New to gardening? Don’t be daunted

THERE IS NOT a time I can recall when I didn’t have some interest in gardening. The roots of my obsession began in my grandparents’ homes when I was a small child. My DeLong grandparents had a family farm, and grew many of their own foods—including every vegetable imaginable, plus strawberries, apples and sugar maples.

My Chisholm grandparents had a town lot vegetable garden, but it was my Nannie’s flowers—poppies, lupines, Johnny-Jump-Ups—that imprinted on my young inquisitive heart and remain favourites to this day.

Wild plants, herbs, crops, flowers and houseplants from rubber trees to living stones—if they could be grown, I tried to grow them. Gardening has helped sustain me through illness and heartbreak, and continues to be both an avocation and a profession for me. I consider myself a gardening cheerleader.

I’ve discovered, though, that some young people are daunted by the idea of gardening or landscaping. Some are afraid of “doing it wrong,” or of having their plants die. Some see it as another chore in a life full of essential to-dos, or fear it will be too expensive.

The reality is that anyone can have a terrific garden without spending hours and hours, and without spending a fortune. Whether you are dealing with an existing garden or facing the exciting blank canvas of a new yard, it is possible for you to get growing and beautifying the space around you.

A new generation of gardeners

Cathy Oulton, 35, grew up on a farm outside Berwick, NS. Her parents, Paul and Nancy Grimm, developed Springvale Nurseries—a tree and shrub nursery—after their dairy operation was destroyed by fire.

Cathy credits her parents with having influenced and cultivated her passion for gardening. “There is no end to the things you can learn and discover with plants,” she says. “Initially, I was most interested in tree and shrub propagation and pruning, then in perennial production.”

She and her husband, Dan, now operate Bloom Green and Garden Centre in Hammonds Plains, NS, where they take special delight in helping families and kids discover gardening as a fun and interesting activity with great health benefits.

Jennifer Ukrainetz, 29, of Little Ridge, NB, took an interest in gardening in her late teens, when she moved to New Brunswick from Vancouver Island to live with her father. She got hooked on fresh fruits and vegetables—and on gardening—and her father encouraged her to apply for a job as plant propagator at Kingsbrae Garden in St. Andrews, NB.

Although she had no commercial gardening experience, she was hired to work at Kingsbrae, and stayed for several years, until she started a family. She maintained Kingsbrae Garden’s blog for some time and is now helping to develop their social media presence.

Marguerite Atchison, 36, hails originally from British Columbia, but in 2009 she and her husband relocated to Canoe Cove, PEI, where the dream of owning their own home and garden was much more affordable. Their farmhouse stands on three acres of land, which Marguerite and her husband have been developing in their spare time.

Marguerite’s first garden influence was her mother, who had been raised on a Saskatchewan farm. “Working in the soil was a way of life for her,” Marguerite says. She remembers that her family moved to a house where her mother tore out half of the lawn to create a vegetable garden. “As kids, our chores included sowing seeds, weeding and hilling potatoes,” she recalls. “Plants subconsciously became a part of my life, so, when I was on my own, I was naturally inclined to plant my own garden.”

After she moved to PEI, Marguerite began a blog (canoecorner.blogspot.ca) where she has chronicled both her gardening experiences and her life in her new community. “I have met a lot of other gardeners [online] who have made great suggestions and helped me learn about gardening in the Maritime climate,” she says.

Michael Weir, 28, became interested in gardening in his early teens, although he says the only plants his family had at that time were a few houseplants. “I’m told I inherited my love of gardening from my great grandfather,” he says. “He was a dairy farmer who grew fields of vegetables and multiple flower beds. I love the cool feel of soil in my hands.”

Mike turned his hobby into a profession when his wife convinced him to study horticulture at the Nova Scotia Community College in Kentville. It took some convincing, because he didn’t want to make a job out of something he loved, for fear that he wouldn’t enjoy it anymore. But not to worry: he’s now the residential horticulturist and supervisor for seasonal operations at Scotian Gold Co-operative Ltd. in Coldbrook, NS, where he manages the greenhouses and garden centre.

Leading by example

One thing you may notice about all of these young gardeners is that family members influenced them while they were just children. That doesn’t mean that people who come from non-gardening families can’t start gardening. Nursery operators around the region meet many young people who are making forays into gardening—often because they want to grow some of their own foods.

Mike Weir sees a surprising number of pre-teens and teenagers at the garden centre, and says he always makes time for young customers “because they are the future of gardening.” His own nine-year-old daughter has the gardening bug, and when they work on projects together, he teaches her about the biology behind the planting processes.

Cathy Oulton, who works in an ever-growing urban community, is pleasantly surprised by the number of young would-be gardeners, including children, who visit the nursery. She runs regular workshops at Bloom, and offers projects designed to inspire children to get growing. Cathy and her husband Dan have two children: Wesley, 6 and Laura, 3. Of her family’s involvement, Cathy says, “Fortunately, our family members all enjoy gardening. That’s a good thing, because they don’t really have a choice if they want to see me during the busy season! We’ve always encouraged our kids to be part of our business.”

The home Jennifer Ukrainetz shares with her family is not yet landscaped, which has been frustrating for her because it means she can’t plant anything in the ground. Two years ago, her fiancé built her a raised bed so she could have a salad garden, and she also does container gardening.

Jennifer modestly says she’s still learning and can’t classify herself as a gardener yet, but she is taking on a plot in a local community garden this spring, in addition to helping her father on his property. She gleefully says that she has “planted an interest” in her son, Ethan, 3, who likes to help as she putters in the dirt.

Marguerite says she likes to lead by example when it comes to encouraging others to begin gardening.

“Rather than tell people why they should garden, I may drop by a co-worker’s office with a bag of fresh tomatoes and a vase full of fresh flowers. That usually makes people curious about what I’m up to, and conversations start from there.”

Now that we’ve inspired you to start gardening, we’ll look, in the next issue of Saltscapes, at the nuts and bolts of starting a garden from scratch—or of renovating an existing garden to suit your own tastes.