A gardener stereotype, apparently

I think your twitter 'conversant' is being sterotypical and using her /his choice of words to comply with their own personal view, I guess we all do that on occasions.

Perhaps you could point him/her toward the stereotypical entrants to say The Chelsea Flower Show and it is quite evident if he/she took the time to view he/she will see for herself/himself the entrants are certainly not 'confused and middle aged', quite the opposite.

Although come to think of it I am

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That's lovely pamgran

Gardening is the slowest and most rewarding of the performing arts!

That is a lovely and inspirational story pamgran.

I am an old gardener. Started as a child ,during the war, ' Digging for Victory' with my Mum, my DH had done the same and when we married in 1955 the first thing we worked on was the garden. 33 years later, we had four allotment plots as well as the garden and had fed four children ( who were now independent). DH was made redundant, could not find work, so we upped to the country and bought a 20 acre smallholding and grew vegetables, salads, and soft fruits for sale to private people, local shops and the WI Market and Farmers Markets.
We continued until age and ill-health put an end to our venture. My DH died but I still garden. The retirement flat I now occupy is in a 5-acre site with allotments, one of which I have been cultivating for the last six years. Unfortunately , I have suffered mini-strokes and my balance and bending are not so good and I do need some help now. But I can still organize the seeds, and plants, the sowing and planting, and I can wield a hoe to eradicate the pesky weeds.
Enjoy your garden!

I have just come in after an hour and half in the garden, which is about as much as I can do if it involves pulling up stinging nettles and unwanted weeds, and because I have been sensible, and stopped when I got a bit doddery, I feel really fine, and quite happy with what I have done. Not at all organised, but a good old potter and talking to the plants - a definite "thank you" to the daffodils who have served me well this year. That is my kind of gardening - wish I could do more.

First time for me - I love the blogs.
Just to concur with J42 and juggernaut. Being busy in a garden, I find to be a time to 'switch off' from latest worries and stresses. I'm not sure what I think about, but I'm always surprised at how much I've enjoyed being 'out there'

My youngest DD and her H love getting out into the garden. DD is an early years leader and encourages her young charges to get out and plant in the school garden area and also grow stuff indoors to start off. My DD, DH,DSIL and myself spent several hours perusing catalogues deciding what to order for the gardens and hanging baskets.
It's stress busting and watching the changes in the garden is wonderful. I enjoy pottering and observing the wildlife in our garden.

Our organic raised beds have all had their topcoat of compost and are ready to go. The spuds are in under straw (only two beds this year as we are low-carb eaters). The first seedlings are in heated propagators in the potting-shed. We are still waiting for it to warm up a bit here and it is dank and cold today. We have only managed one aperitif on the terrace / barbecue since we got back from our winter holiday in Spain in January.
I did get seduced by a magnificent Crown Imperial in the market today.

Mamie - yes by l'heure de l'aperitif!! by then we are exhausted! Last year was great as I had a hip replacement in May so spent the summer resting by the pool, reading books and lots of swimming plus red wine - all under the instruction of my surgeon! Even lost weight and got really fit, so had the odd sortie to go horse riding! By September I was back to walking 2 hours a day.

The garden now calls - full of spring flowers but I can see the weeds!! Also time to plant and sow in the potager. Couldn't bear to leave.

I have never had a garden of my own until I moved to New Zealand – only patios and courtyards in the middle of a city or town, all of which I stocked with masses of pots. Mind you, even this one isn't really mine as I am currently renting. It is somewhat larger than I can easily manage but even a session of weeding leaves me with a wonderful sense of satisfaction, as well as an aching back and crunchy knees. I am also hugely proud of the rockery I constructed and planted earlier this year. I am approaching 66 so middle age would, I think, be something of a misnomer.

My grandchildren, apart from the baby who just eats leaves and grass (as opposed to eats shoots and leaves) when given half a chance, love to help with weeding and planting. As they range in age from four to 12, they don't count as middle aged either.

My son-in-law and absentdaughter are in their thirties, so are approaching middle age but not quite there yet. They are not mad keen gardeners but moved into a lovely newly built house nearly three years ago and have created a delightful garden from scratch with plenty of lawns for the children to play, trees and shrubs for shade and carefully positioned flower beds. There is also a special place where family pets who have died have been buried, each with its own shrub to mark the spot. They have plans to build a raised vegetable bed. The only pest is Abbie, a dog my daughter describes as a labragoat, who has been known to massacre seedling trees in seconds flat.

None of us is actually middle aged and I don't think we are confused either.

Sounds fabulous annifrance. Ours was just half an acre of lawn, twelve years ago. We now have 42 raised beds for vegetables and soft fruit, fruit trees, a rose garden, climbers over all the stone buildings and two terraces with dining areas, plus a private garden for the guest cottage. As we are in Normandy our trees are pears, apples, plums and quince. Keep trying to persuade OH that a water feature would be nice.
Our neighbours are very taken with the raised beds, especially the potatoes under straw. We also swap seedlings so last year they all got leftover Italian serpenti plants. Weird snake-shaped things appeared all over the village!
Do you ever have time to sit on the terrace though?
I am sure we ought to be sensible and downsize, but I couldn't bear to leave it....

We`re very much into our primary school gardening club - with the help of two other grans- we have an after school session for an hour once a week and the group of children ( age range 5 to 10 years) absolutely love it. They are all so keen to dig, weed, plant and maintain the quite large area of garden and Wild Life area that time seems to go too quickly. We`ve encouraged them to identify vegetables and flowers and their reward is taking home some of the produce they`ve grown, they are very proud of their achievements . We are working with RHS Campaign for School Gardening and have been successful in reaching Level 3 which is great . The children are all very excited at the moment as we are waiting to receive our Rocket seeds that have been on the ISS with Tim Peake , this is part of a RHS experiment to see if seeds from space that have been in microgravity will grow now they are back on Earth.
It`s so rewarding for us grans and granddad who give our time voluntarily that these children are learning valuable skills about how their food grows. If you`re keen gardeners with a few hours to spare why not check out your local schools to see if they need help...so rewarding .

I love your fritillaries Nelliemoser. They're some of my favourites but alas, they don't do very well in our garden

I am not organised as a gardener or anything else. But I love my flowers and have clear favourites I admire and greet them when they come up every year. Like my lovely fritillaries.

There is quite a lot of evidence that being outdoors makes you feel good.

I have to have a contract gardener, and he comes round once a week in the summer to cut the grass, pull out my plants and leave the weeds. In winter he still calls for his money. I asked him why I have to still pay him in the winter when he doesn't come at all? 'Because you're on a contact', was his reply.

Doesn't seem at all confused to me!!

I help with a school garden and the children love growing vegetables and flowers so are they young and confused?
So what does one call "a young unconfused gardener"?

If some conversants start trying to stereotype gardeners (or indeed anyone) then it could put off young not-confused would-be gardeners.
Playgroup and school share a garden where they grow flowers and vegetables and have a very scary scarecrow. A kindly older non-confused gardener goes into school and playgroup and encourages and enthuses them all.

I can't claim to be a gardener although, since retiring early from farming, H has become a professional gardener & thoroughly enjoys it. He's in his 60s & I've never heard him say 'pesky' & he's not easily confused! Our daughter's 32 & she was born a gardener, always had her own patch as a child & now has a delightful garden which she works in as often as possible- her husband is only allowed to mow the lawn! She is the most organised person I've ever met & actually organises for a living.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201604/medium-568308-1-img-1029.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201604/medium-405242-1-img-1038.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201604/medium-61272-1-img-1033.jpg

I garden because I love propagating and trying new things - at the moment I'm designing a new shady area beside my garage... and trying to use some plants I already have propagated to save me some money... I find gardening therapeutic and it also gives me my "sunshine hours" .

I help with a school garden and the children love growing vegetables and flowers so are they young and confused?

Oh Mamie do we not live the idyllic life here in rural France? I have always loved having a garden and my last garden in English village I developed into something quite spectacular. It was quite small and a mess when I bought the house. By the time we left it had a small Mediterranean courtyard, up steps into a lawn area with English cottage borders, a Japanese terrace, then an Italian part. the buyer said she hoped she could keep up the standard!

Here in France we bought 5 acres of wild field. Eleven years later about half of that is now either an extensive vegetable garden, orchard (still work in progress), a large pool set in lawns with a wisteria covered pergola, lots of areas with shrubs and beds and our own private sunken lawn with a pond and surrounded by a spectacular rockery and shaded by a large walnut tree and fig trees, roses everywhere, a small lake with wild flower area around it, a terrace under another walnut tree with dry stone walls - perfect for aperitifs, three built in barbecues here and there, and a pretty gite garden.

We have had endless pleasure creating it. Hard work but oh how we enjoy it now. It is much admired and will be part of the Open Gardens scheme in France this year.

And give him lots of encouragement.

You call him a little sweetie.

So what does one call "a young unconfused gardener"?

My 2yr old GS loves digging and planting in the garden. He pushes his toy lawnmower round when we cut the lawn.

He also grew wild flowers last year at nursery.

We are already planning to grow peas, strawberries etc with all GC helping.
I will definitely tell them about Pesky weeds.

I have got to add though, that I do on occasion cut my DDs lawn and shrubs as she is not too keen on that bit of gardening, she prefers the pretty flower type better!