More clues that you might be a Gardening Geek.
You might be a gardening geek if…
11. You are tempted to pet the bees that cling drunkenly to the flowers in late summer. Bonus points if you actually have petted them.
12. You have more pictures of plants than you do of your children (Mr. McGregor’s Daughter). Bonus points if you have a garden journal with plant pictures pasted in it but the pictures of your kids are all in a shoebox. (Wait, maybe you should deduct a point for that, just on principle.)
13. Your favorite books are about other people’s gardens (Leslie). Bonus points if you own more than three garden essay books. More bonus points if you have a bookcase with only gardening books in it. (Lisa at Greenbow) Triple bonus points if when family members have old gardening books to get rid of, they think first of giving them to you. (Kathy)
14. Your idea of fun is spending over an hour at a time reading the blogs of other gardeners. (Layanee) Bonus points if you have your own garden blog. (Heather)
15. Your Organic Gardening magazines are all falling apart because you are constantly reading them. (Curtis) Bonus points if you subscribe to 3 or more gardening magazines. (Alyssa)
16. You spend a lot of time just looking at your garden. (LostRoses) Bonus points if you have more than three sitting areas in your garden.
17. You spend the weekend catching up on garden work instead of relaxing. (Robin(BumbleBee)) Bonus points if your family activities are planned around your gardening time. (Sister with the Homestead)
18. Your personal email address contains words like “geek”, “garden”, “gardener”. (Kylee) Bonus points if you have more than one such email address.
19. You can’t resist deadheading or weeding “just a little bit” as you walk to and from your house to your car. (Rosemarie) Bonus points if you take the long way to give yourself more of a chance to weed or deadhead.
20. You write poems and songs about your garden and have recordings of them on YouTube. (Annie). Bonus points if you have more than one song written and recorded.
21. You buy plants that you know you don’t have room to plant, ignoring that little voice in your head that says “You don’t have any place to plant that.” Bonus points if you have created a “holding nursery” in your garden to keep these plants alive until you dig up a new bed to plant them.
22. Your DVD collection includes Saving Grace, Greenfingers, and any version of The Secret Garden. Bonus points if you also have Gardens of the World with Audrey Hepburn. Double bonus points if you have Secrets of the Rose Gardener – The Art of Rose Gardening on DVD
23. You start so many seeds under lights in your living room in the winter that the brightness interferes with watching TV in the same room. Bonus points if you save your own seeds.
24. Your nephew blurts out “a hoe” when he overhears you say to his mother “guess what I bought this weekend.” Bonus points if you actually did buy a hoe.
25. You grow vegetables in your garden that you don’t really like, just to grow them. Bonus points if they are decorative, too.
Done. I’m busted. I’m a gardening geek. So are many of you who left comments with more signs and clues. There are 25 clues between the first post and this one. Thank you all!
Were we born to be gardening geeks or was it something in our environment? While you all ponder that, I need to go harvest those peppers and give them to others, because I don’t like them myself. But aren’t they pretty this time of year?
You’re killing me I am laughing so hard!
Good follow up to the first post.
Definitely even more geekiness in me than I thought there was. I think I was born this way, which would explain why I sat on my butt in wet grass watching the monarch emerge this morning–and refuse to weed or deadhead or otherwise tidy the back borders for fear of disturbing those still in chrysalis!
How ’bout this one: Your husband gives you a $400.
spa gift certificate and you cash it in to buy plants.
I don’t call my blog Gardener’s Anonymous for nothin’.
BTW, I got 24 out of 25.
Great Post.
Bonus Points to #19: If you have actually ruined any item that could be classified as your “good work clothes,” or if you have looked down at your hands during an important meeting and realized that you have dirty fingernails and/or stained hands from your on-the-way-to-the-car morning deadheading session, give yourself an extra point. (Two if both apply!)
Number 24 is too adorable – if the next generation of your family turn out to be garden geeks Aunt Carol may deserve much of the credit [notice that I said CREDIT not BLAME!]
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I embrace my garden geekiness!!! And this post did nothing more than firmly confirm that I am indeed a garden geek of the best kind. GO G-GEEKS!!!
Score on # 11 (& most others too). My husband always teases me about petting the bees. Actually, this is quite fun realizing how many of us do these things. I look at my dirty hands & torn nails at work (even after trying to clean them) and think no one lets themselves get in this position. Yeah for company!
I am guilty of having a bookshelf entirely devoted to garden books, as well as several of your other points. What can I say? Gardening rocks!
I agree, Gardening does Rock! I am guilty of being a gardening geek. Where’s my sign, I will gladly wear it. 🙂
Ha! That’s hilarious! I was definitely not born a plant geek. I didn’t have a garden till I was 26 years old.
I think that the word ‘geek’ is something that I ran from my entire childhood and embrace as an adult – these are hilarious (and all too familiar).
Glad that you got some rain. We’re terrible dry again. Ugh.
Yay, I got a point (#16)! And I do actually have a bookcase devoted entirely to garden books. But I probably get that point subtracted because I sold years of back issues of Fine Gardening on eBay.
Katie… And I bet you are starting to recognize yourself in some of these signs…
Jodi… That’s another sign I didn’t include, “you are willing to sit in wet grass to see something wonderful up close.”
Chigiy… Your husband should just learn to give you a gift certificate to buy plants!
Blackswamp_Girl… Definitely bonus points for getting good clothes ‘accidently’ dirty from ‘accidental’ gardening.
Annie in Austin… There are a few ‘next generation’ gardeners in the family, we hope. After all, someone has to inherit the hoe collection, intact, some day, a long time from now!
Kylee… Good for you! I think we all would not trade our gardening geekiness in for anything else.
Petunia’s Gardener… we are in Great company.
Connie… Yes, gardening rocks!
Curtis… Yes, we should wear signs, but I think most people would just look at our hands and know.
Sara tambascio… So you believe in the theory that gardeners are made, not born? Or maybe you were born a gardener and just didn’t have the opportunity to garden until later?
Pam… I guess we’ve all come to realize that “geekiness” is a good thing in the garden (or the lab).
LostRoses… Yes, you are the gueen of garden observing! But what’s this, you sold back issues of Fine Gardening? Don’t tell anyone but years ago when I was moving out of my old house and in to this one, I gave away old editions of gardening magazines, to people from a gardening club I was in. At least we gave/sold them to someone to spread the gardening love. Much better than just tossing them. So, no points subtracted, I consider us “Ambassadors of Gardening. Hey, I just came up with my next post idea!
To Gardening Geeks! Hear! Hear!
Carol at May Dreams Gardens
Honestly, I have never attempted to pet a bee. ever. But I still consider myself a geek. A reformed prom-queen runner up geek, but geek nonetheless…
I do talk to all my plants…even in the winter when they are sleeping…