ANOTHER POST IS NEAR THE CENTURY MARK, our second in 7 months here on A Way to Garden. The first was Garden No-No’s; now here comes ‘Why Do You Garden?’ to challenge its lead. Why do you garden? Is it for astonishing plants like these Martagon lilies, or for solace in troubled times, or for fresh food to stash in the freezer to get you through a long winter’s nap? All good reasons, but perhaps they are not yours. So what is it? Won’t you tell us?
‘why do you garden?’ nears 100 comments
October 25, 2008
Yeah!! I think I was the 100th comment:-)
Indeed, you were. Thanks for pushing it up and over the summit. May the conversation continue.
it is my profession. how fortunate am i? i get to leave behind transformations of beauty, make the earth a bit softer and friendlier, and wide smiles. share the joy!
Your post inspired me to search for Martagon Lilies. The order arrived from Old House Gardens yesterday afternoon and I planted them today. Rain is expected tonight to settle them in nicely. I can’t wait until summer to see if I’ll have lovely Mrs. R.O. Backhouse blooms in one year or whether I’ll need to wait a bit longer for her to color my garden. Thanks for the inspiration!
I’ve always wanted to grow flowers, they are pretty and fun. But we started growing vegetables to see if we could and herbs because they are expensive in the store! Next year I’m going to start a medicinal herb garden. I don’t plan on giving up modern medicine but I’m interested in exploring herbal remedies.
Welcome, Debra. So you garden for love AND money? :) Come back soon.
Welcome also to N. This year I grew and put up more of my food than I have in many years, since I am home more and cooking for myself a lot compared to when I lived in the city. So yes, good reasons. See you soon again I hope.
I grew up gardening with my Mom and Dad. We had flowers, herbs, fruit, and veggies. Now that I have my own yard I like being able to grow whatever I want. I think the main reason I love gardening so much is because I love that I aided in the growth of the plants. For instance, during the main growing season watching vines extend an inch or so in one day! Everyday with Mother Nature is a good one!
Welcome, Maya. I love being the nurturer of the plants, too, and the Jack-in-the-Beanstalk magic. Nice to see you here and hope to again.
I started gardening a few years ago just after my divorce. My summers were so difficult because my children would go away to stay with their dad for 6 weeks during the summer. So, I decided to spend that time outside gardening. Now it has been my tradition each year. My kids help me to do some planting in the spring and I spend all summer weeding and loving my plants! It is a great stress relief to me and helps me make it through those difficult weeks!
To feed my soul.
Welcome, Gail. Your answer is short, but ever-so-sweet. And spot-on. Thank you, and don’t be a stranger.
@Jessica: I started gardening when I was in my 20s and caring for my mother, who had Alzheimer’s. So I “get” how much gardening is occupational therapy. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Gardening keeps me in what’s honest and straightforward and basic and what is truly beautiful and magnificent. It also brings me to a lovely memory of my father’s garden. As a young girl, I loved to walk into his garden in my barefeet and sit on the ground eating a sunwarmed tomato. So delicious! My 5 year old granddaughter helps me plant my garden now and she always takes her shoes off to feel the warm earth!
Welcome, Julie. A beautiful answer and beautiful memories. Hope you’ll bring more to share again soon.
I garden because I can’t stop myself. It’s like breathing. My fire escape in NY was covered with plants. The landlord threatened consequences every year, but I could not live without growing things – lots of growing things – so I took my chances. Now I live in the countryside in France and no one threatens me. Even when we have no money to buy plants I can grow more than I have beds for by propagating. I have to give plants away all the time ’cause I can’t stop growing them. I cannot dispose of a seed or cutting that might grow.
I am so glad I was a part of the first 100. As I took time yesterday to put my hydrangea’s in the ground, I realized why I garden, to smell the earth, get dirty knees, fill my soul. The old saying “take time to smell the roses” applies, “take time to garden”. I stood after putting my plants in the ground and smiled. Thank you Margaret for Away to Garden.
Welcome, Kathejo. Spoken like a true plantaholic. :) Nice to meet you, and you can share such confessions here anytime.
@Susan: You are welcome. Without the comments like your, there would be no site.
I will never forget the time at age 5 or 6 when I walked through my great grandmother’s pitch black tool shed and was startled when I emerged at the other side by the brilliant sunlight reflected off the colors of the hollyhocks and delphiniums reaching high above my head. My gaze lifted up to the redwoods behind and the blue sky beyond. Then years later intimate times with my mom shopping for plants in nurseries to transform her suburban garden. And mowing knee-high grass in July in our first house when the scent of raspberries took me back to my grandmother’s rasberry patch. And now my daughter gardens and my grandchildren can’t wait to look for strawberries or carrots in my garden. It connects me to the earth and to my family.
I am so happy to find your blog. It will be an inspiration this winter!
I moved from New York to Providence in order to add more green (of the garden variety)to my life. I have a large urban plot here with apple trees and black walnuts defining its borders. The last owner, although not particularly motivated with the house, did plant many trees that make the space an oasis for gardening. Over the last three years I have weeded, planted and amended soil while taking in the scents and sounds of the space. Each year with more plants, birds and curious insects I find myself lulled by their whispers, enjoying more and more the delicious slowness of a gardens pace.
Margaret, I am not sure if you remember me, I worked at MSL in both the magazine and TV from 98-2002. For the last few years I have had the pleasure of working with my good friend Lee Buttala on Cultivating Life as a segment and field producer. He suggested I take a look at your blog as I am just beginning to develop a blog myself. My work is primarily textile related but much of my inspiration comes from nature. I would love to connect if you have some time.
I’ve been gardening for 30 years (with a year off for knee replacement). Over the years I’ve planted trees and flowers and harvested vegetables with each of 3 children happily peering over my shoulder in the backpack. They’re grown now and off to do gardening of their own, but now with 3 little grandchildren as my assistants my greatest pleasure is introducing them to the smell of the earth upon digging up a potato, the surprise of a brilliant Monarch butterfly on a fiery orange Mexican sunflower and the sound of the warm fall breeze whispering through the golden leaves of our Jacquemonti birches.
Welcome, Cynthia. So nice to “meet” again. I will be speaking in RI next month, at Blithewold, by the way, on Nov. 13. Email info is on the “contact” tab on the blog, up top. Good to hear from you.
I started gardening when I moved from the city to a house with a wild and woolly yard. I wanted gardens galore – having absolutely no clue what it would take to design, plant and maintain them. Eight years later I am filled with wonder at the art and science of gardening and still am ridiculously thrilled when a plant grows and thrives.
I’ve always loved to play in the dirt and have had a garden everywhere I’ve lived. I’ve been named “the flower lady” by local kids in my cottage neighborhood in Babylon, NY and I grew fruits and flowers in containers on the roof of my apartment in Southold, NY. But when I moved into an 1840′s farmhouse with 2 acres in Madison, CT over 10 years ago, I entered gardening madness. Because I was building a garden for the birds instead of designing a garden for our home, and because I was completely clueless, my initial take was anything native goes, this garden is for the birds… I’ve since evolved and the garden is ever evlovling and thats what I love about the whole process, its never going to be finished and I’ll always have a reason to be out there getting my hands dirty while constantly learning – and eating the most fabulous food.
Welcome, Brenda. I am with you on the “garden for the birds” score definitely…and also on “gardening madness” (I am totally certifiable at this point). Thanks for your fun comment, and do visit us again soon.
Why do I garden? I had never ask myself that question before and was surprised at the wellspring of emotion it brought. It is a hobby and an obsession. I pour my soul into the soil and it rewards me with peace. It is my escape from the noisy world. It is my meditation and my sanity.
Welcome, Dorothy. I feel as if I could have written those sentences myself, they ring so true. Well said. Thanks.
Its an obsession,…no…it goes deeper than that. It’s part of who I am. If it grows, I love it! As with a previous post that I was reading,..I can’t stand throwing away cuttings or seeds or plants. It just breaks my heart. Of course it gives my other gardening friends an outlet for their extras and un-neededs.”What shall we do with these? I know give them to Dave, he wont turn anything down!” It has made for a very wide variety of plant material in my gardens though!
Welcome, Dave. Did you say obsession? Hmmm….that might sound a little familiar. Though my mentor taught me years ago to “bury my dead” quickly and move on, to not torture things or be tortured by the plants that need to be composted. Hard lesson, and sometimes I break down and hold onto things I don’t need/shouldn’t bother with. But yes, if it grows, I love it, too. Thanks for starting 2009 with us here.
Why do I garden? Might as well ask “Why do I breathe?” Because I can’t live without it. It’s probably all the generations of Irish and Scots subsistence farmers before me struggling to get out of one Australian/American 70-year-old. My grandmother used to tell the story of how I knew the names of all the plants in her garden by the time I was six, and knew how to care for them too. I never think of myself as an obsessive personality, but I suspect that my garden is an obsession with me, and when it comes to acquiring plants for it, I know no scruples…. well, I have never actually STOLEN anything, but I have been awfully tempted.
And I know — I am tuning in really really late to this thread, but I have just discovered this wonderful place!
For me, it’s like going to Church. I have other things I could be doing and always short on time, but I can’t resist the “calling”. I think I inherited the “calling” from my father who gardened from sun up to sun down for many years after he retired. When he passed away unexpectedly, he was in his garden. I can’t understand how anyone can NOT be a gardener! My spirits soar when I am in my garden and close to nature.
P.S. The woodfrogs (AKA peepers) have been singing in RI for several weeks now while others have graced our small pond with their egg-filled sacks.
Welcome, SusanB, and yes, “Hallelujah!” is how I feel about gardening, too. Thanks for the story about your father, and give the peepers my best.
I love gardening as well, and picking up what I produce and serving it at my table. And adorning my home with flowers from my garden. I grow tomatoes and strawberries and carrots. Roses, peonies, violets, hidrangeas. Gardening is all about love and life. Energy and happiness. Giving thanks for the glory of a new flower or butterfly.
I garden for a few simple reasons – a meal from my garden give me a sense of accomplishment, contemplation, and meditation. I create my own healing spaces…
Welcome, Catherine. I love that: “I create my own healing spaces.” Thank you, and do visit again soon.
I garden for mental health reasons…In the garden, digging in the dirt, strolling down the paths and looking at what’s in bloom, picking tomatoes to make a yummy tomato sandwich…gardening gives me a great sense of purpose and the feeling of being in touch with nature and with myself. It’s a very spiritual experience for me.
I garden in memory. Memory of my father, memory of scents of childhood, and a deeper memory of connection to the earth.
I garden to feed the animals, the earth, and myself. Since I moved to this 7.8 acre field that had been turned into a small house with large lawn, I’ve planted hundreds of trees, flowers, and shrubs. There was already a hedgerow with nut trees, oak, cherries, nannyberries and others that I have augmented with witch hazel, black cherry, sassafras, silky dogwood, white oak and evergreens. In the lawn I’ve planted seven grape vines, 4 cherry trees, pear, peach, nectarine, many mountain ash, American plum, Washington hawthorn, currants, gooseberry, sand cherry, crab apple, red twig dogwood and elderberries, that I can think of.
I started a large flower garden that the birds, rabbits and deer love. Last year I had two fawns born there. I leave all the seeds on for the winter and birds find shelter there. I have 22 bird boxes and every year bluebirds raise two families here, plus I have many birds I can and cannot identify who return every year to have their families. I’ve had a pond dug and at night I sleep to the songs of green frogs, peepers, wood frogs, tree frogs and American toads. They are surprisingly noisy.
I do all of this on a small budget. Yesterday I planted 6 blueberries and 3 serviceberries, but I have many more already planted in the field and still more to go. I’ve planted mulberries, nanking cherry, more oaks and other trees and shrubs I get from Soil & Water Conservation. The plants are very small, but inexpensive. Because of the deer, I build poultry wire cages around every native shrub and tree, because they like to eat them best.
I have two vegetable gardens: one small one next to the house for herbs, swiss chard, snap peas, bush beans, and catnip. I have sunk a blue juice barrel in the middle of it in which two large, orange goldfish thrive all year-round. The larger garden is farther from the house and every year as I dig up the sod, turn it over to dry and then shake the dirt loose from the weeds, I say: “This is too hard. I don’t want to do this anymore,” but almost immediately I plan for next year’s larger garden and I have laid out two 12 x 16 tarps to kill the sod so I can dig it up more easily.
Then a neighbor will rototill it and I will put lime and compost on it and plant. I use a dehydrator, can and freeze the produce and love the work and process and the eating all winter. I drive 7 foot fenceposts and fence the whole garden with 5 foot poultry wire. All this is a lot of hard work and sometimes I resent/regret it, but as long as I am physically able, I want to do this for love of the earth and the animals. My acreage is truly a refuge and I am lucky with next door forests and shrubby fields that provide the amphibians and birds and small mammals with what they need to survive well.
Welcome, Mitza. I guess I do not have to convince you about the wonders of gardening with wildlife (though I tend to ask the deer to leave and stay outside the fence). Thanks for your beautiful description of your place, and I hope you will visit us again soon.
Every living thing has seasons, cycles, stages, strengths, sensitivities–characteristics we can nurture but not control.
Nobody would ever have described me as easy-going. But gardening has changed me…it has taught me patience and serenity. Nothing else has ever been able to do that.
Welcome, ayo. I need to spend more time out there meditating while weeding, your comment makes me realize. Lately, with some much computer time, I am not feeling so centered as I should. Thanks for stopping in and tapping me on the shoulder about it, even if accidentally. :)
“those who plant gardens plant happiness” I cross-stitched that for a frame. it was found in a catalog one winter and it kept me busy until spring.
I have a city garden. 60 some pots of growing plants on my dock. I overwinter half of them on a ledge with a south window at the top of the elevator shaft.
Really though, I was raised in the country. My love of all things growing came from my mother and great grandmother.
I love growing herbs and vegetables that are used all through the seasons. Friends coming over for a grill out and clipping what we use for seasoning right then.
It’s my peace, my tranquility, even if I am smack dab in the middle of my city.
(just to share my pain, we had a hail storm 2 nights ago and my poor garden is shredded. I spent the last day clipping leaves and stems that were damaged. it will revive itself, but it looks so naked now. (thanks for letting me get that out))
Being able to grow anything green makes me one of the luckiest people on the planet.
Welcome, Marj. Hail damage here, too, which combines with the slug damage to make for a very interesting season. Think I am going to the 50 percent off sale this weekend at the local nursery to see what I can scare up for a few key spots. Your contained garden sounds lovely; thanks for the comment, and the visit. Do come again soon.
Why in the world do I want to garden when I am probably the only person around who can actually kill a squash plant? I found this blog thanks to that nifty piece a year or so ago in the NY Times. I remembered Margaret from Martha Stewart’s Living and so I investigated her site. I found Away to Garden so inspiring that I planted a late but bountiful garden last year. Over the Christmas holidays my wife and I read a number of books about organic produce (To Buy or Not To Buy Organic), the food industry (In Defense of Food), and lost foods. We decided the only way we can have any real control over what we’re eating is if we grow it ourselves. And so began this journey of two city gals, with partially black thumbs, and our quest to grow enough vegetables (and hopefully fruit) to sustain ourselves and our 6 year old daughters. This blog has been such a great resource. It’s inspirational and is also a wonderful place to start when trying to figure out what’s what in my garden. Thanks to you Margaret and to everyone who participates! I’m proud to say that over here in our little urban organic garden, our thumbs are getting greener each day!
I garden to Love:
Mom and her treasured flowering quince.Dad and his roses,which Mom arranged.Grandpa Harry, who had a heart attack in his summer garden.Dave who died,and Zeta who still gardens.Les who loved flowers.Ginger who loved flowers & herbs.Nancy & Steve and hope their garden gives them love.Bec & Joe who love their garden. Spark and Marie who love theirs and the creatures.
I was lonely.Brought back a small garden, felt happy;then a much larger garden came, out of memory and gratitude.Now happiness is shared;by those walking by, or friends visiting.By creatures visiting & feeding. I’m never lonely now. I love to garden; I garden to love.
Mary Jane, Reiki Garden Girl
Gardening is my escape from the world here I come to hide from all my stresses or at least I try to hide …it never seems to fail I am always hunted down and asked some annoying question like “what’s for dinner?” or “I need you inside for a moment I just HAVE to show you something I saw on the internet”….. I’m looking into some camouflaged clothing.
By the way great website… :^)
Welcome, Jo Ann. Camouflaged clothing sounds like the answer (and made me laugh). Great idea. See you soon again, and thank you for the encouragement.
We left downtown Chgo to raise two boys on 3 acres in Lisle IL .. my only plant experience was buying fresh wheat grass for my cats from the produce section … now ten years later, I’ve planted & moved hundreds & hundreds of perennials & gave up on the annuals but now discovering vegetables & adoring all the living things that abound in my gardens…. now the garden is so full I can share oodles with others …. Bless the Sweet Sun, Sultry Shade, Rolling Rain, Wonderful Worms & Mother Nature for my Daily View…
Welcome, Aunt Sadie. Sounds like a great and fruitful move, to say the least. And the view: isn’t that just the very best part? I could stare and stare (and do). See you soon. –Aunty Margaret.
To see the green. Born/raised in Az, moved to Oregon in my late 30′s and had SO much fun growing pretty much whatever I wanted. Retired, now back in Az caring for aging mother and back to brown…worst part of this mission. Lots of plants in pots, but it’s not the same – I miss green…
Welcome, Deb. I would miss green, too, as much as I am inspired by the light and other colors of the American desert. Though I would not miss it enogh to grow a lawn there, which always struck me as odd when I’d visit…all those lawns where they shouldn’t be. Hope to see you soon again; will try to have enough green here for an imaginary garden moment anytime to share. :)
why do you garden? perhaps i have to go back to the beginning for that, having my own garden as a child, learning patience, to sit and be quiet and let nature unfold, to coax the wild things to come a little closer, perhaps that was the beginning, then, the food, the freshness, laying under a tree eating a warm sun ripened peach, juice running down the arms, just being there, totally there. I guess in the end that is what keeps bringing me back to the garden for almost 50 years now. The beauty, the joy of feeding the family, growing flowers for the birds and brides, to share the bounty, to become grounded, to learn and explore new plants, new partners, to keep my brain happy, that is why i garden, it is second nature, like walking, breathing, eating. I would love to see everyone develop some connection with the earth, what a wonderful place this would be, maybe it would replace war. peace, lynn