I can vividly remember, as a 9 or 10-year old boy, finding a Tradescantia pallida growing in the woods behind my home. I recall it had beautiful purple blossoms. I ran home, got a shovel and bag and returned to the woods to dig it up and bring it home. I planted it at the back of the house. I nurtured that little guy all during my childhood and teen-age years. I was an adult before I ever became aware of what the plant was. It was still growing there, about three times the size it was originally, when my mother sold the house about 30 years later.
Living in a rural NW PA area, our family always had a large vegetable garden. It was during the depression days, and the garden provided nearly all the vegetables for our family of four.My father, mother, brother and I were all involved in planting and harvesting (fun) and weeding (not so much fun!) My father planted dwarf fruit trees that provided a small amount of fruit.
My mother liked houseplants and I remember African Violets, Ferns and Snake Plants and various kinds of philodendrun. Outside, we had lemon lillies, bearded iris, black-eyed susans, marigolds, rose and lilac bushes, nasturiums, and a multitude of other flowers.
I was always more interested in growing flowers than vegetables - especially as I grew up, married and had a family of my own. I soon learned that raising perennials was cheaper (in the long run) and less labor-intensive than buying and planting annuals each year. But since I liked a wide variety of annuals, we had lots of both.
Most of my gardening experience has been in NW PA - approx. 6 months winter and 6 months of growing season. The winter months were devoted to a wide variety of mostly jndoor foliage plants and poring over seed catalogs for spring.
Also lived in Conneticut for a couple of years (working at White Flower Farm.) Had a lot of fun with fall-planted, spring-blossoming bulbs of all kinds. While living in Charlotte, NC for 19 years, had the joy of a long growing season and raising plants that were not hardy up north. That was a lot of fun growing plants that I had only read about before.
Now at age 86 and back in my hometown in NW PA, my lack of energy and agility (but not my enthusiasm) has made my gardening efforts concentrated on patio container gardening. I still get a thrill out of seeing plants develop from seeds and propagating plants from cuttings.
What about the rest of the ATP members? What first interested you in gardening? And what particularly keeps you interested?
I bet there are a lot of interesting stories out there - I and I'm sure I am not the only one who would like to hear them.
