JuneOntario's blog: IN THE BEGINNING

<p>As a small child I spent a lot of time playing games of the imagination in my parents’ garden, but I took the garden itself for granted.  I watched my parents toil in the garden, but took no part in the work myself.  In my English family there was a strict division of labor: Mum grew flowers, Dad grew vegetables.  I’m not sure how that came about.  Dad knew botany from having studied to become a pharmacist, but his family had no gardening tradition and he taught himself from books how to grow fruits and vegetables, make compost, and keep the soil fertile.  Mum came from a farming family, but she had no interest in growing anything not ornamental, and gardened according to folklore and country habits as she never read anything other than knitting patterns or recipes.  She had a “green thumb” and could take cuttings and make them grow when science and logic (and my Dad) said it was impossible.</p>
<p>My latent horticultural desire surfaced when I was in my early teens.  I withdrew 12 shillings and 6 pence from my piggy-bank and bought a little book called the ‘Amateur Gardening pocket book of Garden Flowers’ by J. S. Dakers, with 176 exquisitely-drawn colour illustrations by Cynthia Newsome-Taylor.  I read the book from front to back, and while a few of the flowers were familiar – such as snapdragon, Canterbury bell, wallflower, and pansy – I was surprised to find that most of them were totally new to me.  I hungered to grow something and begged parental permission to make a small flowerbed and sow some annuals in it.  For my flower garden I bought packets of Nemesia, Clarkia, and Godetia seeds.  Dad gave me some advice on sowing and let me get on with it, while Mum shook her head at the strange names on the seed packets.  She offered me some of her wallflowers and pansies to cover the bare soil, but no, I was determined to do my own thing.</p>
<p>Gradually, seedlings appeared.  I thinned them out, pinched them back, and supported with twigs as required.  At last, they bloomed.  We were all amazed at the blaze of colour and the beauty of the individual flowers.  I felt an immense pleasure, and my fate was sealed.  I would be a gardener for the rest of my life.</p>

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