I miss those people too. Actually, I was thinking recently about how little contact people have with the physical terrain around them, possibly with the local community as well, while we invest heavily in distant realities and unrealities as well: what's going on in China; fictional entertainment of all sorts. That investment isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I wonder if there wasn't a time, perhaps millenia back in prehistory, when humans knew every path and every knoll, every patch of food plants, every little spring, in the land they lived in. Later, when there were communities but before modern communications, I suspect people knew their neighbors far more intimately than we do now.
I lived in one Florida county for thirty years, and yet there were roads in that county I never once went down. I spent some time exploring those back roads that last time I was in Florida, and it was worth it. Having profited by earlier experience I walk all over where I live now, but still if I deviate from a path by a few feet I can see something I never saw before. Habit is awfully strong.
I've been reading The Lord of the Rings for forty years now. What I've appreciated in the book in recent years is the strong sense of terrain and landscape that the characters and their author have, and which by now trump Saruman and his orcs.
I've been enjoying everybody's accounts. Merry Christmas (or as the case may be, Happy Holidays) to you all!
Melissa

I think that I was born a gardener. My mother wrote in my baby book when I was 22 mos old, "Anita loves flowers." I remember sitting in the grass, frantically picking violets before my dad mowed them off, and filling a little glass bride's basket with them. My mother gardened simply, with poet's eye narcissus and daffodils, peonies and bearded iris, zinnias and perennial sweet peas, but most of her effort went into tomatoes and beans, strawberries and rhubarb. She always said that gardening skipped a generation. She didn't "bother" with roses, although she had an HT for a few years.

My grandma was an outstanding gardener but I don't remember much about it, other than purple clematis over the front gate. She moved into town when I was 11 and had ferns around the house and oversized HTs in her back yard, which I was warned not to touch or smell because of whatever she sprayed them with. She laid down on her couch at age 84 and died, her gardening gloves at her side, after mulching her ferns. That's the way I want to go, gardening till the end.

I don't recall visiting gardens much, other than seeing Williamsburg and being fascinated by hedges and the maze. I wanted a walled or hedge-enclosed garden, one where I could sit and read.

There was a neighbor who gave me seeds for cleome (spider flower, she called it). I'd never seen such an exotic thing and was thrilled. My grandmother gave me seeds for lunaria (money plant).

Of course, I too read The Secret Garden. And Honey Bunch and her garden sounds very, very familiar!

My main gardening influence was my neighbor, Bill, who invited me to tour his garden, glass of wine or coffee in hand, and who dug up bits of plants and told me stories of found roses. If I hadn't moved across the street from him, 33 years ago, I don't know that I would have ever gotten interested in old roses. I used to borrow his rose books when I'd travel - Stephen Scanniello's Climbing Roses was a favorite.
Anita

My father was the biggest influence on me becoming a gardener. He liked growing vegetables and trees (and loved books, too). He had a mild interest in roses as well, though what he really liked was anything endangered. He found the loss of the American elm and American chestnut to be a personal tragedy. Near the end of his life, we gave him two Dutch-elm-disease-resistant elms for his garden and he was absolutely delighted! He encouraged my early interest in old roses. I hated being outside in the heat and mosquitoes of a humid Pennsylvania summer, but I still found his activities fascinating.

Bellgallica, Robin McKinley's Beauty is one of my favorite books. She revisited the story some years later with a second book Rose Daughter. I enjoyed it as well, and it has more in it about roses, but I think that the first book was the more successful effort.

Melissa, I am a LotR fan as well. I have a little section of my garden that I consider my Hobbit Garden, very cottage-y in approach. I'm never quite satisfied with it. Right now I am planning to relocate the asparagus plants to a different and sunnier area, keep the blueberry bushes, and plant more foxgloves and summer annuals there. I'm actually more influenced by the movie set in this dooryard plot than I am by the original books.
And I too like exploring unknown roads near me.

Kaylah, I loved the story about raking the snow off the grass under the fir trees. If I ever find myself living in snow country again, I will be sure to remember that.

Anita, I have no neighbors who garden very much. One does a little. How nice that must have been!

Ann, I read some of the Honey Bunch books as well, but don't really remember the gardening emphasis. Perhaps I read them at the wrong age.

Rosefolly

My mother and her mother were the "gardeners" in the family. Both threw gardening and other "hobbies" at all the kids in the family in hopes something would stick so they could enjoy their fun while keeping tabs on us. They planted everything and pushed the envelopes well beyond their limits.

My rose "education" came from an LA Times Home Magazine article which prompted me to call Roses of Yesterday and Today, buy the Combined Rose List and Modern Roses 8, the latest edition at the time. Those pushed me into joining the ARS, which I lurked until discovering they couldn't feed my curiosity any further.

Discovering The Homestead Acre in Chatsworth Park South and meeting Candy and Dean Craig (Annie Laurie McDowell) and being introduced to The Huntington and becoming a rose garden volunteer, specializing in propagation, pushed me to heights previously unimagined. Through those connections, meeting interesting "experts" in the rose world began, with the greatest becoming long time friends with Ralph Moore. He taught me more about roses, growing anything and life in general than anyone other than my mother. As far as growing plants of all kinds, he was my ultimate teacher, mentor and friend.

He opened my "new eyes" and taught me how easily anything learned about one genus could be extrapolated to virtually any other, including the animal kingdom, including people. It was a fluidity of thought and knowledge that resonated with my own and drove it further than I could imagine.

The Internet opened even more doors to discoveries and people. Help Me Find-Roses is the single most valuable source on line I've yet discovered. All of the Modern Roses editions taught me many facts and permitted me to follow breeding lines, but HMF is dynamic and permitted me to SEE things previously only read about in vibrant, living color and communicate with others as hungry for knowledge. The older ARS annuals were amazing resources for information and history. Nicholas, McFarland, LeGrice, Harkness, Foster-Melliar, Ellwanger and a handful of other authors led me to deeper understanding and appreciation of roses. But, it was those early "teachers" and Mr. Moore who planted the seeds, nourished and tended them, who are to "blame". Kim

The earliest influences nudging me toward gardening were my father who had fruit trees, grapevines, strawberries, vegetables and roses and insisted we weed; my maternal grandmother with whom we lived while my father was in Europe during World War II and my paternal grandfather who was the rose grower. His small lot, in Gloucester, Mass., was entirely planted, mostly to roses although I do remember a few vegetables, blueberries which were "much better" than those great Uncle John found in the woods and I remember the late afternoon sun hitting a baby's breath as it was being hosed, magical.

Then there were the fields we roamed as children, farmers' fields gone fallow waiting for the developers. There were wild black raspberries, an old standard apple tree to climb and swing in, an enormous lilac hedge several hundred feet long probably planted as a windbreak and so old that children had run a path inside it the length of it, and finally we found wild roses. Almost none of these were fragrant and yet, and yet, there is something special about a rose.

As to books: I too read The Secret Garden, The Fragrant Year, Graham Stuart Thomas' trilogy on roses, The Old Shrub Roses, Shrub Roses of Today and Climbing Roses Old and New, The Education of a Gardener by Russell Page (no roses here) and many many more although most were not devoted solely to roses.

I think I was captured by old roses when I smelled one in my grandfather's garden. One day my mother sent me a card with a picture of a little girl bending over to smell a flower. She said it reminded her of me and so I must have been sniffing from a very early age. In 1976 our local garden club planted an herb garden in a public park. I later joined the club and ran the garden. One rose was brought from an old farm in Indiana. The scent is incomparable. And so the quest for old roses was reborn.

Cath

I can't think of any particular book or people that stirred me early into gardening. I was the kind of kid though that drove a mother crazy - flashlights under covers early into the wee beginnings of the morning reading, clothes that took forever to be folded because each towel folded was preceded by at least three pages flipped in whatever book I had my nose into. Along with you all, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Honey Bunch, so many children's books filled my life and mind with adventure, with bravery, goodness, life.

I think those books pushed me into looking for life and adventure in every corner and were the bedrock of what's become a gardening passion. Living oveseas for many of my early years we had no television, that mind numbing cyclops, so books and outside playing were my only diversions.

I'd never thought to be a home and garden person. Long without children and heavy into career, my pregnancy seven years into marriage sent me into the kingdom I now love best, my own home. Very soon my fingers found their way into the dirt, killing multitudes of plants along the way.

I found Mike Shoup's book, Landscaping with Antique Roses, in the early 90's whle living in the semi country outside of Dallas. Brutal summers, concrete like soil, yet Marie Pavie and Archduke Charles, Katy Road Pink bloomed and grew and won my heart. Twenty years later, I'm still in love with books and roses and all things green and growing. Blame CS Lewis, George MacDonald, JRR Tolkien, all those who are able to take our 26 simple alphabet letters and weave a world of life and magic. That is a rose, life and magic.

The William Paca House gardens in Annapolis, MD is a little-known colonial era place I stumbled upon many many years ago. I remember seeing my very first old roses there -- Alba semi-plena was one I remember, a few others, they were taller than me and smelled heavenly. I started looking into Antique roses on the web and got hooked. I think the first rose book I bought was Organic Rose Garden by Liz Druit. Little did I know at the time that many of the Southern roses in the book were blackspot magnets in the Mid-Atlantic where I lived, but I ordered many based on the book's recommendations and learned much by trial-and-error.

1. my mom, Silva
2. Luanne W.
3. The Vintage Gardens Book of Roses
have been my 3 greatest gardening influences.
My mother, Silva, was a passionate gardener. Her name might have forcast this, as well as her mothers name;Hazel who also loved gardening. As a child whenever I wanted to find mom I looked in her garden. Our house was often cluttered, but her flowerbeds were weeded.
My father had built a small brick house just North of Seattle in the 1950's, after a few years he asked mom if she'd like to move to a larger house and she exclaimed in a very shocked tone of voice "What? and leave my gardens?" as if he were crazy to suggest it.
I remember walking through wooded acreage on my way to school, through masses of Pacific bleeding heart, every shade of green was there, from moss and fern tree and bush.
Seattle is a wet and rainy place most of the year, I didn't mind for that was where green became the color of beauty to me.
Mom's collection of Primula astounded me, she had forms I'd never seen in any other place, fairy primroses, drumstick primroses, old forms that seemed to be trimmed in lace, and wild species primroses from other countries. They seemed like totally different plants from the Day-Glo primroses in the local nursury.
An immense red peony bloomed through much of Autumn, beside a couple of Japanese maple, which were in fiery leaf.
A fragrant honeysuckle vine climbed on the grey wooden post of the laundry line, mom loved the scent of sheets hung up to dry. Daphne odora perfuming a path in winter, was followed by bright yellow Forsythia that signaled spring to me as much as the first sighting of a robin. I loved the pairing of yellow daffodil surrounded by the slate blue hues of grape hyacinth.

Mom and her sister, Barb chopped down 17 fir trees one coffee fueled wild weekend to make room for more garden space. It was a double lot with lots of potential.
There were still plenty of trees left, a dozen or so tall Douglas fir, cedar, a splendid white flowering dogwood, a large walnut tree, espaliered apple trees, a huge Cypress. If anyone mentioned a plant they had seen or grown, they had her entire attention. After she retired she would go with great glee "botanizing" all over the P.N.W. with her cousin Janet collecting seeds to share with others.
10 years ago Mom told me "Well, I've finally finished my 50 year long project". and I asked her what that was, though I thought I might know...and she replied "My garden."
Luanne W. has been the one person who inspired me to grow Old Roses, and for that I am always grateful, they've added a constant source of beauty to my life.
The Vintage Gardens Book of Roses is my favorite rose reference book. God bless Greggory.

Lux

I noticed that some of you talk about reading Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, so I thought I'd post a link to the new trailer, just in case you were interested. I can't believe it's not coming out for another year and they already have a trailer! :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to The Hobbit trailer

I left home when I was 15 and moved to London. It was the "Swinging Sixties" and I found it very exciting and thought I had all I needed, even though I was living in a one room flat, without even a window box.
One day, I was going into a London Underground Station, when I saw, on a newsagent's stand, a gardening magazine with a picture on the front cover, of the most beautiful garden I had ever seen.
I bought the magazine, and read it from cover to cover.
Thereafter, I would buy all the gardening magazines I could lay my hands on and read them avidly.

Then someone gave me a copy of The Manual of Shrub Roses by Graham Thomas. It was only a little booklet, but I couldn't get enough of it.
Graham Thomas had such a way of describing the roses, that even though I had never seen them, I knew them intimately.
I could smell their perfume and feel the silky petals.
That was enough. I couldn't wait to grow them myself.
Although it was a few more years, before I had my own first garden, I did grow them and still do.
Daisy

Daisy, your comments made me think of a couple of old songs that mention window boxes. I always loved both of them. One is Carole King's "Where You Lead," with the line "I always wanted a real home, with flowers on the window sill." Another is Mary Traver's "Morning Glory," describing the morning miracle of the flowers. (She's the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary.)

An old college boyfriend got in touch with me through Facebook (no new romance - I'm happily married!). One of the questions he asked me was, "Did you ever get your house all covered with flowers?" So, while I don't remember talking about it 40 years ago, I must have! We went to hear Mary perform, and I'm sure that he knew I loved this song.Inspiration for gardening is everywhere, not just books and people, but also mags and music!
Anita

Here is a link that might be useful: Morning Glory

I'd forgotten to mention the huge influence that rose books had in fostering my passion. I remember many years ago visiting Barbara Worl's bookstore and buying books for $101 dollars (which was a lot back then) and finding that this was the exact amount of money I had in my purse! Graham Thomas was a huge inspiration, also Peter Beales, Trevor Griffiths and many more. I built up a library of well over 20 books and then scoured every public library within driving distance for more books on old roses. I simply couldn't get enough. Now I rarely buy rose books, I think because this forum and HMFR have become my new sources for continually learning about old roses, with the added precious advantage of being part of a group that is equally passionate about the roses I love so much.

Ingrid

The Internet has replaced a lot of that, yes. I've found also there is so little new information in newer books that isn't already in the books I already own. So many are coffee table types, which are pretty, but not anything I want to spend money on nor fill my available space with. The ones I bought, with few exceptions, taught me, filled my need for knowledge. Very few in recent years contained anything new and were mainly fluff or repetition of earlier works. Beales' books are very much this type. Once you own one, you don't need the rest. Kim

I do buy rose books from time to time, but pass by about twenty before I find one that it worth adding to my gardening bookcase. Right now I'm buying a few books on trees, and I collect in other garden areas as well. I would say that the rose section dominates the bookcase, that and California-specific books.

I don't find that this forum replaces books at all, but it does complement them perfectly.

Rosefolly

My grandfather came to live with us after he retired and had an allotment garden where he used to take me on his bike every time he went there. This started the idea of gardening with me. I loved to pull a carrot and wipe it on the wet grass. He also took me to see his friends, two old sisters with a wonderfully lush and overgrown garden. That garden is still my dream garden where it was always summer, their extremely fat cat sleeping in the shade, having coffee and cake in the "berceau". I don't know the English for this common feature in older Swedish gardens, a circle of lilacs with garden furniture in it, nearly always painted white. Bower is perhaps a good translation but we use the French word.

My earliest garden books were the children's classics by Elsa Beskow, called the Beatrix Potter of Sweden. Many of her books have been translated into English and several other languages.

Reviving this thread of a year ago for any new posters who would like to read and add -- or continuing members who may want to say more.

Rosefolly

When I was about 18, someone gave me the books of Beverly Nichols.
They were; Down the Garden Path, Merry Hall and Garden Open Today.
I would hesitate to call them gardening books, but inspirational, gardening books they certainly are.
He started writing them, before he knew anything about gardening. He takes you on his journey of discovery, with lots of diversions, characters, humour and delighted awe.
I will give you a quote from the forward of his first book, Down the Garden Path.

"I know that unless I write a gardening book now....swiftly, and finish it before the last bud outside has spread it's tiny fan...it will be too late to write it at all. For shortly I shall know too much.... shall dilate with tedious prolixity, on the root formation of the winter aconite, instead of trying to catch on paper, the glint of it's gold through the snow, as I remember it last winter, like a fistful of largesse thrown over a satin quilt"

I met Beverly Nichols in his garden before he died. He still had a childlike delight in his garden.
Daisy

I forgot to say, I had not read The Secret Garden until this year. A friend gave me a copy for Christmas last year.
I blubbed all the way through it.
Daisy

Daisy, Thank you for mentioning that you read Secret Garden recently. I received a tablet for Christmas. So off I go to Amazon.com to figure out how to put it into the tablet. Fitting that the first book I will be downloading would be a Rose Book.

This thing also has a camera (probably they all do) and even better I just started reaading the tutorial so hopefully I will be able to post rosie pics this spring.Gosh winter is sure useful.
Jeannie

Like Melissa, I grew up spending as much of my childhood as I could swing exploring the local wild places near my childhood home on the West Coast of British Columbia. You sound like an adventurer to me Melissa and that was what I was for fourty plus years before becoming a gardener.

My post secondary education was in agriculture. I, like Kaylah, spent much of my working life with farmers, horticulturalists and people who made their living from the land and growing plants and animals. It was as much education as work to me. It was another type of adventure and one from which I learned a lot and for which I am truly grateful.

Thinking back after reading the thread, there were some gardens that made an early impression on me. Beginning with the one at my parent's first house. I was probably 3 or 4 when we moved there, but I can still recall a gorgeous old pink climbing rose that grew over a lattice arch at the entrance to the walk. I also vividly recall visits with my parents to the rose garden in Stanley Park in Vancouver and the wonderful gardens at Little Mountain in Queen Elizabeth Park, also in Vancouver.

I married late and it was when I settled down with an instant family, that gardening became part of my life. It provided me with contemplative time, an easy, if brief escape from the responsibilities of work and parenting; as well as an intimate connection to the earth and to nature.

I recall finding David Austin's first book on English roses on a business trip in 1996, about a year after I began to grow roses. That was when I began to search out his roses as well as OGRs. I then found out that there were David Austin roses on display in the Centennial Rose Garden in Burnaby Mountain Park and I made numerous trips there to view the roses and talk with the gardeners.

Gardening is an adventure to me. It is just much more intimate than exploring the greater world. You become extremely attuned to your micro climate, the weather and the plants you grow. Further, I find that my gardening journey is split into; intellectual time, when I study plants and plan my garden; work time, when I labour; and, my favorite, spiritual time, when I immerse myself in my garden, strolling, contemplating, sensing and perhaps puttering, but all without conscious effort.

So a final passage that speaks to the spiritual side of gardening. A passage from the book Zen, the path of paradox:

"You come across a rose flower and the moment you see it, immediately language jumps in and something inside your mind says; "a beautiful rose flower", and you have destroyed something. Now it is neither beautiful, nor a rose - a word is there. Don't allow words to interfere with each and every of your experiences. Sometimes just be there with the rose and don't say, "a rose". There is no need. The rose has no name, the names are given by us."

It is perhaps a strange passage to a western mind, but what it says to me is; take time just to be in your garden, without thought, without effort, become a part of your garden. May your gardens bring you joy.

Cheers, Rick

When Melissa first posted this, I had no response. Certainly nothing like a book or even a gardening mentor. I was over 40 before the smallest green plantlet arrived on my radar (although I confess to some failed experiments with 'homegrown' back in the 70's). I regarded outside as somewhere I rarely wanted to be (too cold, uncomfortable, wet, boring) and gardening was a particularly futile and and unpleasant branch of outdoor housework. Having numerous dogs, cats and children provided a great excuse for overseeing a mudpit with not even a blade of grass surviving the balls, digging dogs and brawling kids......until my daughter took it upon herself to have a tidy-up, piling up the many old bikes, scooters, dog chews, footballs and general rubbish into a huge heap. In celebration (at actually seeing a viable patch or earth,), we bought a plant at the school fete - a lavatera, no less, which proceeded to take over the entire garden (it is a very small space) in a profusion of pink. Blimey, I thought, nothing to this gardening lark after all. The rampant growth of the lavatera convinced me that I must have secret green fingers.....and my second purchase, a japanese anemone, convinced me that I was already at genius level. An autumn spree of bulbs absolutely assured me that gardening was a cakewalk so that I put the utter failure of my fourth purchase, (a gardenia), down to bad luck rather than any lack of knowledge on my part (ignorance is bliss). Almost overnight, I changed from a sane balanced person to an obsessed, crazy, tediously rambling maniac.
I blame my daughter.

I also confess to hating the Secret Garden (weedy colonial toffs and what sort of name was Dickon?).

My Mom and my Nana always had beautiful gardens and I learned more from them than I realized. Everything came back to me when I started gardening on my own, but I wasn't interested in roses because all I'd ever seen in Florida were HTs.

You folks on this forum enabled me into roses when I stumbled here by accident. I lurked here for years, silently soaking up all the knowledge you so willingly and kindly give to anyone who asks. I was tired of replacing plants that froze here and tired of everything looking terrible after every freeze so I jumped right into the antiques.

Looking at what I've just written, I realize I owe everyone who posts here a heartfelt thank you for all your advice over the years. Without you, I never would have discovered the amazing Teas, Chinas, and Noisettes. Right now, we have had two relatively mild freezes, and my roses are still in heavy bloom and look amazing, so again, I thank you all.

This is such a fun thread! thanks for starting it, Melissa, and thanks for reviving it, Rosefolly.
I became interested in roses decades ago when my mother and I moved to a rental house with half a dozen or so HTs in a very formal little bed. I was a morose teenager but the rose flowers were beautiful and sparked my imagination. At some later point, my mother bought me a copy of "In Search of Lost Roses" which fascinated me. After collage sometime I bought "Sharifa Asma" and put it in a pot dragging it around with me for over a decade as I moved from place to place. That is when I learned how tough roses are!

Well, I bought a house with my husband and Sharifa finally got put into the ground only to be plagued by rust. I bought a "Gertrude Jekyll" bush that soon after planting got these funny markings on the leaves--RMV. Feh! Enough with roses--too much trouble! I became interested in native Calif. plants. Fooled around with that a little.

Another decade passes and we move half a mile away to a house with many roses. I guess the whole backyard at one point was all rose beds bordered by boxwood hedges and brick paths. When we moved in there were still a couple of dozen roses. They were HTs and floribundas in various stages of decline with a lot of what I later learned was Dr. Huey suckering all over. Most were pretty ugly and I "knew" roses were a lot of work so I was not enthused. But, others were quite pretty and obviously someone had loved roses and worked pretty hard on the garden. Then a few weeks after we moved in, a revelation. On the back fence I noticed a big tangle of white and red roses like out of a fairy tale. In fact my little daughter and I had been listening to "Snow White and Rose Red." I couldn't get over how beautiful they were. Months later, I finally found tags identifying them as "Felicite et Perpetue" (wow, an old rose in my garden!!!) and "Red Fountain." Huh, I thought, maybe I will put some more effort into this whole rose thing. Then, I noticed the enormous, hulking shrubs in the back had very large, flat, pale yellow flowers sitting a top like huge butterflies had landed. It looked almost prehistoric to me (probably because my son had just finished his dinosaur phase). It took me a while to figure out they were roses--I didn't know roses could get so big with such huge trunks. Another revelation. I was hooked--literally and figuratively! I couldn't find tags and it took me forever to find the name of these roses--Mermaid. Along the way I found this forum and attended an organic rose lecture put on by our local master gardeners association which totally changed the way I gardened.

Now, I want to get The Secret Garden. It sounds like a good read aloud to my kids. And what better place to look for a used copy then Bells Books where Barbara Worl worked for so many years!

Suzy,
I can understand your not loving 'The Secret Garden', as it's dated in various ways. But I think that the reason people still read and remember this book is because of the garden that gives it its title. The garden is truly magical.
Thinking the matter over, and speaking as a person in her fifties who has read intensively all her life, I can't recall any fictional garden or any garden described in a work of non-fiction--excluding books specifically dedicated to gardens, gardening, or plants--that equals it. What do you all think?
Paula, thanks for reviving this thread. I've been enjoying it: it's pleasant reading matter for the holidays.
Melissa
P.S. Well, it just occurred to me: Gene Stratton-Porter. She's another good writer of the second rank who who still has a coterie of fans, and whose continuing popularity is due, I believe, not so much to the overall quality of her work as to her desciptions of plants and the natural world. However when she writes about plants it's not primarily about ornamental gardening, though that plays a role.

I don't remember any books that turned me on to gardening. My mom had a few roses, but our yard was small and most of the time taken up by the above ground pool we had. My most vivid memory of the garden was the large lilac bush we had and the lillies of the valley in the front. There was a couple with a house on the far corner that had a wondrous yard, even in our neighborhood of postage stamp lots. I remember walking past it and admiring the roses and other plantings. It was so sad when the couple either moved or passed away and a new owner was in there with a large dog and kids and the garden was destroyed.

I was a latecomer to gardening. I didn't start until 12 years ago when we moved to Georgia from New York and I had my first house. My house was new construction so it was basically bare save for a few builders specials. Also, the front is full sun, all day, with no shade. So I decided to grow roses. And the J&P catalog was my inspiration. Most of my early roses were J&P. Then I found GardenWeb and the rest is history!

The secret garden intrigued me tremendously, but all my attempts to garden when I was little were eventually destroyed by my grandpa's weed eater. That thing could not tell the difference between a weed and a flower to save if. The most horrible flower murder was my first rose " Joseph's coat" after that I gave up on flowers and learned to take care of the citrus trees we had instead, but the rose itch lingered and as soon as I had some dirt of my own I went nuts. I tell my husband this is what happens when you are destroy my roses eventually I will replace it and 3 or 4 more tag along, so he is always cautious with his weed eater.

Daisy, I too love Beverley Nichols books, just discovered them a year or so ago, once started can't put the books down! Read The Secret Garden as a child and was mesmerized, just ordered it again yesterday after reading all your posts.

Noone in my family gardened, but when we bought our first house I just knew I wanted a garden; we have quite a large yard considering the area we're in, and for years it gave room for the kids to play soccer, football, etc., then raised and bred German Shepherds. Once that was over it gave me the room I wanted to put in large flowerbeds and after reading "Roses in the Southern Garden", started amending the soil and was off to the races, now have about 40 old roses.

Half of my ancestors had been connected with farming, be it in the New World or in the Old, back to the point at which knowledge of the generations goes from twilight to dark; consequently, I had an inborn propensity towards agriculture, horticulture, and botany. My childhood interest in flower seeds at the market eventually brought me to request the R.H. Shumway catalog. I can see it in my mind's eye now, the big publication, folded in half, arriving in its characteristic orange-yellow wrapper . . . the thin pages with their very cool old-fashioned steel-cut engravings of remarkable vegetables and flowers, with a few glossy pages with more recent (but still retro) illustrations. To me, books per se rarely if ever catch the real rhapsody, the real excitement, of horticulture. Catalogs--and especially the unillustrated or less-illustrated ones, because they give the mind free rein--have always fired my imagination and driven my enthusiasm. And places? No place inspires me more than my own garden, be it ever so humble, because I can share in the plants' trials and triumphs, and know how they are in their "daily lives." To me, grand gardens are a sterile experience. They have their greenhouses and propagation grounds, their funding, their paid workers; plants which no one around could grow themselves because of cultural demands are slipped in and torn out in a matter of weeks. Bah! This sort of thing is only a caricature of gardening, like display windows or models on a runway are to clothing: The only real gardens of the heart are those watered by a particular gardener's own sweat, and sometimes tears! To my way of thinking, those are the inspiring ones; there is something more noble in the home gardener's success with marigolds and zinnias on a tiny, hardscrabble plot of ground than there is in any number of corporate acres elsewhere; and that is where I find the real beauty and motivation in Horticulture.

When I was young, we had a copy of the Child's Garden of Verses with such beautiful illustrations! I can still remember them. (I looked up the artist, her name is Gyo Fujikawa.) One was of a gardener down on his knees in the garden, a youngster discovering him behind tall perennials. Another was of barefoot children launching toy boats in a clear pebble bottomed stream. A third was a dream garden at night with kids in night gowns among wildflowers and tall grasses. I think I realized then-before I could read, how gardens can be evocative of many moods. We lived by a lake (I still do) with a stream feeding it just down the street.There were acres of woods and 'mountains' behind that. As kids we played all day outside. We had kids come for the summer from the city and we set ourselves to 'toughen'them up. We called them 'tender feet' as opposed to us-barefoot, suntanned,lean and dirty! You would be surprised how much they wanted to be like us and to learn about the outdoors and nature! Years later,I began to design gardens. I had an endless loop of memories to draw on. The experiences of seeing butterflies and strange insects, catching turtles,snakes and salamanders. Picking endless bouquets of flowers,the berry patches down the street.
When your young, your senses are keen and scent is everywhere in nature! By a lake, the air is moist and laden with the odors of flowers-in the evening especially. You can wake up early and go out before the dew is dry and the mist lifted. The world is like magic!Bird songs everywhere! The air is thick with the scent of multiflora roses. The sun is burning holes here and there. I think the scent of roses brings me back to those June days no matter what time of the year it is! It can cover up all that is modern and ugly in our world. Maybe seduce others into the world where magic and mystery still exist-if we just slow down to look for it.
Recently, I read another book that brings me back to that connection with the land that I remember from childhood and sometimes still experience. I buy old books-this one is printed in 1911. Its called "The Harvester" by Gene Stratton Porter. She wrote many books, most people have heard of "A Girl of the Limberlost". I googled her name and found her home in Indiana is now a museum with woods and gardens. They have many great programs-this new year being her 150th birthday year! If you want to learn about herbs and natural medicines, read The Harvester. I have yet to read her other books- maybe some other reader has read them and can recommend which one to read next?

Laura, A Girl of the Limberlost is my favorite book from childhood. I've read it many times. It was already old-fashioned when my mother read it as a child, so you can see that my love of old things extends beyond roses. Anyway, I think it is naturalist Gene Stratton Porter's best book. Some of the others seem impossibly sentimental today. If you were going to try one other than The Harvester and Limberlost, you might try Freckles, a rags-to-riches story that also takes place in the Limberlost Swamp. Several of its characters reappear in the later book. There are a couple others I liked, but I cannot remember the titles.

To me, grand gardens are a sterile experience. They have their greenhouses and propagation grounds, their funding, their paid workers; plants which no one around could grow themselves because of cultural demands are slipped in and torn out in a matter of weeks. Bah! This sort of thing is only a caricature of gardening, like display windows or models on a runway are to clothing: The only real gardens of the heart are those watered by a particular gardener's own sweat, and sometimes tears!

Oh Dear! Graham Thomas, David Stone and I have wasted our lives . . . ! It sometimes seemed like hard work and a real garden to me :)

Happy New Year, Brent!
{{gwi:327051}}

Oh, and books? William Robinson's 'The English Flower Garden', and ever in my mind TS Eliot 'Four Quartets'.

Best wishes
Jon

This post was edited by jon_in_wessex on Mon, Dec 31, 12 at 5:13

Yes, I suppose I shouldn't have painted with such broad strokes! The grand public gardens are wonderful things in themselves; but I meant that they are sterile vis-a-vis one's personal gardening, the gardens of one's own heart I mentioned. In other words: Opera is a wonderful thing; but it doesn't have much to do with one's own singing. The inspiration for any warbling I do doesn't come from experiencing Luciano Pavarotti; that's a whole 'nother plateau. Whatever ditties I would bleat wouldn't and could't have much to do with that; and if, after effortfully yodeling my way through "In the Baggage Coach Ahead," I declared, with a straight face, "My singing was inspired by Luciano Pavarotti," the looks I'd get would certainly be the ones I deserved.

Best new year's wishes to all, and may your hopes be fulfilled in the coming year!

Thanks, Brent - I knew what you meant :) But also remember that some of those gardens *are* the home gardens of their gardeners! Nothing has taught me more about 'the garden of the heart' than my years of working with David during his 35 years - I have never seen a *heart* more openly and publicly displayed, with all its torments and trials and beauties.

And I am about as close to emulating him as you may be to Pavarotti!

I have been inspired by visits to many gardens, both grand and homely but I don't think I have imitated any of them. My garden is too small for that. I have been inspired by the feel of some of them, plant combinations, even design elements in some cases. There is a grand Piet Oudolf garden, called the Dream Park in the small town of Enkoeping, not far from where I live. The most amazing feature is a river of hundreds of blue salvias that runs down to a real river. My husband and I spent a late Midsummer Night in this park, quite alone and the blue took on an eerie quality in the pale Northern night light. Now we have a trickle of ten varieties of salvia in our garden. I would not have planted so many ornamental grasses if I hadn't seen the great plantsman Karl Foerster's garden in Potsdam, a small family garden then tended by his daughter. I would probably not have planted so many roses if I hadn't seen the Mottisfont Abbey rose garden and seen how they were combined. I chose varieties suitable to my climate but the effect is the same on a smaller scale. In Sangerhausen I learnt how to train pillar roses (but I don't master the art yet). We have no space for acres of a rhododendron dell like the one at the Sofiero summer palace but we made our own little dell in the wood and put our 25 rhodos together rather than far apart. Alhambra in Spain and Isola Bella in Italy are too exotic to glean ideas from so I enjoyed them the way I enjoy a museum. But I learnt that shade is as important in a garden as sunshine, the play of shadows on grass.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Dream Park

I think over the gardens and botanical gardens I have been to: Drottningholm, Linnaeus' garden in Uppsala, Linnaeus' garden at his summer house in, um, wherever it was, the botanical garden in Copenhagen (of botanical gardens, my favorite), Tivoli Gardens (though an amusement park, it has fine plantings), Frogner Park in Oslo, Kew Gardens, the Chelsea Physic Garden, Huntington Gardens, Descanso Gardens, the State and County Arboretum in Arcadia (not far from where the Rose Parade is taking place!), Disneyland (same as with Tivoli), Balboa Park in San Diego, and doubtless there are dozens of others which just don't spring to mind at the moment; and, though these all have been interesting or even entertaining in one way or another, I can't say that any of these great works of horticulture has had even the slightest influence on my home gardening. Perhaps in each of these I will have seen a plant or two which I hadn't seen before but had only heard of; but this function is normally taken by various plant encyclopaedias or, these days, the internet. If I had to come up with something outside my own garden and outside my own thoughts which influenced some aspect of my gardening, I'd have to point to . . . Freeway plantings!, which familiarized me with how a man-made design can interact with a moving observer (people often design their gardens as if its visitors were simply standing still all the time; no, visitors are on the move much more than they are stationary, and the canny gardener will cater to the dynamics of this--hence the swirls and French curves I mentioned in the sidewalks thread). Of books, doubtless the one I'd point to as being most influential would be one of the old Sunset series of books, that on Rock Gardening, which--in my childhood--wooed me from the cold seductions of geometric plantings to a more naturalistic concept. If it is surprising that I don't appear to get more out of grand gardens, all I can say is that, as I knock about here and there in life, whether I be on the street in some built-over downtown, driving through some suburban sprawl, hiking some trail up in the mountains or out in the desert, I'm always pondering the vista and the effect of each element within it; such gardens are not special to me because they are lost in my overall contemplation of everything I see. For reasons mentioned previously, they are as remote from my own gardening experience as, in other ways, a walk down Spring St. in Los Angeles or the Strand in London is; in either case, I absorb something of design and how the created environment impresses itself on the mind; but it goes into the category of "general education," not that of "direct influences on my garden." I'll conclude these overly extended remarks with a paragraph from Samuel Johnson's life of the poet and garden designer Shenstone, which always makes me smile, if perhaps somewhat wanly: "Now was excited his delight in rural pleasures, and his ambition of rural elegance; he began from this time to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entagle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy, as made his little domain the envy of the great, and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travelers, and copied by designers. Whether to plant a walk in undulating curves, and to place a bench at every turn where there is an object to catch the view; to make water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen; to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden; demand any great powers of mind, I will not inquire; perhaps a surly and sullen spectator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human reason. But it must be at least confessed, that to embellish the form of nature is an innocent amusement; and some praise must be allowed, by the most supercilious observer, to him who does best what such multitudes are contending to do well." Gardening takes more creativity and genius than many--including, it would seem, Johnson--would allow; in its admirable innocence, it is, at one and the same time, the most humble and the most purely noble of human pursuits.

Well I have to "blame" Jeri Jennings for getting me hooked on heritage roses. For years I had tried to grow HTs that were just drug addicted,knock-kneed, disease-attracting divas. I had almost given up on roses entirely when Jeri told me about the easy roses that love our climate and can be grown here no-spray: the old teas, noisettes, chinas and California "foundies." She was right!!

mariannese,
Thank you for the link and my ensuing virtual visit to The Dream Park. I have sought out and visited public gardens in my time as well. And I also have lasting memories from some of them. I have and still do adopt or adapt others' great ideas into something mine. I did a variation of the salvia stream with grape hyacinths in a rock garden in my zone 5 garden - I feel sure that idea was not completely original.

melissa_thefarm,
Besides the influences of family, places, and books, there was the irresistible allure of the plants themselves. The perfume output of numerous huge old gardenias and of wisteria dripping from the trees sealed my fate.
And I want to take this opportunity to say how much I like to read your posts in general and about Florida specifically.

This is quite a romantic thread filled with lovely idyllic memories of books and gardens and relatives from the past. When I started reading it recently, I got way far into it before I realized it was started LAST December. I wondered why I didn't remember it from back then. Then it hit me. I have no memories of storybooks and poetry that lifted me to grand heights of gardening joy, so I didn't comment. If ever a gardener was created in a vacuum, it was me. I feel like my inspirations have come from looking through keyholes at glamorous photos of Old Garden Rose blossoms on the internet and incomprehensible seed catalogs and their exhilarating pictures. The buxom, many-petaled roses swept me off my feet and took me captive, commanding me to own them and make a place for them to grow and bloom. Perhaps they triggered memories of the upholstery fabrics I loved that were covered with cabbage roses in rich colors. My grandmother in Alabama was a gardener - a humble, rustic one. She grew muscadines, pears, and lots of flowers that were unknown to me when we came down from Connecticut for two weeks in the summers back in the fifties. I think she must have wondered about this little girl first-grandchild who followed her everywhere and watched her every move, including making those luscious biscuits with lard and buttermilk on an old bowed cookie pan. She rimmed the front porch of her southern bungalow, built by my grandfather a room at a time, with cinder blocks and made planters that she filled with begonias and I don't know what. But the plants that thrilled my soul were the huge and amazing blue snowball bushes at the steps to the porch. Of course, hydrangea is the correct name, but wow! they had a definite impact on my life, almost as tall as me and like nothing I'd seen in Connecticut. They must be why hydrangea-blue/French blue is my favorite color. My eyes still widen at the thought. Late in life she came to visit us here in Ocala and was genuinely thrilled to buy a Sago palm to bring home and plant in her yard, not knowing if it would withstand her winters. It did. So much of who I am was shaped now that I think of it by that heavy-footed lady with the loud southern accent (Y'all come eat!) who I saw and experienced for such short snippets of time. Quilting, clothes sewing, DIY, gardening by the seat of my pants...it all came down from her. She really was bigger than life, and I really think she had a massive influence on me in that she passed on her creativity and stamina to me. She had tons of it. She decorated her living room walls with artificial arrangements in containers that used to be Clorox bottles that she cut in half and the thick cardboard cones (spray painted gold) that used to be bobbins (I think) from the cotton mill where she used to work. Creative genius was everywhere in and around her house. Every place I looked (and I loved to look) had handmade things in it that I'd never seen before - awesome, ingenious creations. My goodness, I miss her.

So with no knowledge of the subject to speak of I decided to dig a garden, knowing not what it would become only hoping I wouldn't embarrass myself. It's only recently I don't feel dishonest calling it a garden and myself a gardener. Surely, I don't have the credentials to be called such, but I do have the heritage. Gee, I wish Nana could see my garden. I know she would like it even though my hydrangeas are pink when they bloom which is rare. I think she would go around and fix things for me, and I would follow after her.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

This post was edited by sherryocala on Fri, Jan 4, 13 at 1:23

Sherry,
You have moved me so much with your writing, I can barely comment for fear of breaking its spell. Thank you for those words from your heart.
Diane

I believe i am an old soul and i belonged to another time. My books are the same as yours and the memories compare. I have always live in my head more then i have live here in this time. I wanted those dreams of beautiful gardens in the "real" world so out came the shovel and spade and i got to work. Over the years many things have change and found threw trial and error on what works best for my area and my heart but my vision has always remained the same. The ground feeds my soul the sun lifts my heart the smell and feel of the flowers makes me sing. The gardens truly never let me take this time here for granted. Every plant ,tree ,bush, shrub flower i planted my self and in the morning before anyone gets up i go out with my coffee and look and marvel at what god has given us to play with. May your hearts fill with happiness and joy when you look at your creations.
Thank you for your posts they have filled me with joy.
Julia

I agree with Diane. Sherry, that was a lovely story. Gardeners who went before us are every bit as important an inspiration as books and gardens. No, they are more important because of the tie of remembered affection.

Rosefolly

Welcome Julia, and the image of your garden reflects your words. A garden not of the modern world, but one of the heart. I too go into my garden in the early morning when most are asleep and find stillness and peace in the earth and in the plants that grow there. I would love to see more photos of your garden and also it would help a little if you could tell us where your garden is, State and general area. It looks like a lovely spot to greet the morn and commune with the world.

Cheers, Rick

Thanks Rick beautiful words.
I am from Wisconsin about an hour southwest of milwaukee.
I have lots more pictures but many are just up close flowers.
Heres a picture of my latest baby you can see the small beds i started and all those dots around the fence will be 20foot yews that ill be able to shear down to make a wall. This i did last spring 143 went in i am still working on plans for the rest of the area .

Thanks Julia

I have not been on this forum for quite some time. I have no idea what brought me here today. I wanted to thank all of you for sharing your thoughts on this thread. I cannot remember a thread in all the years on Garden Web that has been more of a pleasure to read.

I feel as if I'm making a confession to you all. I always loved gardens but my folks never had much money or knew anything about plants so we had the ugliest, deadest yard on the block. I always hated that. My Dads mom had a beautiful garden and my moms mom grew a few rose bushes and a big loquat tree and my moms dad grew strawberries and tomatoes. My folks bought a house with clay soil and made a half hearted attempt at planting some unsuitable shrubs then promptly gave up. Everything died but the couple of pines and the Italian cypresses. My dad's folks garden was the magic place and I adored it. I always loved the prettiest yards on the street and I would stop and look at all the different plants on the way home from school. In particular I was in love with a Japanese couple's dicondra lawn surrounded by maples and bamboo and clipped things. They were out there almost every night working on it together. I can still remember them on their hands and knees pulling little weeds from the dicondra and talking to each other in Japanese. The azaleas were so beautiful and there must have been so many other treasures that I can't recall now. In my mind it was the best a garden could ever get.

So then the years went by and I got a copy of the Sunset Western Garden Book in high school and I read that book over and over and learned the latin names and began to really look at plants in a new way. I got an understanding of plants and what they like and that different plants want different things and that it isn't just magic that some people have and some don't. I started making an herb garden out in the no mans land of the front yard. Then I started growing annual flowers from seeds and working them in all the while waging war with bermuda grass that threatened to ruin all my progress. I planted seeds mostly because I was spending all my money to go to college but sometimes I splurged and bought fuschias and any other flowers that hummingbirds liked. I soon had a big fuschia collection going in the back under dads big pine tree that managed to survive the early years.

I hated my job in the women's clothes section of a department store so I found another one at a local nursery run by a Japanese couple and their son. This couple was so good to me and the hours I spent sitting by Sumi learning about flowers and just being in her gentle presence changed the way I looked at the world and about flowers. She had a great wisdom and kindness. I don't think I'll ever know such a graceful and gentle person like that ever again. Sumi's brother Ken was there too and he was a wonderful man with a gentle way and great sense of humor. I wish I could go back and tell them how much I appreciate all the kindness they gave to me. I loved them and I loved the nursery and every plant in the place. I just wanted it all to grow well and for everyone who got a plant to be happy. I listened to all the growers and customers and I read everything I could read.

Then came my friend Robert who knew everything about plants and loved roses. After a trip to his garden I wanted to grow roses. I thought I didn't know much after meeting Robert, but he was also very kind and wise and didn't mind my inexperience. He was also a great enabler and got me started buying roses from RoY&T. That catalog was like candy to us and we talked about it on lunch and while we were planting up flower baskets for holidays. When bare root rose season came around, Robert was always so happy. We loved getting into the big boxes of bareroots when they would arrive. After a while, I thought my humble herb patch was nothing special and started expanding.

I left them all to go to the University and then I got a job at Disneyland Entertainment that ate my life. I spent many many hours during and after hours in the park and got to watch all the plantings and talk to the people in charge of landscape for the parks and the hotel complex. All that time, my garden saw me through tough times and I faithfully got up to water it before dawn when I had to go to work early or get to school and study. All along the way I met people who loved plants and I took cuttings and collected seeds to grow in my own garden. My grandma stood by me all the way, encouraging me.

I loved Lord of the Rings too and Narnia. I remember when my sister and I were young and went camping in Colorado. We walked out into a meadow and I said " If I see the tents of Narnia, I'm just going to keep going" and she agreed with me that we wouldn't go back. I try to put a bit of fairyland in the yard for kids that come by and for myself to remind me of the old days.

Beautiful post, Kitty. Was it Russell Page who said what makes a gardener is not a green thumb, but a green heart? You had a green heart, and the green thumb followed along quite naturally.

Kitty, I savored each and every word of your post. I hope it was as enjoyable to write as it was to read.

Rosefolly

Kitty, what a lovely biography you've written. I feel like I know you now. You're so sweet and deep and likable. Your Japanese mentors would be pleased...and proud.

Sherry

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

I was crying a little remembering Sumi. She met her husband on a train when they were young and visiting their parents who were put into the internment camp in the desert during WWII. Her husband Mas fought in that war for the US and was remembered in the book Yankee Samurai. They were such good and selfless people and had the best parts of US and Japanese culture. They had a little dog Bonnie who was very old. Every day just before closing she would come up from the little house to meet Mas in the store and they would close the nursery gate together. Sumi taught me to look at life and see the beauty in everything. She was incredibly considerate and delicate but she was also strong and resiliant and practical. One time a careless boy ran his bicyle into a large display of flowers. He was always horsing around and using bad language with his friends as he rode by and I saw him throw trash in side the fence as he passed many times. Sumi ran out and helped him and never said a word about the damage. She was always like that. When she sold bags of manure, she wouldn't even say manure. She would just say bull or Bandini. I loved that about her. She was delicate and strong all at once. Just like my grandma who lived through the war days, she never said a bad word about anyone and faced every challenge with grace. I miss people like that.

I miss people like that, too. Maybe they're about to come back into fashion. I think we're due for a change.