Corax_Vox on gardening

Ever since I was little, I had very fond memories of my mother and father’s gardens.

I’m from Northern Illinois, a fairly large city. My parents gardens were award winning. I don’t mean that as a figure of speech either -- my parents actually won city awards for their landscaping. My dad always had a fantastic garden as well and we were always stuck eating a ton of squash, zucchini, and broccoli after the harvests.

The thing I will never forget is the flowers. My mom loved the climbing morning glories, tall crimson canna lily, and marigolds leading up to the house’s main steps. Living in Northern Illionis, we had very hard long winters, with a lot of snowfall. I always thought my folks were a little mad, digging up over 15,000 square feet of flowers to bring them inside, tucked safely into garbage bags to sleep the winter away in the basement.

It wasn’t until recently that I, myself, picked up the gardening bug. I’ve always had a bit of a brown thumb. The only thing I’ve ever managed to keep alive was a cactus, and that was because to keep it alive you basically need to forget it exists. Then, when you’re dusting one day, you find it and go “Oh! I need to water this!” and pour a bit of water in until the next time you spring clean.

When I got married, I married a man who adores gardening. He grew up in the woods, with a mother who believed in helping reclaim natural areas. He began to show me how to actually grow things.

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