Very nice story, Calvin, and a marvelous idea for a thread. I'm going to take your invitation to indulge myself and talk about me :)

I hope you manage to plant at least one tree that you will be able to see mature. A big beautiful tree that *you* planted-- priceless.

I first noticed plants when my grandfather brought home a bundle of dry branches. It looked like firewood, but he announced it was a fig tree and planted it. Sure enough, it became a fig. It seemed marvelous to me, the will to live in that bundle of sticks. So I started to notice the trees and other things growing up in the cracks in little-used sidewalks or roads.

Since then, I always gardened outdoors. I loved wildflowers, and had many of them at my old house. A patch of Spring Beauty at least 20' square that I grew from a few tufts that I never let anyone mow til it spread it's seed. I had big patches of the wild crocus and of snowdrops I got the same way. I also planted dogwoods in the front lawn and redbuds in the back.

Also daffs, columbines and campanulas. I loved the wild orange butterfly weed-- like a persian carpet. I loved growing things from seed, and started every spring with seed pods everywhere. I think I have grown nearly every thing that can be grown from seed-- including ficus, gloxinia, and lots of others.

The wild blue phlox was my absolute forever favorite-- such a delicate blue, and fragrant. But when my dog died I found out it was the absolute favorite of rabbits, and the dog had been protecting it all those years. The huge patches of blue phlox dwindled to nothing in about two years.

As the years went by I found caring for perennial beds too onerous-- weeding in hot weather, just couldn't stand it, and the weeds took over. You can always tell when the gardener dies or moves away because all the extravagant beauty turns back to grass.

When we moved here, I left the dogwoods and daffs behind. I'm sure the Spring Beauties were relentlessly mowed and maybe even poisoned by the new owners. Probably the daffs, too. The five dogwoods were so beautiful they may have kept them. But it was time to leave, and we did.

This house isn't sited for a gardener, and the subdivision isn't mess-friendly. It has tall windows overlooking a small woods, so I enjoy the view of the woods and sky. But with the woods and no dog, the rabbits eat everything that isn't poisonous. A few attempts at wild crocuses and snowdrops were eaten days after they poked out and quickly disappeared. We did plant four dogwoods, and I found a perfect spot for a hardy-to-zero rosemary that is now probably 4' high and has lived thru more than 5 winters. But other than a small herb patch, I haven't gardened here.

Then I discovered GW, and on the balcony forum, found people gardening in pots on tiny balconies. So I started pot gardening on my second story deck-- the rabbits can't get up there.

First fragrants for a couple of years, and then switching to orchids when I found keeping the tropicals in good condition too difficult in winter.

Then five years ago, I bought a phal amabilis. It was a lovely, graceful thing that looked beautiful on a dark green sideboard and bloomed for 4 months thru the winter-- the absolute worst time of year for a gardener. Once I saw those winter flowers, I wanted more.

So, orchids are my "new normal", and I love them for their flowers in the dim winter, but I would still love to see a huge patch of wild blue phlox and of spring beauties again.

Great story, Mehitabel :) Thanks for sharing. It's funny you mention dogwood because I've recently come to realize the awesome nature of these plants. I'm going to try and plant one next spring.

Calvin I did post a question once asking if orchids were the first plant people tried to grow or was there a history of other plants in there background.

We have seven acres with probably 1 1/2 acres in the "garden". Daylilies and hosta are the two main plants we collect, besides orchids. We hybridize daylilies and have new, never before seen, seedlings bloom each year. The joy of seeing something no one has ever seen before is beyond words. I also hybridize hosta but not on the extent as the daylilies.

As new areas were added to the garden, we planted trees and shrubs as the backbone and then installed various beds in nooks and crannies. Our favorite tree USED to be Japanese maples but this spring we lost 13 of the 17 on the property from the late freeze. Even though our 30+ year old Japanese maples in the front have valiently come back, only about 1/4 the branches popped new foliage. The jury is still out if they will come back next spring.

New favorite trees - Forest Pansy and Hearts of Gold redbuds. They make beautiful displays in the spring but also carry great leaf color until hot summer. Favorite shrubs - hydrangea.

I have been doing bonsai for several years plus grow lots of things from seed in the winter. S-l-o-w-l-y orchids were squeezing out the available light space during the winter. More stands were added but the orchids kept appearing. Those orchids multiply like rabbits so my Christmas present last year was the G/H. Now I can have it all - lol!

Brooke

WOW! 7-1/2 acres would be my dream place, all right.

I love redbuds, and named varieties have to be spectacular.

And hybridizing-- another dream. And Daylilies-- love them, such tough things. I once left a clump of them out of the ground over a winter (and it was one of those 1970's cold winters), and it lived. Incredible toughness.

I won't die of envy, exactly, but you are very, very lucky. Your place must be a showpiece all spring and summer (and when the J maples were going, fall as well.

Do you do all the work yourself?

Yes we do everything ourselves. My husband took early retirement and that has been a blessing for me since he can work during the week now and not just week-ends. I can actually have free time now to make me feel guilty about not doing my housework. I use winter for housework!

This past spring with the high temps in early spring followed by the week of temps in the low 20's, really took a toll on our graden. Then we went into a serious drought. Things that did come back were stressed by lack of water. It would take us three days to totally water the gardens and this is with multiple water outlets spread throughout. The loss of the Japanese maples really put us in a funk. When you grow one of those slow growing things to 8-10 feet and then have it die, yikes. The weird part about the maples is the two newest ones planted the previous fall, lived. Go figure.

Brooke

My insterest started when I was very young. It started with the begonias and red and scented geraniums on my grandmother's windowsills in Brooklyn NY. She had several large snake-plants in her livingroom. I watched her tenderly care for the scented geraniums and pick the leaves off to put in her dresser draws. We watched the buds open on the begonias. When I was 11 and my family moved to a house in another county she gave me a snake-plant and a philodendron. They thrived on a small end table in my sunny bedroom window. By the time I got married I had a small collection of plants that were added to over the years. The collection just kept growing and were taken to TN with me over 20 years ago. I started to grow orchids about 6, maybe 7 years ago. I don't remember exactly anymore. I now have 2 hobby greenhouses; a 6X8' HFGH and an 8X16' Rion. I also have some orchids, cacti and ferns in the large sun-room.

Both grandmothers introduced me to plants (and piano) at a very early age, 5-6 yrs old. It's second nature to me. I adored the tropicals, succulents, perrenials and even bonsai, but nothing ever reached right out and bit me like the orchid bug. Everything paled after that.

Mehitabel & Brooke,

Your descriptions of dogwood and redbud make me homesick for Little Rock and the nearby lake where people had rustic cabins. There were wild dogwoods in the woods there - even some with pink flowers - and cornflowers & honeysuckle all around.

In town, there were redbuds (also in the woods), mimosa trees, and cultivated azaleas that stayed in the ground all year and got huge. Japonica, forsythia (sp?), wisteria, magnolia trees, hydrangeas, honeysuckle. And yes, the beautiful Japanese maple. Other places in Arkansas, there were fields of wild azaleas.

Both my grandmothers and one grandfather had green thumbs and grew plants in the house and outside. Growing up, I was more into fish, birds, hamsters, frogs, lizards, snakes, and dogs than plants but in my early 20s, became fascinated with bonsai. In Mississippi, where I lived for several years, the squirrels got my treasures.

Moved back to Arkansas and raised lots of interesting houseplants, using bonsai methods to keep them from taking over the place. No outside plants interested me much except pansies.

In Minnesota, more houseplants. Always, orchids were the magical and the impossible - I'd never have the greenhouse it took to grow them, although I pored over greenhouse plans a lot.

When DH and I moved into the house in the 'burbs about 4 years ago, somehow I picked up the book "Orchids Simplified: An indoor gardening guide," by Henry Jaworski. My mom, an excellent cook, always said if you could read, you could cook. I believed her and became a gourmet cook. Jaworski said if you can grow houseplants, you can grow orchids. I believed him and bought a Phal from a garden/craft chain.

Sure enough, the Phal thrived and rebloomed as I followed Jaworski's instructions.

One day, I was ga-ga over the orchids at a local garden center. One of the staff and I started talking. She said if I could grow Phals, there were lots of other orchids I could grow in the house, and she told me about Orchids Limited and AOS. I got chills and raced home.

It was winter and pitch dark, but I checked MapQuest and headed straight to Orchids Limited, knowing they wouldn't be open that late.

Have you ever seen a commercial orchid grower's greenhouses at night during a cold winter? A fairyland. In the middle of frozen Minnesota, there was a glowing oasis of light and life. The insides of the greenhouse windows were dripping with humidity, so the plants inside were out of focus, just like a dream.

The next day, I left work early to get there before closing. Walking into that tropical paradise was indescribable - the warm, humid air, the fragrance of blossoms, the brilliant colors, all those lush green plants, the burble of a fountain. Outside, the air was so dry it hurt my nostrils. Inside, my eyes and lungs and nose and heart gave a big sigh of thanks.

I went home and started reading about cultural conditions possible in the house. That was about 2.5 years ago. Over time, the houseplants went to other homes. The other day, I ran across 2 brand new books on houseplants that had never been taken out of the bag. Orchids must have taken over right about then.

Every year, I think - gotta get some native plant gardens going outside, esp. because we have ducks, geese, herons, etc. in the pond just beyond the fence. So far, it hasn't happened. Maybe now that the lathe house for the orchids is finished...

Calvin, thanks for asking. This brought back lovely memories.

Whitecat8