a boreal forest with sandy, acidic soil, due to the pine, spruce, and fir trees. I've done virtually no yard work of any kind for ten years and the fact that nothing has grown out of control in a decade I take as an indication that attempts at gardening would be pointless or exhausting. I've seen neighbors buy bags of soil in which to grow non-native species of plants and flowers. Then I've seen them have to build build fences to try to keep the deer and groundhogs from eating them. One neighbor ended up sitting in a lawn chair with a crossbow guarding his tomato patch. He shot a doe which limped off and died on someone else's property, someone inclined to call the authorities about out of season hunting. Our backyard bowman was arrested (not his first offense) and fined. Given how often the DEA sends helicopters with infrared sensors over my area around harvest time, I must assume there is a fair amount of hydroponic marijuana cultivation going on hereabouts. I wonder if this surveillance will continue now that weed is legal in New York State? Marijuana might be worth a try if I can come by some seeds. 

I do enjoy the native species — sweet fern, crown vetch, and milkweed grow freely near my house, attracting bumble bees and butterflies.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Bwv 1080 said:


> (not sure why the upload rotates portrait iPhone pictures or how to change it)


The board's software does that automatically with files beyond a certain amount of pixels for some reason.

To avoid it, host the picture on a site like Postimage (choose the size option for bulletin boards), and insert it in your post with the command







.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Result:


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> This is our fragrant yellow rose, Golden Celebrations. We're about three years too early, but Deo volente it and we will still be there on our Golden Anniversary.


That's a lovely rose! Our golden anniversary is not until 2025, so I have time to plan some appropriate flower!


----------



## WNvXXT (Nov 22, 2020)




----------



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Tried to grow tomatoes this year but keep finding them in the yard or on the vine rotting with holes and bite marks, figured it was a possum or some other animal, but went out one day and found the culprit


----------



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Have a small water garden, the main benefit is dragonflies


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Mount Grace Priory in Yorkshire shows how well flowers go with old stone. 
(Click to enlarge the photos.)


----------



## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

Does letting weeds grow in your gutters count as gardening?


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Radames said:


> Does letting weeds grow in your gutters count as gardening?


No. 
Planting weeds in your gutter and taking care of them would.


----------



## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> Mount Grace Priory in Yorkshire shows how well flowers go with old stone.
> (Click to enlarge the photos.)
> 
> View attachment 156976
> ...


Oh I love Mount Grace!


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Rose Golden Celebrations - we were hopeful that we wouldn't have the floppy flower problem this year as the rose grew sturdier, but alas, it still seems to suffer from weak stems. We photographed this bloom before it keeled over. What a shame that all its assets - bold colour, lovely petal formation, delicious fragrance, grand size - can be undone by one single defect, that it can't hold its head up and look the beholder in the face. 
I could make a parable out of this.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

We visited Yorkshire Lavender and it certainly did give me a few ideas:

























I love the way the conifers are used - it looks a bit 'French impressionist'. And they also did wonderful things with stooks of meadow grasses, though I'd hesitate to introduce that.

I am a bit fed up of all the recent diatribes against lawns as being Bad Things and not eco-friendly. I suppose it depends on how regimented you are and whether you use weedkiller etc, but our garden birds love it when I've just mowed the lawn. I get flocks of foraging starlings and sparrows pecking and prancing on it in no time.


----------



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-strange-death-of-the-english-garden

"The strange death of the English garden" describes how the London neighbourhood of Kensington is getting invested with plastic green lawns and plastic buxus


----------



## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

I enjoy gardening however my body tends to object to the required movements.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

TxllxT said:


> https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-strange-death-of-the-english-garden
> 
> "The strange death of the English garden" describes how the London neighbourhood of Kensington is getting invested with plastic green lawns and plastic buxus


I'm starting to see plastic lawns everywhere - I just can't understand the attraction.

I'm not gardening at the moment because it's so hot. Taggart does some watering in the cool of the evening.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I finally got the lawn mowed - it's cooler here today, but I was spurred on by the forecast of rain next week!


----------



## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I have no grass but I would never have a plastic lawn. Horrible.


----------



## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> I finally got the lawn mowed - it's cooler here today, but I was spurred on by the forecast of rain next week!


I decided not to mow my grass, spurred on by the forecast of rain this week - it will just grow like mad for a few days and will need cutting again - so I'll do it at the weekend 

ETA - doing my bit for the planet saving some energy - electrical and my own!


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Ah, but mine already looked 'energy-saved' and was on the verge of changing its status to 'eyesore'!


----------



## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Did some cutting of the fence...The other pic is the Rose that before gave only yellow flowers but after mum passed away started to give pinkish white, on the same tree...


----------



## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

Most people I know hate gardening.
A few years ago on the RHS Chelsea programme on the television Monty Don said to another on of the presenters "we have to find evidence that gardening is good for mental health"
Utter confirmation bias and not how science, research and the scientific method works. I suspect validation-seeking too. 
Sure, people who like gardening will enjoy it. People who don't won't.
What's it to him if more people enjoy pastimes he enjoys?
This year the RHS had someone publish research which proves that gardening is good for mental health.. Totally not biased, sure really. 
They said they negative-tested their hypothesis by using control group of people who said they didn't like gardening and they also showed positive benefits.
I'm still not convinced. I posit it's not the gardening in itself which is rewarding but the completion of a task or getting finished after a stupid study.
I hate washing dishes, filing and tidying but I feel better when I've done the dishes, filed or tidied because it's a chore completed.


----------



## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

I enjoy things around gardening such as the bacteriology, parasitology, zoology, mycology, entomology, chemistry, geology, hydrology, biochemistry, lepidoptery, apiology, lumbricology, soil science, systematics, taxonomy etc but if it wasn't for that gardening in itself would be faffing about in the dubs and getting dirty and wet, cold or hot.

I do it. People think I'm enthusiastic about it but learning about horticulture is more interesting than doing horticulture so I'm just more read up on it than my level of activity requires.
Ultimately I'm just too lazy and tight to go to the shops and carry home fruit and vegetables.
From about August I don't want to even see the outside, let alone the garden until spring.
I think I need a bigger garden.


----------

