Can you remember your first attempts at flower gardening?

It was sad and funny at the same time. We moved into a new house, and I finally get some space around to create flowerbeds which I had been dreaming for such a long time. I had ordered a lot of different seed from one company, and decided to create a paradise around. I got seeds pretty quickly and it was the right time to plant them. I did a lot of work, but any flowers didn't show up. So my advice is to check seed supplier pretty good before doing such kind of orders. Sure, they send me new seeds, which worked out and I also get some compensation, but still it was frustrating.

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Great thread! It has been fun reading everyone's stories. My first memories are growing jack-o-lantern plants & how much they stunk (age 4-5?). I then remember planting portulaca and loving discovering the tiny seed pods after the bloom (age 7-8?). Finally, when I was in high school, I created my own garden between our shed & our garage. I built a stone planter the length of the garage & filled it with compost from our pile. I planted flowers, but the compost must have had tomatoes in it because tomato seedlings took over! The few flowers that survived smelled like tomatoes. My brothers thought it was pretty funny.

 

It was at school. We were tasked to grow flowers on pots.

 

This is a really great thread. I really loved a lot of these stories! My first experiences were - watching a Winnie the Pooh episode about planting and watering flowers, and - helping out in my grandmother's vegetable garden. So far I've never done any real gardening of my own - now that I have the interest, I haven't the space or resources, but my goal is to garden in a way that combines the fresh, tasty practicality of my grandmother's garden with the love, nervousness, and inspiration of Pooh's garden.

 

My first attempt was 3 years ago when I was trying to grow a horseradish. I saw an ad for a peony plant and the flowers looked really cool, Dad got me one and I planted it. It blooms every spring now. :-D

 

yeah when i was very young,catastrophic

 

I don't really recall my very first attempt but I remember a poor impatien that lost his life :-? I bought this gorgeous impatien and put him in the kitchen window of my very first home. He bloomed and bloomed and bloomed and croaked. I thought he bloomed himself to death but then learned that impatiens are shade plants, and to think of that hot sun that poor little thing endured...makes me feel really guilty

 

my first time flower garden try is chrysanthemum, but it dead several days latter. Cactus is more easy to plant.

 

I just remember the first time I tried planting it was when I was 15 and I just planted a lawn and a few small daisy. I actually was very difficult to dig holes, and fixed watering it. I honestly can not forget the first time that

 

I just got into flower gardening, even though my partner usually does that stuff. But anyways, I'm enjoying it!. I planted some lily's today, hopefully they grow fast.

 

Hi. Feel I would like to reply to this. Apart from my childhood efforts i.e. being allowed a small area in the back garden my first adult attempts at my own flower growing were thus. Having been demobbed from army 1954 got married 1955. Lived with in laws until 57 whilst saving cash for deposit on a new bungalow "out in the sticks". This bungalow was built on an area of open meadowland and consequently all that was there when we moved in was this rough and undulating grass surrounding it.
Hacked away at it with a small hand mower until reasonably nice and then in its centre dug three small rectangular beds. In these I planted some scarlet Salvias with edgings of blue Lobelia and white Alyssum - just to finish it off (as I saw it then) two small white painted concrete moulded Rabbits were placed between them. Proud as Punch for sure but that is where it all began and that small beginning has increased and increased over many years until today I am a complete plant and gardening nut - loved every minute of it too. Syd.

 

hahahha...

it was horrible...i even dont know how to dig land...

while digging a broke my vase....

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Hi all. Ref my post telling of making the garden in first property - hacking back that meadow grass, cutting the three small central flower beds, the Salvias, Alyssum, Lobelias and the two white concrete Rabbits. Found a couple of pics of it - the first at the very early stage, the second with more work having been done up near the bungalow. Note those Rabbits are still there - had them for years and years - think they even had names!. Syd.


( photo / image / picture from Sydney Smith's Garden )






( photo / image / picture from Sydney Smith's Garden )

 

Today I went back & read this thread.I enjoyed it very much.
Syd,you have a beautiful garden.Are those your children in pictures?Very nice photos.
sewNsow

 

Hi sNs. The 2 pics were taken way back in the late 1950's/early 1960's. Both show my first attempts at gardening/flowers. The garden was over the 25 years we were there very much more developed and many more plants of all types grown. Both pics show same lad, the eldest of two who are both now in the 55 - 60 age range.
Regards. Syd.