by Sande Waybill

Created on: August 14, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

I have been gardening since my preschool days. My earliest memory is of trying to help out in the yard by attempting to prune a blackcurrant bush for my parents. Alas, I was only three years old at the time and the garden shears were a little too heavy for me. My mother was hanging out the washing and did not spot me in time to save me from myself. I lost hold of the shears and they fell point first into my foot. I have the scar to prove my mishap to this day!

Across the years I have both worked as a gardener and tended my own home garden. It was not until our current rental property that I have managed to have both the space and energy to put my full effort into gardening, though. Whereas I do not have enough time to get the garden looking the way I would like it to, I have managed to keep up with the essentials and enjoy my regular activities.

When we first moved to our current home, my son followed me about everywhere. Not one week had passed before I had purchased a spade and seeds and began a vegetable plot. It can only have been a couple of weeks more before my son wanted one too. I provided a small area of chopped up ex-lawn, and be began to grow some potatoes, beans and corn.

By the time we had been here for six months, I had dug a border around the outside of the far end of the garden. I filled it by planting sunflowers, corn, and three stems of geranium. These geranium stalks had previously been stuck in a pot at our former residence, where we had not had a yard. Today, six years later, they have grown into huge shrubs that fill the yard with year-round color. My son soon wanted to join in again. I let him have a stretch of border to plant in at the back.

After living here for about a year, I had a little more time and money. I purchased a couple of rose bushes, some strawberry plants, a hydrangea, and many more vegetable seeds. My son wanted to share in this as well. He was given his own rose bush, half my strawberry plants, some vegetable seeds, and then bought himself some plants at the garden center.

My son purchased a kangaroo paw. He bought three azaleas. He then bought a coryopsis and an abutilon. Our garden was coming along great. He bought an African succulent when I bought my orchid. He purchased bean seed when I bought carrot seed. We were getting quite a collection.

Of course, time passed as always, bringing along with it many changes. One change was that my son grew older. Once a teenager, his interest in gardening waned. He suddenly wanted to get away from my companionship and take solo coastal hikes or climb the local mountain instead. He would not let me do anything to 'his' plants, and subsequently, most of them died.

The rose that he bought has survived. It grew a very thick 'trunk' and grew above the grass and weeds. The abutilon likewise managed to live. It tipped sideways, grew up next to the rose, and overflowed onto the lawn to escape the grass. The coryopsis was still alive the last time I pulled the long grass aside to see, and the African succulent grew through the weeds to live also. However, the azaleas, strawberries and kangaroo paw are all well and truly destroyed by a death sentence issued by the weeds. I think his vegetable plot has returned to the status of lawn.

I tackled my son about gardening again recently. He has barely any interest remaining. He said that I could weed his plants for him, but that if he moved home he would take them with him. I suppose this means much more work for me. However, it also means more time in the garden!

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