Hello from Vicki in California

Hi everyone! I’ve known about Dave’s Garden for awhile now. Google searches for plant info and pics keep leading me here. I kept thinking about joining the group, but was addicted to the GW. Then when there was a recent shake up at the Garden Party Forum quite a few people left the GW this week, and I couldn’t fathom losing my friends, so here I am. I’m ready to keep chatting with old friends, and hoping to make a few new ones. Now I just have to find time to post at three different sites, plus keep up with my garden, family, and other interests.

Here is my gardening story:

I grew up in Wisconsin and have memories of my mother’s vegetable gardens and the grueling work of weeding under the blazing hot sun. For years afterwards, I wanted nothing to do with gardening.

Now I live in California about 30 miles east of San Francisco, and I’ve changed my tune. We have a typical suburban lot, but our property backs up to a seldom used community open space, so we don’t have the claustrophobic feeling of being surrounded by fences and houses on all sides. Last year we put in a swimming pool, and while the excavators were in the back yard, I told them to rip out everything except the trees (gotta love those coastal redwoods!). It was the perfect opportunity to get rid of the so-called low maintenance, very boring landscaping that had been planted by the previous owners. So, out went all of the overgrown juniper bushes and non-flowering green stuff. With just a few swipes of a backhoe, that nondescript landscaping is now history - yippee!

I now have a cottage garden of sorts, although I grow whatever strikes my fancy and grows well in our clay soil and climate. I've added raised planter boxes with good soil for the more delicate plants. I grow mostly flowering plants, quite few roses, and a few herbs. There’s not a vegetable in sight – I guess I still haven’t gotten over my childhood memories of spending endless hours weeding my mother’s vegetable garden! Besides, my yard is rather small, and I am unwilling to give up any precious space to plants that are not drop-dead gorgeous. I’ve been learning, having fun, and am quite pleased with the results. I’ve battled gophers, and made the mistake of planting things too close (thought I knew more than the garden books about how much things would spread), but other than that, I’m having a grand time. This year my focus is my back yard and one of the side yards. Next year I’ll attack the front and other side yard.

Besides gardening, I’m president of my kids’ fan clubs (girl age 10, boy age 14), and married to my best friend. We have 4 cats (Siamese, exotic shorthair, oriental shorthair) and a dog (sheltie). I also love to cook and share recipes.

Now that I’ve taken up more than my fair share of server space with this long post, let me know who you are!

welcome to the best garden site around,we all are really glad to have you join us. Im a mom to 5 of the greatest boyz alive ages 22-4! I have several gardens that keep me busy too. I hope you and yur friends find this place friendly and infomative.
have fun
dori

hey Vicki,,I also knew it was here but well too be honest had only been to the trade lists,,I have traded with at least 2 dozen people on them ,,hope we have a nice place to chat here

Welcome Vicki to Dave's Garden and glad ya found us.Looking forward to your posts. From the Sunflower State,Sis'

Welcome, Vicki! Glad to have you here......hmmmm, so you're familiar with DG by way of our plants database? Perhaps we have a new database contributor in the making???? We love new additions to it, so when you get a spare moment, browse around and plug any holes you see fit :)

Thanks for the welcome, everyone. You can bet I'll make a few contributions to the plant database, Go_Vols. I'll just have to spend a little more time looking it over and figure out how to post pics here. So far, the DG site seems pretty easy to navigate, so I'm sure I'll figure it out. :-)

Hi, Vicki, I'm just wandering around looking at everything and trying to get oriented here. I agree with the part about growing flowers vs food. I love homegrown tomatoes, but veggies require more devotion and nurturing than I have left over after the posies. I had several years of great kitchen gardens, but it was so hard, and then the elements were likely to wipe it all out or burn it to a crisp. So I decided to stick to flowers. After all, I can buy tomatoes on the side of the road. Someone will always provide enough food if I need it, but they might not realize how much I need flowers in my life. I'm glad to see people like you here to validate me.

But but but geez I have both flowers and veges,,never really noticed any differnce in their growingin or fussing needs,,ok so hubs likes to handle the vege garden but he is not around most of the summer to do it so the veges have no choice they get treated the same as the flowers,,but well honestly I have a very large vege garden that I do use for canning and freezing to cut down the cost of my grocery bill ,,,

hi vicki_ca...so ve meet again, eh??? seems the party has jumped all over the cyber-yard. like a single peppermint plant, so docile by itself, and yet.....

see ya 'round!

Hi Vicki_CA,
You'll love Dave's Garden site...it's the best!
Welcome from The Great Lakes State,
Oscarsdotter :-)