I have always been interested in gardening, but the only thing my mother ever really grew were tulips. (Which is great, because now that I just ordered tulip bulbs for planting in September, I already know what to do and how to care for those babies!)
The summer after my freshmen year of college, I ended up taking a second part-time gig with my aunt’s mother-in-law who needed help with her large yard. I learned so much in that summer with Marge, and realized all it takes is a little knowledge and the will to work to make things grow. (We also just had a great time hanging out and chatting…it’s so nice working with someone who realizes there are more important things in life than yard work!) I ended up with a lot of house plants when I had my first two college apartments and apparently have more of a green thumb than my mother – things just grow for me!
Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, things REALLY just grow for me. I think they will grow for anyone, honestly, so that makes life easier. I bought a house with my brother at the end of 2012, and I don’t think we realized what a crazy jungle yard we were getting ourselves into! My mom hooked me up with some of her Facebook gardening friends who saved my life last year! They helped me identify everything growing in the yard and made sure I didn’t tear anything up because everything seems pretty valuable and awesome! They were pretty sure that my yard must have been planted by a master gardener at some point and it’s just become overgrown and needs a lot of pruning.
That’s kind of a PNW thing – let it grow! But, I have come to the conclusion that plants, like humans, require haircuts every now and again! Everything I have started cutting back was dead underneath, or else the branches were growing in crazy weird angles/directions because they were fighting for the sunlight. Also, things don’t flower as well if they are overcrowded!
So we did a LOT of hacking last year. Some of those things are looking so much better already. And some don’t look so great this year, but I know next year or the year after that they will be amazing and so healthy looking, and it will be worth it!
My personal goal is to start my own tracking sheet so that I can keep up with everything, but also be able to hand it over to a future home owner if I don’t end up staying here until I die. What a huge waste of my time if someone else doesn’t take care of it, too! And since I am learning so much, I have found a lot of my friends want to share this knowledge, too, so I am committing myself to documenting my trials and tribulations for the general public!
I would love for you to share your gardening resources with me! I just joined several Facebook groups and will determine which ones I find the most useful, but usually I just Google my problem and click whichever link pops up first! I am by no means an expert, but I can try to answer questions to the best of my ability, or else we can learn the answer together! Since gardening is so obviously closely related to food and eating (I mean, I wanted a yard so I can grow my own veggies and make more delicious food!), I think it’s a good fit with the rest of my blog, and I hope you enjoy what I have to say!
~Vikki