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What Our Mothers Taught Us About Gardening and Life

Several months ago I asked a few of my gardening friends to respond to a questionnaire. They generously agreed.

The subject: Our Moms.

It’s about the stories they’ve told us and how they’ve lived their lives, the impact they’ve had on us both in and out of the garden, and how they helped us get from there to here.

During this holiday season, I can think of no better gift for our Moms than taking the time to appreciate them. Over the next couple of weeks, you’ll be able to read the experiences of gardeners from different parts of the country….in their own words.

I hope you enjoy.

Rebecca Sweet and her mother Linda Anderson
Rebecca Sweet (shown here with her mom, Linda Anderson) is well known in the gardening world as a best selling author, prolific writer,  blogger, and a fine garden designer. You can learn more about Rebecca on her website, Harmony In The Garden and her blog, Gossip In The Garden and check out the book that she co-authored with Susan Morrison, Garden Up: Small Vertical Gardening for Large and  Small Spaces.

Did your mother pass down any stories about herself, family members, neighbors, etc. that have to do with gardening?

My mother had very fond memories of spending summer vacations on her grandmother and aunt’s peach orchard here in northern California. They had 80 acres of peaches with a river running through it, and lived in a massive Victorian home. Her summer memories are some of the fondest from her childhood. Her other set of grandparents lived nearby on many acres of almond orchards. She was a very nature-oriented child that transferred over to her adult life.

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How To Re-ignite Your Passion In The Garden

Gardeners are perfectionists. We give ourselves high marks for weed free, mulched, pruned, and manicured gardens.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love to flip through the pages of a glossy magazine gazing at magnificently coiffed gardens as much as anyone.  Who doesn’t?

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From Here To There

I’m thrilled to have Rebecca Sweet writing a guest post for GGW. She is a highly regarded garden designer, a respected blogger, and co-author of a wildly popular book on vertical gardening, Garden Up.  Besides all of these accomplishments,   Rebecca is what I think of as  a ‘soulful gardener’.  Read this article and you’ll understand why.  Fran Sorin

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A group of us garden designers recently blogged on the topic getting from here to there. Most wrote about gates, stairs, pathways and the like. But since, I’ve thought about how the phrase might represent a different kind of gardener’s journey: mentally getting from one place to another.

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Where To Find Inspiration

I’ve never been remiss about sharing with other gardeners that some concepts seen in my garden haven’t been my  originally designs. To the contrary. Several years ago when Chris Woods (Ex-Director of Chanticleer) was teaching me about garden design and perennials, visitors to my garden would frequently comment on how my style of gardening reminded them of Chanticleer. Well, we both did have Robinia pseudocacia ‘frisia’. But the truth is….Chris influenced my plant palette and combinations tremendously. At that time, Chanticleer was a nascent public garden, so I was able to pick up ideas easily. I never gave a second thought as to whether or not I was copying any. The only thing I knew was that I was inspired.

May 13, 2011-Chanticleer 027

On my last visit to Chanticleer this past May, after I spent quite a bit of time in the overwhelmingly beautiful Tea Cup Garden taking photos, some wooden boxes on top of the entryway caught my eye. I grabbed Jonathon Wright (who creates and maintains the garden) and asked him what he was doing with the boxes. It was simple he said; he filled them with veggies, including some beans, with the intent of creating a jeweled, draping effect on the wall of the front courtyard/entryway. The more he talked about designing these veggie filled boxes, the more I fell in love with the idea. When he mentioned the yellow beans that were going to drip over the sides that he had found at Territorial Seed Company, I knew I had to get my hands on some.

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Vertical Gardening: Creating A Sense of Place

I’m delighted that Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet are gracing us with their presence on Gardening Gone Wild with an in depth article on different types of vertical gardening; which is no surprise since they have just published a fantastic book on it, Garden Up! Smart Vertical Gardening for Small and Large Spaces. By the time I finished this article, I thought ‘Wow…I have got to try some of these ideas on my urban roof top garden’…. Fran Sorin

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When we first told friends and family we were writing a book about vertical gardening, the typical response went something like “Great! It’s about time someone wrote a book about living walls in the U.S.” Being reasonably smart cookies, we eventually figured out that most people’s definition of vertical gardening begins and ends with living walls.

But as beautiful and inspiring as a book filled with living wall photos might be, we’re not garden reporters, we’re garden designers. For us, everything flows from the magic that happens when we work with our clients to create personal spaces. We weren’t interested in a book about multi-story office buildings draped in high maintenance greenery and supported by complex, expensive hydroponic equipment. Instead, we were looking for vertical gardening ideas that reflect how most of us actually garden – whether that’s on a balcony, in the city or on a traditional suburban lot.

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