What do your friends say about you liking gardening?

[DeborahJane]

I can't imagine what I'd do if I didn't garden....fresh air, sunshine, gentle exercise (mind you I deadheaded the agapanthas today and worked up a sweat and I'm only halfway through), calming thoughts, anticipation of whats to come and such satisfaction. And love a garden chat, luckily I have 3 friends who love it as much as I do so and we love a visit to a nursery. We have been known to come home with the car packed to the rafters, plants filling the boot, the floor, and our laps. We share cuttings and ideas and it's all very exciting. When I say I can't imagine what I'd do if I didnt garden I didn't till 5 years ago and I think now how boring my life must have been. I was missing out and didn't know it.

 

[Sublime440]

I can't understand why anyone would rather sit inside on a nice day and watch TV. I've just always liked being outside and taking in nature. I really enjoy the thought process and looking at the different areas of my yard and coming up with new gardening/landscaping ideas for this spring and summer.

 

[LouisFerdinand]

People say that I do a good job planting the flowers.

 

[Durgan]

Anybody can grow plants. The crux of the matter is PRESERVATION for off season use. Root cellar, pressure canning, dehydration, dried produce, freezing, and pickling. They all have their uses. QED.

 

[posiepurrs]

When we moved into our house in 1992 it was a blank slate, newly built with only what the builder called a seeded ;awn (seeded with weeds, I believe!). I set to work planting, both vegetables and landscape plants. The rest of the homes (all built before ours had standard cookie cutter shrubs in front of the houses. I went a different way, a cottage style garden. The wives of the neighborhood loved it but husbands hated me for it. One told me I was stirring up trouble because the wives would buy plants and tell the husbands to plant them so the yards would look more like mine. I promptly told him, if I buy the plant, I plant it myself - my husband wouldn't even know how! I had no complaints when I had a large (110' by 35') vegetable garden and shared my produce. Most gardens have reverted back to shrubs, and I am overhauling my gardens since I am now retired. I wonder what trouble I will stir up this time?? By the way, my husband thinks I am a lunatic to consider work in a garden fun, but he loves the look of the gardens.

 

[Sean Regan]

Don't discuss gardening very often with anyone outside my family, nor my other hobbies, other than on message boards, (gardening never comes up as a topic over lunch at my golf club)
Occasionally, someone may visit us, or more likely my wife, they often seem surprised at our garden if they see it through the French windows, I never mention it.
The question I have been asked is, "Have you done all this since you retired?" To which I always reply truthfully, "No, I did it when I was working and had more time."

 

[Giri]

My friends mostly grow flowers in England.
Here, ( thanks to the former owner) I grow avocados, almonds, olives, chestnuts, walnuts, nispera, tree tomatoes, feijoa, peaches, pears, apples, oranges, lemons, cherimoya, grapes, kiwi, hazelnuts, chard, pomegranate, and some things I haven´t yet identified.
I´ve heard that you can eat nasturtiums.
If you´re really desperate.
Check for earwigs ...

 

[Fernsdaddy]

I've been retired 10 years now and my neighbors still think I'm crazy for spending so much time in the garden. I grow only veggies that I know I'll eat and plants things I like. I also have 5 aquariums that keep me busy all winter.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

I've been retired 10 years now and my neighbors still think I'm crazy for spending so much time in the garden. I grow only veggies that I know I'll eat and plants things I like. I also have 5 aquariums that keep me busy all winter.

Neighbors actually say that to you? They think your spending to much time in the garden. I must be lucky, I have a good neighbor to the right of me, he and I are of like minded. No one says a thing to me about my garden interests.