kt,

I work side-by-side with my hubby. We plan together, shop together, & work together. The gardens are "ours" & I trust him completely to tend if I can't or even go to the nursery for a plant alone if I'm unable to accompany him for some reason. Our dinner conversations often do revolve around our garden plans, dreams, etc.

We spend winter afternoons pouring over garden photos, catalogues, & writing wish lists. We each have our specialties. I'm handicapped so rely on him for the "heavy lifting" stuff. He's not as detailed oriented as I am so I do the daily maintenance while he's at work. We share the choosing of plants, locations, etc. It would be very lonely for me in the garden without DH.

Tricia

OMGosh - I could have written that post!

Hubby's job is the lawn and that's it. It's a good sized lawn and he's had to take it from practically nothing to - well - more than practically nothing.

He's obsessed with having a golfcourse like lawn - without the use of chemicals - and, apparently - without the use of any actually EFFORT on his part. Let's put it like this, he gets tired from mowing it ............while sitting down on a riding mower.

Yep - he mows and then he's too exhausted to trim. Got the picture of gardening in our house??

I'm the lone gardener in my household. I believe I've married Dr. No---Doesn't this look good here? NO. Isn't this plant darling? NO. Do you think this will thrive here? NO. My fantasy is like runktrun's: happy husband weeding with me,going to nurseries and proudly looking at our everchanging gardens,enjoying seasonal change etc. Oh-ho,better take the needle out of my arm before I get too attached. Fortunately,I enjoy(mostly)doing it alone and sharing my garden victories with like minded friends. Jardinista

I'm the lone gardener here, and quite frankly, I like it that way. The yard is my domain. I can do whatever I want and no one says boo.

I will admit it would be nice to have someone to share in the appreciation of the results. My DH, and even sometimes my kids, will comment on how nice something looks, but the discussion never gets deeper than that - nothing like, "oh, that salvia looks great with that rose, but have you tried nepeta"? No, it's just, "Gee hon, (Mom), that pink flower looks nice, especially mixed with those blue ones". But that's okay. That's why I have the forums!

One day last summer I pulled in the driveway from work and there was DH in the veggie garden, watering. I almost drove the car into the house I was in such shock. I'm still not sure whether it's a good thing or bad thing that he is starting to take interest, lol. I guess as long as he sticks to the veggies and leaves my flowers alone, things will go smoothly.

:)
Dee

I'm pretty damned lucky here, DH takes an interest, helps mulch and plant the heavier things, wants a koi pond!, is learning the latin names of plants, mows the grass, let's me make the major decisions, likes my ideas, rarely says NO, tolerates my CHAD, and is putting me through school!
It is nice having someone who is proud of the garden and brags on my skill to others. It feels wonderful when he says, this should be in a magazine!
And the best part, we're legal in MA!
CHAZ

Here at our house, it is a yes and no to that question. [g] I am not able to garden very much anymore, but I supervise real well..lol. Depending on who you ask. [g] I am very fortunate that although my DH would never willingly choose gardening as a hobby, he has jumped in there and supported me and enabled me to keep going with it.

Before he met me, I don't think flowers were on his radar screen at all. Our standing joke is that when we were first dating he sent me carnations and thought they were roses..lol. He probably has a plant name database of about 10 names now, [g] after 30 years. I really feel bad for him to be gardening when there are other things he would rather be doing.

The more results we are having though, the more enjoyment he seems to be getting from the garden now. We do talk garden but it is a rather one sided conversation. I can see that he does enjoy how much enjoyment I get out of it though. I discovered about 7 years ago that he loves fragrant plants. I was so happy to have something I could add to the garden that would give him more enjoyment. Especially since he is doing all the planting..lol. He loves our honeysuckle vine and CasaBlanca lilies. He actually came home from the supermarket with a hyacinth plant one winter and I was in shock..lol.

I enjoy the garden much more having his help and company. I really really feel good when any part of the garden is enjoyed by my family. Gardening is just not for yourself at all, I don't think. Sharing it with someone who gets something out of it too is a very important part of it. I feel it is a gift to try to create a garden for your family. If the value of it is lost on them it is a little sad to some degree. But I still think having a garden as part of their environment and experience is something important for them to have even if at this point in time they can't appreciate it as much.

My children for example, all grown, also have not inherited the gardening bug. One boy is very disinterested in all things garden. Yet, I discovered that he just loves the outdoors and trees and forests. We don't live in a neighborhood with great trees, on a small suburban lot, so this just isn't his niche here. At heart he loves sports.

Second son loves sports too but he cooks so he appreciates things like tomatoes and basil from the garden.

Our daughter, now in her 20s, does enjoy the garden to a limited degree. I think she would love it if she could hire someone to do all the work for her..lol. She definitely hasn't a passion for it though. She does help in the yard but she would rather not. She will definitely roll her eyes at me if I talk garden too much. Although last week, our ws lupine bloomed for the first time and she loves those. So I just bought 2 more packages of lupine seed to keep them coming. [g]

pm2

Well, when me moved into this house, my wife claimed to take control of the lawn and the front yard. She did mow the lawn quite a bit the first year, but it has decreased in frequency ever since. To her credit, we do have a 3.5 year old and a 5 month old, so things have gotten busier around here the last 3-4 years.

So needless to say, the garden is really my thing around here. My wife is supportive enough to tell people who call that Im outside "digging holes." And she indulges me by taking a "garden tour" stroll nearly daily to look at what popped. She listens to me banter about this plant or that, and stores some of it in her memory bank to surprize me with a hardy hibiscus or such for fathers day. She also spends most days in the yard, playing with the kids, enjoy the sections or rooms I have created.

As far as help around here, it is limited. My 3.5 year old daughter likes to help me divide and pot up plants for friends. And she can tell people that this plant is an iris, poppy, columbine, daffodil, tulip, chive, etc. Shes got about 10-15 flowers in her memory bank right now. I get some only-a-parent-would-understand ridiculous thrill when Im having a barbeque and my daughter comes up and says, "what a pretty purple iris."

So, I do the planing, the labor, the weeding, the mulching, the dreaming....but my family indulges me and encourages me and enjoys the yard. Im not sure if Id want it any other way, cause this seems to work out just fine for us. I find the ability to get lost in my yard, dig a hole here, move this rock, plant that here....the next thing I know the sun is setting and I realize I have forgotten to eat lunch. I could spend 12 hours outside with nothing but sun tea.....greg

What a fun post. OUr yard has so many years of developing ahead of us, I really hope DH will take more of an interest. For now, he does the mowing and yes is EXHAUSTED from an afternoon of riding. He does do the trimming but misses half of the spots. He puts up with my endless requests to plant trees as our lot is just too rocky for me to dig holes large enough. He indulges me when I am planning and never says no to anything. We hope to create a semi-raised vegetable bed which will require a half retaining wall since our yard is so darn hilly. He is excited about this and will probably take it over. He does comment when things I have planted or chosen look nice which is a start. I want to go organic with the lawn care which he will support too. He got laid off a month ago so our planting budget is frozen aside from a decent size credit I have at a nursery that is burning a hole in my pocket. He has time on his hands and has been using the weed hound to try to chizzle away at the million weeds on one side of our propery. Now, if I could just convice him to water my annuals in the morning not after they have cooked all day in the sun, I'd be happy. I guess I'm not complaining. I like our set up.

Wow...that was written so well....fiction unfortunately! LOL

From the Lonely Gardener/Transplanter/Big Hole Digger.

Lone gardener here. I wonder if those of us who haunt forums tend to need someone to talk to about gardening? My kids do start seeds and transplant them (kind of) to their own raised beds. If they ever flower, they have dreams of starting a flower stand on the sidewalk, modelled on the lemonade stand down the street. My spouse wonders why we don't have any flowers (we do -- including probably 40 peonies in vases rescued from the rain -- he just hasn't noticed yet....) I do have by snowplow/mowing service. Thank God! The years I tried to do that were really miserable........
I do fantasize about a partner to talk gardening with. Maybe in my next life?
ML

Great reading! Like Dee, I like being the lone gardener. I am in fact the Queen of Everything in the yard. My family enjoys the garden and they all make a point of telling me so.

The only help I get is occasional mowing, which is accompanied, every single time, with the question "Why can't we lower the blades"? I'm sure when I'm away for any length of time, they do just that.

The one other exception is paving. I started out laying brick paths soon after we moved here, almost 20 years ago; I laid the first one while Chris was out of town, after a months-long argument about how difficult it would be, how expensive, how complicated, backbreaking ... you get the drift. He is of mostly Italian descent, and now *insists* that he is genetically disposed to be a better bricklayer than any WASP could ever be. I still get to lay out the perimeters, and have regained control of elevations - since last year's project is a path that ends up about 6" in the air.

Having one gardener in the family works really well for us - none of us plays especially well with others in our own special areas of interest, at least in my family.

Dh does not share my passion for the garden but he tolerates it. He does the lawn and any job that involves a chain saw, sometimes I wait for him to get home to do some heavy lifting. He seems to enjoy occasionally puttering around pulling weeds.

I have a 13 yr old daughter who has no interest whatsoever. I have tried to encourage her since she was 6 with this garden. In the past she had her own veggie garden, flower garden, and fairy garden that I built for her. She would initially play with these gardens in the beginning but then would lose interest. Nowadays asking her to do anything in the garden is met with indifference.

I hope that someday after she breaks away from mom and has her own home that she will like to have a garden.

I am a single homeowner. My brother helps me out in house-related emergencies, and a kind neighbor has come over to help me plant a tree and dig up some shrubs. My problem is that I simply don't confine my gardening to manageable proportions. I mow the lawn, but almost never have time to do edging trim around all the beds and myriad containers. I grow too much from seed, order too much online and make too many trips to garden centers. This summer I must waterproof the porch and I really should do some outside painting. I struggle to maintain the house at some minimal level of cleanliness while exhausting myself outside. I often fantasize about a helper taking care of certain tasks as I work around the yard and see so much that I not getting to. Basically I am happy with my situation in life, but often punctuated by feelings that I am drowning in things that need to be done.

When we moved into our house 27 years ago, hubby just looked
at the 1 acre of land and rolled his eyes. "said this is your problem, not mine." I had to remember that he grew up in an apartment and I grew up on a semi-farm.

Wasn't long before the saw came out and trees where taken down by hubby and he liked mowing the lawn. Problem was anything and everything was mowed. "oh, I thought it was just a pretty weed." that included $400 worth of blooming daylilies that never came back.

Fast forward to 4 years ago when I started wintersowing. He thought I was nuts, but did help out. To his amazement the seed germinated and kept on germinating. The new flowers where an amazement to him, but the mess in the backyard wasn't that great.

Second year came and he kept asking "when is the mess outside coming?" He was interested in the mess? OK. But when I started WS, he was right there watching and lending a helping hand when needed.
As the containers piled up out back, he remarked "interesting site out back." As more and more containers went out, he says "looking more normal now".

Come spring when the seeds started to germinate, he was outside every night checking the germination and asking how many germinated today.

Next thing I knew he was getting mulch and spreading it around, digging new beds and I never asked him to.

Last year, I was unable to do any gardening most of the year. Hubby had no choice but to do something with all those seedlings and containers. Had help from friends as well, but when the last of the seedlings still had to go out, he was very eager to pitch in. It's just how he did things that was interesting.

He ran out of room in the flower beds, so grabbed lots of pots and just filled them with soil and stuffed them in. Balsam impatiens in the top of strawberry jars, 4'clock seedlings in 12 inch pots, 4 seedlings in a pot. etc.

He was very proud of himself and I couldn't say anything, just watch and see how they grew. They really did well, and am going to do the same thing this year.

This year, he's been helping with the Wintersowing, germination records, spreading bark mulch, buy fresh soil, spreading out more soil, started digging new flower beds, and pushing me to get moving and get the rest of the seedlings in the ground.

Instead of loving to mow the lawn, he's ripping out more and more of it and adding more and more flower beds. He groans at lawn mowing now and can recognize a weed from a flower, a plant from a weed.

The last trip to the nursery was full of complaints about how weak and unhealthy all the plants looked compared to all the wintersown seedlings and plants "we have".

Now he wants to know whe we can start collecting seeds for next years growing.

Think I created a monster, but love it anyways.

Fran

This thread is very timely for me because my need to share my garden and garden passion with someone has recently become very real for me. My sig-O has no interest. Really no interest in the outdoors so everything outside is mine. He does occasionally comment on something and is tolerent of me spending all day outside on the weekends but I cant help but wonder what it would be like to share this. Although my garden is really large the yard is private and we live at the end of a quiet dead end so even my neighbors dont really see it. I have a couple of garden buddies at work but they have families and dont live nearby. I do appreciate them being in my life though. I do have siblings who garden though. They dont live closeby and visit much but I post pictures on our family website and they comment. You know I think that this desire is why I just love watching "A Gardener's Diary" on TV. I would love to have Erica come to my house and give my garden some love.

Jackied...
After reading kt's interesting post and responses about boundaries, I'm aware that what I'm about to say may be pushing 'boundaries,' however.... After loads of correspondence on this forum, and a lovely invitation from one poster, a few of us went to visit a her wonderful garden off the coast of MA.

I made a gardening friend, in the town next to me, by offering to help her get ready for a big garden tour that she wrote about on the NE forum.

If you are willing to share, by personal email only perhaps, your location I would be surprised if you don't find a gardening neighbor from this forum.

I know its not the same as a live in garden afficianado, but that has it's problems too!

I really wanted to host the spring swap this year, but didn't have the chance to volunteer. That's the way I met people I feel are my gardening consorts/cohort.

I live in Lexington, and I love to share my garden. I'd be happy to have a glass of iced tea with you and anyone else who wants to visit! I'd like to see yours too.

Marie/Idabean

I felt I didn't have anyone to relate to as far as my addiction to gardening. I joined a garden club. Now I can discuss all kinds of things with the members--they understand. And we visit each other's gardens, go out of town on field trips, etc.

Adding some additional thoughts to my original post on this subject....

Although DH doesn't lend one iota of assistance in the yard department (at least not how *I* want help), I must say that he tolerates my insanity.

He has gone from being skeptical at my start of lasagna beds and winter sowing, composting and rain barrels to asking me when I'm getting MORE rain barrels, keeping all the good grass clippings for his lawn, going to Starbucks for coffee grounds and KEEPING THEM for his lawn (boo hoo for me) and getting corn husks from the grocery store for my compost. I have a convert!!

He is NOT so tolerate (but indulgent) of my penchant for garden junk.

And speaking of gardening friends - I have a friend who I met through the GardenWeb forums. Yep, from a virtual friend to one who visits and I visit. Someone who will listen to me moan about the woodchuck destroying the rudbeckia and make suggestions about where to plant something or what to plant in combination with other plants.

I'm thrilled to have met her and happy that we took a leap of faith!

My husband has reduced his garden work over the years, but we now have more fields that need mowing, so I can't complain. He does all the lawns, any chain saw work, hauls manure from our neighbor with horses, and doesn't hassle me when another box of mail order plants arrives. ;>)

He also enjoys the flowers, the veggies, and the winged and 4-legged visitors. So I guess it's our garden, but we each have jobs that we prefer. His tend to be the big picture stuff, and mine tend to be the actual garden beds.

I share my gardens with neighbors on the road, since the house is quite close to our busy road, and several of them I've met when they stopped to ask about a plant. I also have several friends in town who share gardens and plants.

I am not married, and my teenage son can't believe that I think gardening is more fun than video games, so there you go.

Yes gardening is generally quite solitary for me, and I like it that way. It is a retreat away from the rest of the world into my own little Garden of Eden, where my companions are the flora and fauna.

I talk to the neighbors pretty often (I have gardens in front), but that is just to be social. Most of the time I prefer to be left alone.

The glazed eyes. Hehehehe. I know that look.
Everyone here is more interested in the driveway (that's where the grill is).
My sister occasionally refers to the plants like "That pink thing got flowers huh?".
My niece and nephew huddle around me whenever I get out the trowel, but that doesnt stop them from trampling my Columbine. They are no longer allowed on the grass.
The hubby forcibly restrains me whenever we walk by the nursery at Lowes. I think he might have an idea about my plant obsession.
I mow, dig, compost, mulch, deadhead and plant all by my little self.
My only gardening friend is my mom. She donates her unwanted seedlings to me.
I'm also the orphaned-half-dead plant rescue to the rest of my family. This year it's a sunflower, some kind of daisy thing and various other annuals.

Gosh I re-read my post just above, and it almost makes me sound anti-social!

Just wanted to say, that I very much enjoy being here on Gardenweb, love going to the local swaps, talking to nursery people, etc. I am definitely open to getting to know/visiting other gardeners. And I have a sister who loves to garden too, and we spend hours on the phone talking about gardening and wildlife (she is creating a butterfly meadow).

When it comes down to gardening in my little patch of earth, it is often a retreat, a refuge, a meditation, and an art for me. It is also a way to connect with nature on an intimate level. That is the part I prefer to do alone.

This is an interesting post! I appreciate my DH more after reading it.

I travel during the summer on business, so I knock myself out in the spring geting the garden ready. I love it, but I do get cranky when I am tired and I see DH on the deck relaxing. It's my choice though, isn't it? But when I am away I call him and he tells me how he has been weeding and watering, tending and mowing, and I love him more for that. I can live vicariously in the garden, through him, when I am far away. He used to have his own garden, and I give him credit for taking direction from me, since this is my house where we both live. I try to be kind and flexible, and not be the boss so much. But that is where you can run into problems if you garden together. Now and then we disagree. It can be upsetting! And I do like to work alone too. But mostly we are there to exclaim over the peas together, enjoy the salads and pat each other on the back for our gardening triumphs! It is so great to be weeding together, passing each other tools, showing each other the bugs you dig up, saying, look, here is a blossom on the tomato!

I'd like to give his adult daughter a little plot to tend, but I am afraid of coming home after a weekend away, and finding my favorite tools rusting in the rain. I don't want to get angry with her. She is strong-minded but sensitive, and I do not want anything to come between us.

DH has been very good about not using the tiller (I want no-till, he wants to do the smelly noisy guy-thing). And I am trying to teach him how to thin crops: he wants every plant to live, and can't get it that they all need space.

He completely sympathizes with my compost madness, and will gather material for the bins. But I am the one who does the sieving and heavy lifting around the bins. It's probably better to have one person who knows what is going on to tend that anyway. And he will trot over good-naturedly when I ask him to admire the temp on the compost thermometer.

My former husband didn't like it when I gardened. He said I spent too much time, wouldn't eat the veggies, fussed around and made me feel lonely about it all. He'd do heavy lifting, that I was grateful for. Finally I got him to stop complaining by telling him gardening was cheaper than therapy! It is a pity when someone you love tries to interfere with your gardening.

So I am in bliss when DH and I agree on most things, or agree to disagree, and then we can eat our veggies in peace, or sit on the deck relaxing, gazing happily at the lovely back yard we have made together.