Beautiful garden photos, Janet. Excellent examples of what the combined efforts of a husband/wife team working together can create! Let's hear more from you.

Beautiful Janet. Love the water wheel. It all looks very lush

Hi, Janet - Really admire your profile photo - plant and pot really go together beautifully. When I see/read an especially interesting posting I like to view the writer's profile to find out more about them. I see that you're a new member of NGA - a very big "WELCOME ABOARD." Also notice that you're into houseplants - so am I. Would like to see some photos and postings from you on the Houseplant forum. I intended to give you a "thumbs up" on your garden posting but forgot how to do it. I'll refresh my memory and do better next time.
Looking forward to seeing you on the various NGA forums - I feel you have a lot to contribute. I especially enjoy postings from members living outside the USA.

I grew up with plants. Whether it was a houseplant or garden plant, my mom had it. I remember when I was about 12, it was fall and the flowers had died. I thought I was going to help my mom with the gardening so I cut those babies down to the ground. My mom happened to walk outside when I was 2/3 of the way finished. She screamed! What are you doing???? I cried because she was upset and I thought I was helping her. I told her I thought they needed to be cut back and I would save you some time. She never said a word again about it but I broke her heart. From that point forward, I never touched her plants again.

Years later, it was my turn for a family. I had not gardened in all those years. I won't lie, I hated weeding the vegetable garden so I was never in any hurry to start my own flower gardens. I had kids, not much time to garden. In every house I've lived in I've tried to plant something. My husband or the kids killed it so I quit. About 5 years ago I decided it was time to put some effort into the gardening since I could grow a tomato in december in the snow. We moved.

Last year, I had nothing to start a garden with but I needed an outlet. Sure, I've had a vegetable garden for as long as I can remember but honestly, for me, veggies are easy peasy. Not much of a challenge. Plus, the bulk of it doesn't flower long enough (with good reason, lol) for me. I joined a couple of swaps and from there, I haven't quit. Doubt I ever will until my body says no more.

In short, my mom started my passion and my new garden friends have helped me to continue that passion.

hi everyone never took any gardening interest from my parents, self taught from books and hit and miss i put plants in totally the wrong place, gave them too much water or not enough learnt the hard way
now im retired i think im getting the hang of it, if i dont know i look at youtube glad i can find a video to show me.
enclose some more photos hope you like janet
bottom of garden summer house and hot tub area

in the hot tub


water fall into pond


fish in pond


my bannana called basil


last our ornament wall

Janet I say you're doing quite well! Beautiful and lush

Karen, that is a very touching story about you mom's flowers.

Karen, kids try to help their parents. I recall my mother saying that one time she scrubbed her Mom's beautifully seasoned cast iron skillets for HOURS until they were shiny and clean again.

Kids try to please. All you can do is explain why they shouldn't do that again...

My parents loved to garden. We had shrubs for year round interest but annuals were their thing. Tons of them!

I got interested in gardening as soon as they put me outside. Everything they planted I pulled up! I was their "Home and Garden Wrecker"! Really that was one of their terms of endearment for me.

Later in life where ever I lived, I felt compelled to have plants around me as well as a kitty. When I got my own apartment, I had a balcony where I grew morning and moon glories. Seemed the neighborhood liked that and most homes started growing something on theirs as well. That was awesome.

I have a home now. Every year I invest in at least one perennial. I still have a kitty and added a dog.

Yardenman said:I know what you mean, Deryll. No plant like rough treatment. I keep my fingernails functional and that really helps with picking beans. I simply push a thumbnail intothe very top of the bean top and they hardly know I have been there.

Injuring a plant while harvesting from it is NEVER a good thing.

I wanted to comment on the above before describing what I consider to be my biggest gardening problem ...

As I mentioned in my post about why I first got interested in gardening, I started out learning everything I could about roses. When I volunteered to work in public rose gardens, I could prune all day long and come out with hardly any scratches even tho' I never wore gloves and always was assigned to the vampire roses. The other volunteers usually came out bloodied as if they had gone to war.

Many of the roses I worked on were the large shrubs and climbers that had not been touched for years. Some of which I had to lasso down so that I could get to the center of the plant to clean it up properly. Kind of tricky stuff ...

I cannot tell you how I move through a rose plant to do my pruning without being harmed, nor can I teach it, but even if one is not working on a food crop, working gently with a plant has it's benefits ...

My real problem as a gardener is:

I actually don't know how to garden. Yes, this is true. I learned about roses from a scientific point of view and have studied them for decades. I have worked with them in public gardens, nurseries and other people's gardens, but never really had a garden of my own until I bought this house in '04. I used to own a condo down in San Diego ... the land of thirteen months of summer ... All of my gardening at my condo was container gardening. Roses, of course ..

I have read a lot about gardening and understand a lot of gardening theory, but there is no substitute for hands on experience or having someone show you how to do things in the garden. I am quite certain I do not know how to work in the garden efficiently and am often working too hard. I just can't seem to get the work done.

Yes, I've learned a lot on my own. I've made enough mistakes that I have had plenty of opportunity to learn from them ...

I keep telling myself that if I can get the time management thing working right, and learn better gardening skills, I'll enjoy the process of gardening more. I just haven't gotten to that point yet.

RoseBlush1 said:...
I learned about roses from a scientific point of view and have studied them for decades. I have worked with them in public gardens, nurseries and other people's gardens, but never really had a garden of my own until I bought this house in '04.
...
I have read a lot about gardening and understand a lot of gardening theory, but there is no substitute for hands on experience or having someone show you how to do things in the garden. I am quite certain I do not know how to work in the garden efficiently and am often working too hard. I just can't seem to get the work done.
...

Since you have both kinds of knowledge now, I hope quoting this won't offend you. But I think about this proverb almost every time I read a question and answers here:

Ask the experienced rather than the learned.
Anonymous Arabic Proverb

I think that science is great at accumulating ABSTRACT knowledge that CAN be passed along in books. But not only is Science not Gardening, it is not even Engineering. Abstract learning talks about how things work and why they work that way. "Practicality" is not interesting to scientists. (If it were, they would be engineers.)

Engineers and gardeners want to know how to get the chores done most easily and cheaply, and still get the desired results.

You know you asked the wrong person if you want to get rid of those holes in your leaves, and his answer starts: "Consider a spherical aphid on a frictionless leaf ..."

@rosieann99
Beautiful houseplants and amazing landscaping!
Also I giggled when you mentioned getting a plant from Torquay, reminded me of Fawlty Towers show years ago, it was set in Torquay. LOL

My late grandma was a plant fanatic. I spent a lot of time with her when I was a kid, and would accompany her each evening when she made the rounds to water, fertilize, and treat hundreds of house and outdoor plants. Her philosophy was that there's no such thing as a green thumb--you just have to pay attention to and care for plants the way you would a dog or a cat. I learned a lot from her during those evening trips and it sparked a lifelong love of gardening.

When she died in 2013, the family gathered to divvy up her belongings. By that time she'd greatly reduced the number of plants she had because she'd gotten too old to take care of a great number. But they were the only thing of hers I wanted, and I cherish them. In 1982, when I was 4 years old, I went to the grocery store with my mom and they had a big display of plants up front. I picked up a tiny jade plant and asked my mom if I could get it for Granny, which we did. Now, 34 years later, that plant lives in my house.

What a great story, and I'm sure she's up there smiling down at you.

Coryvp that's a great story. My mom died this spring and I brought back plants, her gardening gloves and her shovel. Memories

Very nice story, cory. You have a wonderful keepsake to cherish and remember your grandmother by.

hi the garden closed the weather miserable, clock gone back 1hr so its dark at 5pm
i think uk only country that changes the time, but there still jobs today just shorter days ive been feeding my bedding plants, and sweeping the leaves up plus there is plant life to look after in winter that cheers me up, and my autumn crocus are just going over, never had them before there are lovely anyone else got them?
last year i had daffs out in january i bought ones from netherland called earlys, one year they came out in dec, what your first bulbs out
at the moment ive got roses,dahlias,wallflowers, bedding plants, fuchsias,petunias,geraniums and new guinea impatiens all in full flower its late in the year of course first frost will stop them dead apart from the winter bedding. My first bulbs will be snowdrops then christmas rose (whites and mixed colours) that january My sons bought me a present yesterday a ceramic pumpkin and inside a plant pot with lovely purple pansys, it really nice. do any of your supermarkets have halloween planters

We change our clocks back next weekend, but the plants wont care.

We are having a warm week, so I am hoping the last of the tomatoes will break color and be ripenable.

Can't find pansies anywhere around here. It will be a dull Winter.

I planted a Big Boy quite late and have gotten 3 tomatoes therefrom (all made just excellent BLT).
There must be 25 more tomatoes (all green but one, it's turning). I'm hoping this prolonged warm, frostfree days will allow them to reach harvest size/color.
Plant was planted so late I had reservations if it'd produce any.

My best wishes to your Big Boy fruits!