Why no love of gardens among mainstream Southerners?...
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Yes, I've been to the new Dali , as well as the Ringling estate and its fabulous museum, theres an example of wonderful ornamental gardens.
As far as ornamental gardens, you're right, any older residential community is stuffed full of them, they're all over the state.
I can think of a dozen wonderful examples within a 5 mile radius of me.
Which leads me to ask where you're from, as the idea of ornamental gardens can vary greatly from location to location.
Sherwood forest! Sigh, why is it that nobody reads my profile. LOL
Actually I'm in northern MD.
I googled "Garden" and picked some images that I would consider ornamental gardens:
(Not that my yard looks anything like these. It's still a work in process. But of course,when I bought the house there were mostly just a couple of trees and the foundation plantings.)
http://www.redwoodhollow-lajolla.com/images/garden.jpg (broken link) http://www.countryliving.com/cm/coun...N013BDG-de.jpg http://home-and-gardening.info/wp-co...ont-garden.jpg
Normally what I've seen are some plants around the house and maybe a tree or two in the yard.
That's what I thought too; but then again, we went through many places in the larger state of Georgia as well as Alabama and a bit of Tennessee- and I don't see much difference from your typical Atlanta suburb in the way of "flowers surrounding the house".
It must be the hot weather after all and people's disinclination to be outside and fuss over flower pots or what have you, when you deal with 90+ temperatures and high humidity. After all, I myself only tried flowers on the balcony only once when we were there and we managed to kill them in two weeks top. Never tried anything else ever since.
It is still early in the year, my Butterfly bushes are neatly trimmed back to about 7 feet tall, my crepe myrtles are just starting to turn green, my roses are showing growth, azaleas and rhododendron are starting to bud out, daffodils are up but not yet flowering and a half dozen dogwood trees are in full bloom. I have half a row of onions, in the ground, half a row of brussel sprouts, and another of broccoli and another of head cabbage. Yellow squash, zucchini, and butternut squash are above ground so is my red lettuce, romaine lettuce and buttercrunch lettuce, I have 25 celebrity tomato plants I started from seed, a half dozen each of "black prince" and "cherokee purple", and a half dozen "better boys", these should keep me safely in tomato sandwiches for at least 4 months (and the people at southern states, the folks at my bank, neighbors, and my hunting and fishing buddies). I also trade various produce items at my local meat market in, an exchange of goods, type thing. Yeah.....it's a shame people in the south don't know how to garden.
OH, ALMOST FORGOT, NCAA Tourney time....." GO HEELS!!!!" for those who do not know, Basketball is almost the State Sanctioned Religion of N. Carolina.
DUKE has been beaten, God is in his heaven and all is right with the world!!
Last edited by Dusty Rhodes; 03-26-2011 at 02:22 PM..
I've been to Florida as a visitor and on home-buying trips. Pretty much all over the state: Miami, Tampa, Places in Northern Florida (I can't remember the names, but there were lots of trailers...not much landscaping. We did go to visit friends who lived in a subdivision. You got me pegged for a vacationer, because we went mainly for the canoeing and the awesome clear springs.), Sanibel Island, Cape Canaveral, Dunedin, Orlando, Key Biscayne, Cape Coral, Ft Lauderdale... Pretty much all over your luscious and beautiful state. Maybe I wasn't in very old residential areas?
Which reminds me you're in Florida. Have you seen the new Salvador Dali Museum? I'm a BIG fan of his, and I visited the Espace Dali in Paris and the US-based museum in Ft. Lauderdale many years ago. Although it was not fancy, I loved it. Dali's a genius. Apparently the new one is more modern and avant garde.
But back on topic, where in Florida can I see residential neighborhoods with gardens?
I was not a big fan of Dali until I went to that museum. He was such a magnificent painter. Too bad the last wife and he started to rip off the public towards the end of his life. It tainted his whole career.
I would agree with OP, for one reason or another Gardening is not an American thing. I've been driving all 48 and, on the average, flower and/or vegetable gardens are exceptions inviting intense stare. Cookie cutter Atlanta burb or a dilapidated Kentucky trailer park whose residents could improve their diets immeasurably, gardens are exceptions. Frequently, you look at this perfectly farmable, perfectly gardenable plot of land surrounding a home, your hands start itching to plant something, and all you can see is grass and a couple of trees, maybe a shrub or two. That's it. Uninterrupted greenery of grass and leaves may even get on your nerves some days. Grass moving, yup, that's a national obsession bordering insanity.
Wow, what an amazing post. You must have driven hundreds of thousands of miles to visit every house in every state, to generalize about gardening in America.
A Kentucky trailer park and their residents improving their diets, you know this how? OK, so not everyone wants to plant a garden, this means their diet isn't good?
I lived in a "trailer" for 30 yrs., a strict park, actually 1,200 sq. ft. so hardly a "trailer" and not allowed to dig up and plant a garden. We had community plots in a separate area provided for us. My house looked plain, aside from hostas, pentunias, geraniums, iris, but my garden area was awesome!
I'm sorry but generalizations bug the heck out of me! I've visited at least 42 of the 50 and would never, ever say I know everything about every state and I certainly didn't see every house/yard!
Wow, what an amazing post. You must have driven hundreds of thousands of miles to visit every house in every state, to generalize about gardening in America.
A Kentucky trailer park and their residents improving their diets, you know this how? OK, so not everyone wants to plant a garden, this means their diet isn't good?
I lived in a "trailer" for 30 yrs., a strict park, actually 1,200 sq. ft. so hardly a "trailer" and not allowed to dig up and plant a garden. We had community plots in a separate area provided for us. My house looked plain, aside from hostas, pentunias, geraniums, iris, but my garden area was awesome!
I'm sorry but generalizations bug the heck out of me! I've visited at least 42 of the 50 and would never, ever say I know everything about every state and I certainly didn't see every house/yard!
Don't be upset, my cousins lived in a trailer park in one of the most affluent areas in the US when I was growing up. LOL I didn't know the area was affluent, or that the trailer wasn't a house until years later.
They had chickens living under the trailer, too. THATS my family.
But on topic, I spoke to someone this weekend and we sorta discussed this topic. She said that the reasons Americans love lawns is that generations ago, it was a sign of wealth to have a big, grass-covered lawn.
Supposedly it indicated that the family didn't have to grow it's own produce. I'm still going to agree with the OP and contend that gardens are few and far between in much of the good old US of A.
I looked through the For Sale ads in MD (my loveleh state) and still the vast majority of the houses, regardless of price appear to sit on vast expanses of lawn with maybe a lonely little island of "garden" here and there.
Wow, what an amazing post. You must have driven hundreds of thousands of miles to visit every house in every state, to generalize about gardening in America.
Yup, you got that right, I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles, 1 million of miles is not that far away. I feel I have enough of first hand "data points" to generalize about general scarcity of gardens.
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A Kentucky trailer park and their residents improving their diets, you know this how? OK, so not everyone wants to plant a garden, this means their diet isn't good?
I don't want to be insulting or something, it's not like I'm above those people or much better income wise, but you really can see who is poorest of the poorest in Wal-Mart and you can "generalize" about the food they buy, and nope, it's not vegetables or something overly "healthy" ("healthy" by grocery store standards of course). On occasion I train some guys from trailer park strata of society, 100% they all are kinda low on cash (low is not the right word, penniless is much better), I pay for meals and watch what they eat, so far very few fouled their plates with vegetables. It's hard to believe that they would grow some. It's meat, meat, more meat, deep fried chicken, maybe little bit of mash potatoes. Of course, I don't have enough of data point to generalize on this one. They say statistics begin from 33 data points and up.
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I'm sorry but generalizations bug the heck out of me! I've visited at least 42 of the 50 and would never, ever say I know everything about every state and I certainly didn't see every house/yard!
I don't feel I can generalize about dietary preference of the poor, but I do feel that I have more than enough of data points in all 48 states to say that gardening is NOT an American thing.
First of all there are plenty of gorgeous garden yards and areas in Florida. Go to Bok Tower if you are clueless.
Second, consider Florida's conditions - Drought, monsoon like rains, scorching heat, freezes, sand rather than soil, limestone, crazy ph, salt. Many ports bringing in disease. Now try to grow tulips. Not easy. You will not see the same flowers in Florida very often as you see in the north. Nor will you in Phoenix.
I'd say the smart gardeners pay attention to what will grow in their particular micro-climate, or are going to extraordinary lengths to create a place for something that normally would not grow to thrive.
The best thing to water your grass with is Roundup!
Yup, you got that right, I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles, 1 million of miles is not that far away. I feel I have enough of first hand "data points" to generalize about general scarcity of gardens.
...
but I do feel that I have more than enough of data points in all 48 states to say that gardening is NOT an American thing.
It seems people are getting butthurt over the generalizations about gardens. LOL But really, don't take it personally. There are downsides to lush gardens, too. The house may attract more rats and mice because of the foliage. A lot of shrubs may also be good hiding places for kidnappers and burglars. ;D But despite the drawbacks, I still think a lovely garden is wonderful. And with the advent of the internet, it's a lot easier to find plants that will grow in a particular soil and climate.
Maybe that's another part of the phenomena. In the US a lot of people move to different states in their lifetimes. I guess if you moved to Florida for instance, there's a learning curve when it comes to figuring out what will grow in your area. We've all made costly gardening mistakes (points at self), and I bet some people simply give up after a couple of plants die...blaming themselves for not having a "green thumb."
Actually, I'm curious about the "droughts" in the south. I guess if you couldn't water during the summer a lot of plants would die off. I didn't realize that the water shortages were that bad.
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