My Roots in Gardening: A Family Connection Through the Soil
Everyone has their own way they were introduced to gardening. Whether you caught the bug from seeing all the beautiful, exotic plants, or you are from a line of farmers, or it was the variety of succulents that are now available in most stores.
For me, I’m not sure I can look to one specific memory. In my mid twenties, I was definitely swept away by succulents and these were some of my first personal plant investments. But my history with flowers and gardening extends much farther.
Going back in my family history, my grandmother grew up on a farm in Tennessee where they grew most of their food. They also had a successful tobacco farm. In addition, my great-grandmother was the owner of a successful Flower Shop for 50 years.
All most all of my childhood memories are centered around the Flower Shop in one way or another. My grandmother worked there alongside my great-grandmother for over 45 years. Later, my grandfather joined them at the Flower Shop—after selling the family dry cleaning business—to help with all of the deliveries.
On the weekends, my whole family could often be found at the Flower Shop just visiting, talking or helping in some regard. Each day after school, my brother and I went to the Flower Shop. After finishing my homework, I would help out by watering plants around the Shop or tending to the fresh cut flowers in the walk in cooler.
There are some things I’ll never forget like the smell of all the flowers, or the feel all the different petals. The difference in the texture between wet and dry oasis.
Oasis is the center piece in many fresh cut flower arrangements that helps the arrangement hold its shape. It also helps to keep the flowers hydrated for a longer period of time further extending the life of the flowers.
Growing up in this environment, it really puts a different focus on living things and tending to plants. I have most definitely killed my share of plants, don’t get me wrong! We all have a learning curve when it comes to plants. But it’s also about our ability to develop a way of listening to the different needs of the plants.
I have had much success in growing and tending to succulents. Their easy personalities made them easy plants for a busy new mom like me to care for. As I became a more confident gardener, I expanded my plant collection to include larger plants such as Monstera, Snake Pant, Fiddle Leaf Fig, Rubber Tree, to name only a handful.
This year is really the first year that I am branching out into starting flowers from seeds and growing vegetables. I am probably equally excited and anxious. Since I live in SWFL, it’s almost as if our gardening is on the schedule of the Southern Hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere you start your seeds inside and begin the growing season in Spring. In south Florida it is so hot in the summer that the heat kills most crops and flowers, so our growing season begins in September.
Luckily, succulents don’t have a growing season and grow amazingly well year round in Florida! The wonderful thing about succulents is they propagate very easily—they are self propagating plants.
Most succulents will produce smaller baby plants. Many succulents, when a healthy leaf falls off, will begin rooting and grow a new baby succulent. So you can imagine how easy it is to suddenly find yourself overgrown with all sorts of succulents!
This is how my start with creating succulent arrangements began. I always enjoyed re-potting my succulents, to see the growth, begin anew, but my favorite piece was rearranging all of the different succulents to create new groupings.
It connects me back to sitting on the stools in the Flower Shop, watching my great-grandmother and my grandmother going into the cooler to pick the fresh cut flowers they needed for their next arrangements. Watching them begin with nothing more than a vase, a blank canvas, and then from there begin to add flowers, building a floral arrangement that had movement and emotion.
Gardening is truly a passion that has been gifted to me from the women in my family. The soil connects us back to Mother Gaia, but the soil connects me back to all those who have connected with the soil, the flowers, the plants, with the Earth before me. I hope that you feel inspired to connect with your own gardening roots and explore starting a garden of your very own!
