Interesting! Let us know if you get some seeds forming.

Mentha and Tiffany- just curious how long you've each been really into plants (inside or outdoors)? You both post really interesting thoughts/ideas. I did not grow up caring for plants (wish I would've) and then hit a steep learning curve about 10 years ago. Don't want to get too personal, just wondering time frame.

Wow. What did you use to get such clear close-ups. Fascinating.

Plant Lady, I know you did not ask me when I started or how long back. But for me my mother wanted me to be calm and she gave me some raw wheat and asked me to put them on a wet cotton to see what happens. I was four. And the rest is history. I cannot forget that.

They both are class a gardeners. Its nice to be gardening friends with them

Plant Lady,

I've been gardening since I was about 10 or so. I took 3 years of Ornamental Horticulture in high school. I joined GW right after getting married, about 20 or so years ago. I spent hours a day discussing plants, sharing ideas, oohing and aaahhing over other people's finds and blooms, etc. on every gardening forum I could find. It's hard to remember when Spike started GW, but I was one of the first members. I learned a lot of what I know by buying rescue plants and nursing them back to health. I also used to go to nurseries just to discuss how to do things. I was a member of our local C&SS for years until we moved here. I was also head of landscaping at my last job. So I've been gardening, failing, succeeding, spending a lot of money just to see if I could do something that nobody has done before. Sometimes I even have. By no means would I call myself anything but a hobby grower though as there is a lot I need to learn still.

TY for your kind words, Plant Lady. :+) I've always been interested in plants and am endlessly curious about them, inside & out. Purely a hobby for me too.

Rhamel, TY. I'm happy to be your friend also.

Tropic, you reminded me about the bean & marigold sprouts-in-a-cup from first grade. Except for my parents, the rest of our family always had veggie gardens. It was always so fun to me to help plant the seeds and harvest stuff for dinner. I was always enthusiastic about shucking the corn or shelling/stringing the beans, or harvesting the Zinnia seeds to save for the next year. My Grandpa had a rose garden & he was also very involved in the veggie garden, probably more than my Gramma. I think she was more about cooking & preserving the harvested stuff. They lived nearby, in OH.

My Mom was more about ornamentals & landscaping the yard but I also
remember some cuttings that were in jars for years, (probably Pothos,)
not many potted plants. She would tell me which plants were "mine" in the yard and let me water them.

My Uncle was a farmer during the summer (and truck driver during the winter.) I also got to help with driving the tractor to plant & harvest. He & the other farmers would have (what seemed like to me as a little kid) conversations for days about the weather and how the crops were doing, borrowing each others' equipment, and who needed help. I'd be wandering around in fascination with the "weeds" around the edges of the farms, making mud pies with plenty of "herbs and spices."

My great Gramma had a golf cart & she would drive it all over her farm in Indiana, tending & harvesting her veggies. And thank goodness & bless her heart, I can still remember the hideous hamburgers she made in a cast iron skillet. It was almost a sphere, and cooked to a blackened crisp on the outside, hard as a rock, served on white bread. The green beans or any other veggie would be the only edible part of that meal!

Mentha: very nice history of how decided on your ID here. Mine is because my home town - Calcutta, India, is almost dead-on tropic of cancer. You may be surprised by your daughter when she is older and may be on garden-web describing how you influenced her with your mint collection.

Tifanny, thanks. I was a hyperactive kid by all accounts. I do not remember whether it did or not, but my mom swore that gardening kept me in control. Apparently, I would try imitate farmers (as told through stories later) and dress like one with a rice-farmers hat while tending to my tortured plants.