Absolutely!
I desperately miss moss draped Live Oaks. I've devised a mist system to run along the branches just to be able to have some growing here!
Planting the things our parents, grandparents and great grandparents grew is pretty typical.

That's what makes pass-along plants so very special.
Wandering around the yard, admiring Jolana's iris, Kathy's frog fruit, Carol Ann's cassia...
Not to mention the raised memorial bed where Danny buried Myles. The entire thing is planted with bulbs from Texas Garden Webbers!

I'd like to have the "fancy-pants" yard of my childhood with the lush plantings, landscaped pool and thick 'barefoot' St. Augustine.
But when I think, like you, of the chemicals, labor and water guzzling...nooooo, not worth it! It would end up making me UNhappy.

We have to strike a deal with ourselves.
Figure out what we really, really must have and know what it will take to maintain that specific area.
The rest of the yard should be about what we feel is important now.
If you draw it out and it doesn't make you HAPPY, then your wasting your resources anyhow!

My philosophy: It's my garden and I can have it all!

My Mom had a yard full of flowers and plants but she didn't ever fuss over them. She was too busy with us kids and taking care of our grandmother. The yard always had pretty roses and flowers but they had to fend for themselves. lol

Maybe God helped in Mom's yard.

My mom's method of gardening was to send DB and me out to plant petunias. It turned my brother off of gardening, but I found a latent love of it when I got older. I did have a couple of my grandmother's (my Dad's side) plants - an iris and a summer phlox, but alas, they seem to have bit the dust. The phlox gave out last summer, and I'm still trying to figure that out, and get over the loss. It never got mildew or anything. But, for some reason, it all died last summer.

Well, anyway, for other reasons, PJ, I kind of know what you mean. My garden is so confused. It doesn't know what I want from it, cause I don't know, either. It's supposed to provide food and shelter for wildlife, food and herbs for me, and it's supposed to be beautiful. Well, the last part has yet to happen, but fortunately, I think it's doing okay on the first two.

Sally

Sally and PJ, a few years ago we went down to the coast and the place where we stayed was gorgeous, the gardens I mean.
When I would compliment the owner, she would say " Oh, it will be someday, it's just a hodge-podge now."
I couldn't understand why she couldn't see the beauty, lol

When I got home after being away for awhile, my gardens looked beautiful to me but before they looked like a "hodge-podge" and when my neighbor would compliment before the trip, I would always say " They will be, when I get everything put where I want it."
Sometimes maybe we don't look past the work. In the past, sometimes I would not see some of the flowers because there were weeds around them that needed to be pulled

Jac and PJ, you are wise beyond your years
Carol, your Mom had her hands full and still had pretty flowers, What a woman!
jolana

Maybe y'all's mothers were of too recent a vintage.

The chemical lawns & such were products of the post-WWII economic boom & the idea of "better living through chemistry".

Put on your long-range binoculars & look further into the past:
look beyond your mothers, to your grandmothers & your great-aunts.

They had the Texas cottage-style country gardens that we all seem to hunger for & that we now know are healthier & more sustainable.

My grandmother used all the space she could find for vegetable gardens, persimmon trees, figs, a milk cow, chickens...not to mention her dozen children!

But I think her few flowers were more prized *because* of their scarcity:
she had irises & a Seven Sisters rose that she cherished.

The first rose I ever paid money for was Seven Sisters.

("plunked" it into an available spot years ago, & it's still there, dominating a crepe myrtle even as we speak...)

& I still have the rose craving & the iris addiction!

Y'all are just complaining, because you are in texas, when you could be somewhere gardening actually is pleasant and fun.

Rick, I just left the Mojave desert. This IS easy gardening. That is if you don't count Simi Valley(VERY close to Los Angeles). There was a trade off there too BTW. Nobody in the working class can afford enough of a yard to garden very much anyway. I've noticed in places where gardening is easy the land is insanely expensive.PJ

My mother has a black thumb. Of course, it doesn't help that she always wants to have plants waaaay beyond her level of maintenance. roses...she always wants roses. But never wants to prune them, etc. She wants me to come do it! :-)

Her mom has a beautiful garden! It must have skipped a generation!

maden theshade-

this is just so easy ('cause I already know the answer, snork!)

Get her some EarthKind roses.

I went to Dr Steve George's lecture last Saturday, & that's how come I already know the answer.

He said his A&M research team did over 8 years of research to find roses that would grow, bloom, & thrive in our climate with little to no care.

We all got a hand-out naming & describing all the roses (I think there're about 25, with more on the "almost proven" list), & they're all available in the nurseries.

His instructions for care:

no pruning:
Choose the rose for the space.
If you have a fence to cover, use a climber.
If you have a small area, use a small rose.
Pruning isn't needed for shaping the plant or for bloom production on EarthKind Roses.

no fertilizer after initial bed preparation (decay of mulch from year to year provides nourishment)

no spraying; these roses are at least blackspot-resistant, but some do get a little bs, which they ignore!

almost no watering; mulch heavily, water well for the first 2 years until the rose is well-established, & then water only in severe drought.

Use own-root roses when possible:
Grafted roses have a life expectancy of about 8 years, while own-root live from 30 to 80!

Maybe tomorrow I can find the flyer & I can list the roses for you..

I do remember Belinda's Dream & Seafoam because I've grown them.

Here's a link to a list of Earth Kind roses.

Here is a link that might be useful: Earth Kind Roses

I may be straying way off the subject, but I find the earthkind list to be limiting. Yes, those are all relatively low care, but they certainly aren't the only low care roses. It's a start, I suppose.

Was I complaining? I don't know any other kind of gardening other than gardening in Texas, save for those petunias we planted when I was a kid, and that was in Oklahoma. I have seen those Victory Garden shows where they glide their shovel into a bed filled with crumbled up chocolate cake. I've always thought that was rather excentric. I mean, I would rather eat my cake than garden in it. ;-)

Sally

My mother and I go round and round about her roses. She had 200+, mostly hybrid teas.
Now she has closer to 100, mostly OGR, thanks to her DD who shovel prunes the decrepit ones while mom is at work so she won't feel guilty.
I swear, the plant can be 90% dead and she refuses to get rid of it if it still puts forth a leaf, ONE leaf.

We were at RCW last weekend and she was pointing out all kinds of hybrid teas for me to load onto the buggy.
We had the 'it's just gonna die' argument, which ended up with the hands-on-the-hips, dead-fish-stare impasse.
She won, but only bought a replacement Mr. Lincoln and a new Moon Dancer. (sigh)
Love makes us do strange things :)

PJ, this ain't easy gardening. Pay a visit to somewhwere where it rains, once in a while, and where the ground won't stick to your shoes when it rains, to boot.

The reason houses are cheaper here, is the soil destroys the foundation within 10 years, anyway, and you gotta re-build it.

There's something to be said for buildings whose cornerstones date back several hundred years.

Sally, there are probably lots of roses that could be rated as "Earth Kind" but this is the list that Texas A&M has tested and are proven to be Earth Kind. They're testing more roses right now but there are so many that it takes time.

Jac, what's RCW? You Mom is great! LOL
It's funny how you take your Mom for granted until she's gone. My Mom used to love to go plant shopping with me and I sure miss that.

My mom's mom couldn't garden. However, it passed right on to both my mom's daughters. It may be sporatic! Get her a Lady banks rose. It will take over the entire yard! LOL!
Rick not to sound like I'm bragging or anything but I have had the easiest gardening in the world. Honest. I lived in Simi Valley,CA and San Diego CA. About 6 years and I gardened in both. This includes container and in the ground.
They both have a perfect climate. They soil is perfect. The water is perfect. Watering is done once a month or so in the summer if it's real dry. Most people have sprinklers anyway.
You can grow Norfolk pine,Citrus,Stag horn ferns, Tropical Orchids and all house plants I can think of year round outside. People use Fushias as a ground cover.Tropical Hibiscus are commonly found in parking lots. Every other person has a Jacaranda tree. The city turns purple every year with it.
Down sides are money and monotony. The weather is darn near always the same. It gets a bit chilly (sweater and shoes that cover your feet instead of sandals and a tank top) but that's it. It also starts to get homogenous after awhile. "Oh look yet another tropical plant...wow..." There are no seasons at all,ever.
Yep, I like gardening in TX. Compared to Simi...impossible!
Compared to a lot of other places...it's warm and the flowers I love like warm. It's also cold enough to have an actual,if short,winter. PJ

I was about to tell you to shut up, PJ, about all that perfect gardening, but then you pointed out what's wrong with it.

Carolann, that makes perfect sense. I'm sitting here thinking duh, and slapping my forehead Stephanie Plum style.

Sally

"I was about to tell you to shut up, PJ" LOL

Yep, y'all truly are sisters now, hehehehe

PJ, Your better than I am LOL. I have no talent for decorating even a dog house let alone my house and as for my garden well it's all trial and error.
My mom garden once at our old house and she planted zinnia's, yellow honey suckle and morning glories. The honey suckle is still growing and morning glories come back every year.
My dad's parents are the ones that had a small garden when I was growing up, roses, CM's, veggies were tomatoes and hot peppers. I think that once the didn't have to garden it eat they decided not to put as much into gardening that took up so much time.
Now, I had a neighbor behind us that the man had beautiful gardens, his are the one's I call the most.
Then there was my mom's mom that could bring a die plant to life, She did have a yard of her own but was a manager for an apartment complex. She did keep up the ground to the place and it was beautiful. When she could no longer work they bought a small house and there she had two brick planters that she filled with flowering plants. I wish I had the talent so it didn't make it quite as hard for me to design a bed or picking out color schemes.
Guess I'll just be happy that I can get thing's to grow and do my happy dance like no one is looking.

I thought your garden and house were really nice Barb!
Jolana,I'd start borrowing Sally's clothes without asking (like a sister) but she lives too far away and she's too petite. Darn. I could totally fit into yours tho! Muhahahahaha!PJ

Shut up and get out of my closet, lol
You could wear my clothes for sure, but I'm putting a lock on it tonight, lol With a donkey outside the door

Oh no NOT Donkey! Does it talk like the one in Shrek?LOL!PJ

Only to me.
Did I ever tell you my last boss before I retired laughed like a donkey braying. Even if he told a joke that wasn't funny, I had to laugh because of his laugh, lol
He was the best boss I ever had tho

Anybody that laughs like an a$$ can't be bad! hee hee.

PJ, you'd be mighty sorry if you came over to borrow some clothes from me. I am definately the opposite of a clothes horse. DH has way more clothes than I do. I do need to get out and shop more, but I just hate doing that.

Going back to grandmothers, my co-worker/boss insists you have to be a grandmother to successfully grow African Violets. So, maybe this summer, after my new grandson is born, I'll go out and buy me an African violet. I gave up on them a long time ago. Now maybe it'll be easier, with a grandson and all.

Sally

p.s. Geez, it's still hard to wrap my mind around being a grandmother. My grandmother was a grandmother, not me! I'm way too young for this!

Sally

Jolana, you were talking about your former boss's laugh.
Next time you see that soup add where one girl says, "chicken noodle and it shows" listen to the laugh of the girl in the black dress. She sounds like a chicken.

LOL!You guys make me laugh every time. I sound like a lunatic here at the computer. I've heard a donkey bray laugh but I don't recall a chicken laugh! I gotta find that commercial.
Sally you LOOK too young to be a Grandma. Gardening must make folks look young or something. By the time someone starts to look grandma-like they're on their grandkid's kids!PJ

Sally, it is funny, grandmas used to look like Grandmas, now most look like aunts or big sisters, lol
Pj, maybe gardening is the answer, lol
It makes my spirit feel young but my body 90, lol

Kathy, I know I've probaly seen that commercial but will be paying attention now, LOL
That's so funny because a week or two ago, this was in an email but I didn't know what they were talking about.
My friend and I had been talking about the "Progresso Soup diet" that they seem to be hawking now, lol
This is what she said

"The tall, short-haired blonde woman at the end of the commerical, the one who's trying on a black dress in what appears to be a store, whose friend comments that the chicken noodle diet shows on her, actually squawks like a chicken!"

My ex used to make fun of my laugh. He is still a jack***. It took years before I would let myself laugh in public again.

I got even with someone who made fun of my laugh....I started laughing like Goofy. It drove them nuts. Scary part was it almost got to be a habit! I had to retrain myself to laugh somewhat normally! Sheesh! I hate it when my revenge backfires. PJ

Kathy, your ex was an a$$. Did he laugh like one, lol

PJ, revenge isn't sweet, is it?

Well.... maybe it's sweet for people who are more organized....LOL!PJ

AWWWW, Thank you PJ your so sweet to say that.
I've been watching way to much HGTV LOL.......I've got no color but want color but I'm scared of color....
I'd love to remodel the kitchen and family room to add an area to sit and eat. My kitchen has no flow SEE told YA I was watching HGTV BAHHHHAAA.
We've got way to much junk and I don't know how that happened hahaha....To many garage sales......I have sworn off of them cause I can't fit one more thing in the house, in fact I'm trying to talk DH into doing the garage sale when our HOA has it so we can get rid of all the junk I've hauled in. Don't know if I'll have much luck getting DH to let go of any of his stuff but then the last time we did a garage sale he got so excited making money he grabbed the saw horses and sold them for 10 bucks, the next time he went to change the oil in the mower he was looking for those saw horses and I had to remind him that he sold them.
DH likes to fill up any empty drawers he can find, it's free game for him to see how fast and how much he can fill it up.
The last time I emptied out the kitchen drawer so that the stuff wasn't falling or spilling out the back down into the bowls below, he filled it up within a few days so I gave up trying to keep them neat.

Jolana, I had nothing to do with his pay back except sit back and grin. His wife is a real "lovely" person. Her hand fits that ring in his nose.

LOL! natvtxn!
Hey Barb I have an idea! Use your DH's tools to cut a trash can sized square out of the bottom of those drawers. Fit a trash can under the hole....He can fill those drawers up endlessly with useless cr*p all he wants and you have a handy way to take it to the curb!LOl! PJ

Great idea PJ, Only thing is he KNOWS everything that he's put in them. I'm just waiting for the day we have to do an estate sale and the estate sale people have to sort through all that junk, poor people. If it was left to me I'd dump it in one trash bag and sale it for a few bucks LOL.

Oh my gosh, I had to look back to see what this topic was. hehehe.

Believe it or not, I had the biggest, most gorgeous african violet I've ever seen. Along with a christmas cactus. Those were my two beginning plants, and they were indoor plants. I can remember repotting them. The African Violet was in about a 12" pot. I think the Xmas Cactus was the same, I can't remember. Both of them were much larger than they were supposed to be when they were happiest.

PJ, I have discovered that my housekeeping is on the level of your gardening. Perhaps. Whatever it is, it's ungood.