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Memories...light the corners of our minds...

PlantAKiss

Moderator Schmoderator Fluorescent fluorite, Engl
After reading DaveEngland's intro post where he wrote of a memory he had which might have sparked his interest in plants...I was wondering if anyone else had some memory of when/how their interest in growing plants was sparked. So, if you'd like to share, please do. :)

Not too long ago my parents made a comment to me: "We can't figure out where you got your green thumb since it didn't come from us." I was surprised to hear that comment because it seemed so obvious to me. It came from my grandmother. When I was little, I'd go stay at her house all the time. She had flowers growing all around the house. She used to have cement flower urns on either side of her front porch where every summer she grew petunias. One of my clearest memories is her showing me how to deadhead the petunias and telling me it made them flower more. I watched her deadhead with serious intent...soaking up the tidbit. I would follow her around as she tended her plants...enjoying the jittery butterflies, inch worms and the smell of earth. I also remember sinfully succulent fresh figs from her fig bush every year. YUM! So, I credit my grandmother for sparking my love for plants when I was very little.

I loved being at my grandmother's house...chalky peppermints in the candy dish, brown-edged wafer cookies (no longer made! waaah!), chinese checkers, playing on the piano, powdered toothpaste, laughing at her saying "wee wee" and being given the choice of sleeping with a pillow or without (which I thought was SO cool to have a choice so I'd always say no pillow...lol).

Anyone else have a moment or memory where plants grabbed your interest?
 
my dad has been working with plant and has been in the nursery and landscaping business since i was born. frequently i would go to work with him and just help him out. learning about plants, watering them, helping out customers. i learned a whole lot from him about general culture of plants :D to this day, hes got a black thumb when it come to CPs and has killed several while i was on spring break. but anything else he is amazing with. he can ID pests and symptoms, get good "cides" from work and he works with a few people who grow CPs!! like...Tom Dodd. i got 2 plants coming fro mim sometime this week :D
Alex
 
I really don't know where it came from, Ive just had a fascination with nature and life, and plants always loved planting seeds and seeing if they would grow. I cant tell where it came from sadly.
 
i think it was christmas of '99 when my friend's sister was frantically looking for a vft in the chicagoland area. at that time, i knew nothing about the plant. i didnt even know it existed. i volunteered to help my friend's sis so, i got on the internet and went across a few websites.

as i learned more about the vfts, i ended up wanting one for myself. i thought "wow how cool. a plant that eats insects. i could definitely add this to my army of insect eating things." of course, i had to get "clearance" from my parents. they were already unhappy by the fact that my room was always messy and smelly due to my tarantulas, black widows, hamsters, and a dog.

i eventually bought my first 4 vfts. i had the red dragon, typical, dente, and the green dragon.
 
I could see how the hamster and dog made it smelly, but not harmless black widows and T's.
 
When I was a kid I was given a VFT kit. I really didn't know anything about them, but nevertheless I followed the instructions and the plant sprouted and grew for awhile. And then it declined an died. I had no idea as to why. When I was a senior in high school I bought another. It was doing fine until a friend accidently knocked it over and it crashed to the floor. As a young adult and working for a tropical fish wholesaler, I bought another and placed it in a tank that was designated for plants, terrarium style. The plant flowered and promptly died. A few years later I bought yet another, along with an Asian & American pitcher plant. One by one, each of them died. I didn't understand why and decided that they were just too hard for me. A few years ago I was walking through an the greenhouse section of Home Depot and passed an array of VFT's. I just couldn't resist and bought one. But this time I vowed that I would do whatever it took to keep them alive for more than 3 months. So I went to the bookstores and sought out books on carnivorous plants. I found Savage Garden and CP's of the US & Canada. And then I discovered that I was killing them with a variety of mistakes. I was using tap water; had insufficient lighting; no air circulation with the plastic dome on; and provided no dormancy for them. Throughout the next few months I bought more CP's that I found at Lowes and other greenhouses. But I had no idea what I was buying, beyond that of a butterwort, a couple sundews, and a few pitcher plants. The books were only a little helpful in identifying them, beyond the genus name, but they really all looked too much alike to my untrained eye. So I turned to the Internet and searched. That was when I accidently stumbled upon the discussion forums. I had no idea that discussion forums even existed, much less for carnivorous plants!
 
Back in october I was looking for cati, because I wanted to decorate my room like a desert...I happened to stumble upon some VFT's, and I bought one. I immediently looked up some info about them on the web. After I knew how to grow them, I bought a few more, and became interested in other CP's...I ordered a few other kinds, and fell in love with them. Now my house resembles more of a jungle rather than a desert lol.
 
So...do y'all just grow CPs and no other plants? I guess there are people who like plants in general who also grow CPs...and then there are those who like and grow CPs only.
 
My interest in plants is an extension of growing up on a farm. We grew all of the standard crops, raised chickens, cattle, hogs and horses.
My fondest memories are of my Grandmothers garden. It was about 1/2 acre and contained everything good to eat...mustard, parsley, dill, basil, thyme, radish, onion, potatos, carrots, turnips, parsnips, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, peppers, (Hungarian hots were my favorite) all types of green leafy vegatables and many more good things. There were apple and pear trees also. The whole thing was fenced and she had a big old mutt that lived in the enclosure to scare rabbits and deer away. Walking through it in the cool, damp early morning air, pickin' the "fixins" for the days meals was a treat.
She kept an old pump .22 by the kitchen sink and was known to squeeze off a few rounds if some critter was sniffing around.
 
  • #10
i grow cps and one orchid.
 
  • #11
I'm really a home gardener (fruits, veggies, flowers) and have a tendency for get into that which is oddball or "outside the box".
 
  • #12
Awww...another Grandmother memory. :) I didn't get to grow up on a farm but at least where I grew up, I could run amuk in the woods. I think that too fostered my love of nature. I still love being out in the woods.

Jan, you are lucky you grew up with HORSES.
 
  • #13
I remember the first plant I grew was a Pinto Bean Plant when I was in second grade. My dad taught me how to do it. I also remember growing corn and pea plants back then.
As of now though, I grow mainly CP's. I don't think what is located (planted in the ground) in my front and back yards count, but I currently grow pansies, daffodils, a grape vine, dahlias, two peach trees, an apple tree, snap dragons, various shrubs, rose bushes, two a peace lilies, and two Aloe squarrosa.
 
  • #14
Can't remember when I first started growing house plants. I have grown African Violates, Christmas cactus (still have the monster my grandmother grew), prayer plants, etc. My first garden though was in my grandmother's back yard. I'd grown up hearing stories about the gardens my grandfather had had and all the flowers he had grown. I asked my grandmother if I could grow a garden in the back yard like grandpa had had and she let me. It was a good sized garden. About 50' × 75'. The nice thing was, there was an irrigation ditch running through the alley and the ground water was high enough when the ditch was running that once things started growing I didn't have to water much.
 
  • #15
While this story isn't what got me into plants, it is a fond memory I have about my childhood with plants.

My dad grew some milkweed, dill, and parsley in our front yard and we would get swarms of caterpillars which would in turn make cocoons. My dad would bring the cocoons on to our back screened in porch or even inside while the transformation would take place to save them from the possibility of being eaten by a bird or something. Every year my dad would run around very excited as he explained to me the process and how you could tell when a butterfly was about to emerge from the cocoon. It was always neat coming home from school and seeing a butterfly in our kitchen or on the porch drying it's wings or even flying! We never really had much success with Monarch's, but I will always remember that learning experience and the excitement my father had (and passed on to me).

My mom thought the dill and parsley were ugly so she made my dad cut it down in the front yard but he transplanted it to the side so we could continue "raising" butterflies without my mom being too embarrassed.

My interest in plants, as others have stated, just manifested itself through my love and appreciation of the outdoors. I went camping a lot growing up and always loved discovering new plants or seeing the different types of growth and different types of plants. I will always be amazed at mother nature and the incredible feats that plant kingdom has in store.

I have also always thought that plants must have the most peaceful lives, just constantly interacting and responding without thought to the surrounding environment. I think I'm just jealous because I want to be a tree!

What a great topic.

xvart.
 
  • #16
CP's are my big thing, but I also really like cacti, and palms...we have a baby chinese windmill palm in our front yard, but it doesn't seem to be fairing too well, perhaps I should start with an older one... and I also like growing vegetables, cause' you can eat em' when they're big...has anyone else besides me grown pumpkins?...there's nothing wrong with a free jack-o-lantern right?
 
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