Why does it seem to take some courage, a little “gumption”, to stand up amongst the crowd and say “I’m a gardener”? Even if you feel as though you were born to garden and be a gardener, admitting it to others seems difficult.

Why?

I think it is because once someone says “I am a gardener”, others, especially those who don’t regularly garden, suddenly have expectations that everything the gardener plants grows. And we know it doesn’t. Expectations that the self-proclaimed gardener’s gardens will be perfect, ready for the cover of “name that glossy gardening magazine”, and we know they won’t be. Expectations that the gardener will know about all plants and how to grow them. And we know they won’t.

But they’ll still be a gardener! They’ll be like all of us gardeners. In love with gardening and plants, willing to try to grow a plant, accepting and understanding that no garden is perfect, and eager to find out about any plants we don’t know anything about!

We have several bloggers who responded to an earlier post about What Makes A Gardener with their own blog post to proclaim “Yes, I am a gardener”.

I salute them all with this round up post with links to their answers.

Leslie at Growing a Garden In Davis

Colleen at In the Garden Online

Old Roses at A Gardening Year

Salix Tree at Windy Willow

Girl Gone Gardening

Gardenmomma at Down My Garden Path

Tyler at My Chicago Garden

Sissy at Got Serenity

Me at May Dreams Gardens

Genie The Inadvertent Gardener

And Stuart for providing instructions on how to become a gardener.

Thanks all!

(If you posted in response to “What Makes A Gardener” and I missed you, please let me know and I’ll add you to the list.)