I think I've gotten bit by the gardening bug. →[More:]Despite coming from a farming family on both sides, growing up on a farm, having a former farmer as a dad and a mother who is quite into her garden, I never was interested in gardening. Then I bought Swan’s End, with its little front garden and backyard that was mostly a garden – or rather, was supposed to be a garden, though after decades of neglect it was more of a dustbowl with a few discouraged weeds in it.

I wanted my property to look nice, so I took up the flagstones that covered most of the front garden and planted rose bushes and daisies. In the backyard I’ve planted strawberries, raspberries, cucumbers, rhubarb, lavender, basil, and an assortment of flowering plants and bushes. There’s a six-foot wild rose bush that was in the front garden when I moved in and which I transplanted to the back yard, a hydrangea, iris, several hyacinth, Johnny Jump-ups, a shamrock, tulips, a primrose, and four or five other things I can’t remember at the moment.

My mother brought me clumps from different plants in her garden and planted them in my backyard last summer to get me started. The hydrangea bush and some bags of sheep manure were her birthday gift to me last summer. (As she put it, "I gave [Orangie] shit for her birthday! Heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee!") My dad wanted me to take some of a black currant bush that was originally his grandmother’s and has been in the family for 120 years, but I don’t really care for black currants.

I’ve put up a birdbath, I’m building a garden path out of broken flagstones, I aspire to a garden bench and a composter. I’m poring over my copy of Growing Roses in Canada for Dummies. I’ve gone to Canada Blooms. I’ve got a long-range plan of how I want the garden to look, though it will take a few years before it gets there. And I’m watching eagerly for signs of growth. I have to admit it’s all very interesting and rewarding. And I can’t wait until my rosebushes start to bloom and I can eat some of my own fresh strawberries.