You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
What is it that inspires the love of a particular flower or plant? How does the passion for gardening take hold and follow us throughout our lives? Maybe it is the memory of sweet times in nature or maybe, it is our first encounters.
The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes……………R. Flack
The first flowers or plants I encountered as a child had a profound effect on my later gardening attempts. Raised in a large New York City apartment, I shared a room with my older sister and although it was spacious enough for four kids I had to mind the boundaries. There was her side and my side and the big double window which belonged to my mothers’ plants. All the windows, in every room, belonged to my mother and her plants. Snake plants, aloe, jade, mint, dieffenbachia, spider plants, succulents, Wandering Jew, and coleus to name a few. Most of them grew tall and green and seemed to clone themselves off the head or side of itself without benefit of vine or stem. Almost all, except the coleus. Its leaves grew off of stems and as a child this made more sense to me as it fit a little closer to the idea I had of flowers and what I had learned in school of stamens, sepals and pistils. A most common variety of tricolor white, pink and purple on a backdrop of jadeite green, its scalloped oak leaves, veined and velvety, had more character, color and variation than everything else in the window. Although I cringed then whenever my mother pinched back the tiny flowers as they appeared, its blooms would not have made it anymore attractive and she said this was a merciful necessity.
The coleus were always in a hanging basket above the others and always, always, there were some on the kitchen windowsill. Long tendrils of roots growing neglected in the murky green soup of a mayonnaise jar. It was like a middle child. Amidst all the others it would survive with a minimum of care and would hang upside down and sideways trying to capture attention, not aware that it was already at center stage in my mothers’ windows.
Other than the occasional roses my father bought for my mother, I had to go to summer camp to have my first real encounter with flowers growing outdoors in their glory. The daily exercise was round up tag and we hid until found and then joined the finder in the pursuit to tag others. Hiding behind a tall shrub, I stretched out on the grass to wait and found myself nose down in a patch of tiny blue florets. I was enchanted. So small and delicate, they seemed to disintegrate when I tried to pick them. Deciding to be content with just looking, I spent a considerable amount of time searching for them in the wide open field and that is where they found me when the game was over and the dinner bell had rung. I was told they were “bluettes”.
The following year, in my fifth grade class, we were to grow flowers for Mothers’ Day gifts. Supplied with seed, I secretly took one of my mothers’ ceramic pots and brought it to school in anticipation of bringing her back a bouquet of orange marigolds. My first seedlings delighted me to no end as I watered and tended them till they leafed and flowered and were ready to go home. When I presented them to her and she saw what I had done, she gave up a small space at a window where I could continue to fret over them and she would smile, for they never really became hers.
My first year of college and my first apartment are synonymous in memory with my first “garden”. My New York City studio boasted windows all along one of its walls of which there were only three not counting the entrance door. My priorities were not, whether or not the bed would fit, but the amount of sun; morning or afternoon, and could I have permission to drill holes in the ceiling for my hanging coleus (cuttings from my mother) which went with me where ever I lived.My privacy curtains were hanging baskets and tall plants and trees; a long meandering philodendron was my valance.One of the trees I had actually lugged home on the subway across three boroughs; a six foot tall ficus that I had to have no matter what. No matter the stares and inquiring looks of the other passengers, no matter the trail of leaves I left behind me, no matter the money spent on a cab to get it to my building and no matter the “tip” I gave the cab driver to help get it up five flights of stairs. My window wall of greenery would not have been complete without it and to me, it was worth the trouble.
It would be years later, after many apartment plants, apartment trees, bottle gardens, terrariums under glass, aquariums without fish, bathroom vines, windowsill cuttings, desert landscapes in dishes, pot hangers hung with coleus baskets, and wine racks laid down with bottles for cuttings that never knew soil, that I would acquire a house with a yard that would set me on the path to becoming an outdoor gardener.
In my newly purchased, bare, open expanse of lawn, I exhaled. No more plants, now was the time for real flowers. I envisioned a lush densely grown forest of colorful wildflowers. Blooming flowers, flowers with fragrance, flowers by moonlight, flowers to put a New York florist to shame. I thought the sky was the limit as I browsed through catalogues and although it was laid out perfectly in my mind, I had no idea where to begin and so I learned to mow until the day I would have such a riot of perennials that this would be unnecessary.I did not know then that my vision would take years and much trial and error or that it would even take another direction, but in the meantime I hung my coleus outdoors and stood on the path of creating a flower garden. And that is another story.
About Joyce B. Gladden
I am a transplanted New Yorker, writer, and novice gardener learning more and more each season. My plant of choice is Coleus (growing to include roses and others as I become more passionate about gardening). Other long time interests include book collecting and quilting.
Posted by chrissy100 (from Sydney
(Australia)) on August 22, 2007 at 6:41 PM:
Oh how lovely.....I have never lived in an apartment (we called them units) so you have given me a peek into a World I know nothing about...but I can see your Mum's world through your description ....what a gift she gave you ...the love of all things green and growing....and like you I will walk over broken glassto have a plant/tree or shrub I "need" ....I can see in my minds eye that little face leaning into the patch of blue and the wonder sparkling in the eyes.....thankyou so much!
...
Posted by jadajoy (from Newport News, VA) on August 22, 2007 at 8:59 PM:
Chrissy100
Thank you for your kindness! I'm glad I gave you a mind picture with my words. Its true, growing up in New York is another world and it has many memories I cherish. Of all my world travels no place compares to it and I am sure it is that way with everyones childhood memories.
I have visited Brisbane, Darwin and Sydney and of course I searched high and low for the green growing things there too. What wonderful quaint little towns! I guess loving nature means we never stop being amazed at the world around us and our encounters are a wonder if we open our eyes and really look.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Joyce
...
Subject: Love this article!!
Posted by gessiegail (from Taft, TX) on August 22, 2007 at 11:36 AM:
You could not have expressed my sentiments about flowers more perfectly. The first encounters shape our lives. Thank you so much for a much appreciated article that floods back memories of early childhood.
gail
PS.............no wonder you are a writer.............your choice of words opens up the reader's imaginations!!!!!!!!!
**********edited to say readers' imaginations..................can't thank you enough for those memories with Grandma teaching all the young ones how to garden..............I just bought my oldest granddaughter her own gro-lights for her bedroom. She called yesterday to see she has lots of African Violet babies from the leaves we put down.................
This message was edited Aug 22, 2007 2:45 PM
...
Posted by jadajoy (from Newport News, VA) on August 22, 2007 at 2:20 PM:
Gessiegail
Thanks! You just made my day!
Joyce
...
Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on August 22, 2007 at 3:12 PM:
Joyce, what a wonderfully written, enjoyable story! Beautifully put together, it just begs any reader to find their own first encounter and revel in the memory.....so well done!!
...
Posted by AuntB (from NE, KS) on August 22, 2007 at 4:39 PM:
Joyce! Just beautiful... my kind of reading.... Thank You!
...
Posted by roybird (from Santa Fe, NM) on August 22, 2007 at 4:45 PM:
Very nice. I think gardeners remember their first plant experiences the way some people must remember cars or movies or whatever! Most vivid.
...
Subject: Lovely article!
Posted by KyWoods (from Melbourne, KY) on August 22, 2007 at 12:17 AM:
How true that certain plants that were familiar in childhood, that remind you of home, become favorites! My mother loved sedums, marigolds, and portulacas, and now coleus--I gave her a kong coleus exactly like the one you show in the article! They bring back fond memories, and I have some planted, too. Thanks for writing that.
...
Posted by Kathleen (from Panama, NY) on August 22, 2007 at 7:13 AM:
Beautiful piece.
...
Posted by SongsofJoy (from New Hampshire, NH) on August 22, 2007 at 8:13 AM:
I enjoyed this article very much. Thank you!
...
Posted by senlarrs (from Harrisburg, PA) on August 22, 2007 at 8:19 AM:
Fascinating article, looking forward to the 'another story', 'another time'! 8>)
Larry
...
Posted by Dea (from Frederick, MD) on August 22, 2007 at 8:23 AM:
I can picture your studio apartment and the ledge where your first plant sat....beautiful article.
Dea
...
Posted by jadajoy (from Newport News, VA) on August 22, 2007 at 8:41 AM:
Thank You! I'm glad everyone is enjoying my memories as I do.
Ky- You and your mom have good taste :-)) Just love a coleus!
I hope to do more memoir type articles soon.
Joyce
...
Posted by melody (from Benton, KY) on August 22, 2007 at 8:45 AM:
Very nice!
...
Posted by Horseshoe (from Efland, NC) on August 22, 2007 at 5:48 PM:
Nice way with words, Joyce. And great topic!
Thanks!
Shoe
...
Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on August 22, 2007 at 8:15 PM:
Joyce, what a great writer you are! You create, with words, vivid images of your green privacy screens, your mothers coleus, your summer camp bluet.
I had a ficus tree which I managed to keep alive for 15 or 20 years, starting in college. It never got more than 18" tall, and almost died every winter. I think my father thought it was a bonsai attempt - he asked what the secret was to keeping it so small! (No care whatsoever, repotting every 5 - 10 years, no fertilizer and no humidity.)
Which plants do well in bathrooms, BTW?
xxxx, Carrie
...
Posted by jadajoy (from Newport News, VA) on August 22, 2007 at 9:54 PM:
Thanks Carrie!
So funny, your bonsai ficus! I think house plants will adapt to just about anything. I used to shine my plant leaves with mayonaise...dont know where I got that, but it worked.
In the bathroom I grew a long philodendrum around the crown moulding kept in place with tacks and swedish ivy in a hanging pot. They seemed to thrive there. I guess they liked the steam and the flourescent lights :-))
Joyce
...
Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on August 23, 2007 at 10:02 AM:
Ah, right, that would be in your NY apartment with the floor-to-ceiling windows. Crown molding. See, Joyce, in my squat little 50's tract house, we're lucky we have molding at all! We have baseboard molding. In some places..... I think I'll put a cactus in the bathroom.
I fantasize about crown molding.
xxx, Carrie
...
Posted by alice_sunn (from Stockholm
(Sweden)) on August 23, 2007 at 10:55 AM:
I too liked this story very much. I love coleus and I love New York City, so this was excellent reading.
Alice
...
Posted by jadajoy (from Newport News, VA) on August 23, 2007 at 11:55 AM:
Carrie
Its true, some of those old NY apts do have great architecture like crown molding, parque floors and french doors if your lucky enough to find one that hasnt been remodeled and stripped of its character. I left NY in 1984 and havent lived there since, ,just visits, and the new apts are now just little boxes where they cut up the big roomy apts. Its a shame.
But Carrie, you could still grow a philodendrum in your bathroom. Just hang a hook from the ceiling in one corner put it in a hanging basket and let it hang . It'll grow to the floor if you let it. Or put a little shelf in one corner of the ceiling to sit a pot on. Philodendrum dont need a lot of pot space and you could still tack it to the top of the wall and let it grow around where the ceiling meets the wall. Its not fussy at all and grows fast. If you could keep a ficus for 20 years, this could definitely work for you :-).
Alice- Fancy meeting you here my friend! Welcome to MY "wonderland". Its not "Alice" status yet but I'm working on it! Glad you read, posted and enjoyed!
