Plant which has the most impact on gardening and the plant which has started your passion, according

Unknown

Depends on who you ask,and where they are. I'd say " grass" as in lawns.

My first plants grown from seed were mesembryanthemum criniflorum . I was 10.

A nieighbour used to have them in her garden and I'd walk round to her house and just stare at them.

pansyface

LIKE HOSTA, I WAS ABOUT TEN WHEN THE STRANGENESS OF PLANTS FIRST HIT ME.

I WAS TAKEN FOR A WALK ON THE MOORS OUTSIDE SHEFFIELD AND SAW SUNDEWS EATING FLIES. JUST THE THING TO INTEREST A TEN YEAR OLD.

AT THE TIME THERE WERE QUITE A FEW SCIENCE FICTION FILMS ABOUT MAN EATING PLANTS.

THEN SOMEONE GAVE ME A PACKET OF MIMOSA PUDICA SEEDS AND I WAS HOOKED. 

Hortum-cretae

Probably grass - a lawn can set off a garden and is probably the part which has the most influence, countrywide.  However, for me, beech trees and and the woodland under them. 

H-C

raisingirl

For me it's wildflowers. Mum used to take me for a walk round the local lanes from when I was a baby and she'd tell me the names of the flowers that came and went in the hedges. By the time I was 5 or 6 I was fascinated and waiting for the next one I knew to come into bloom. And my garden here has mostly either actually wild or only just not wild' flowers. I love them, though they are so fleeting on the whole.

I think the impact of grass is actually the impact of lawnmowers. When you had to pay several blokes to cut your grass with shears, a lawn was a statement of wealth. The advent of push along mowers and then the Flymo has led to the proliferation of lawns for the masses

Last edited: 18 March 2017 08:58:31

Dovefromabove

I was thinking as I watched GW last night, I think the plant that has had the most impact on British gardens over the past 50 years has been the Leylandii .............. unfortunately 

Imagine taking a balloon ride over a typical area of suburban gardens nowadays - and then imagine what it would be like without the Leylandii hedges ... 

Obelixx

I was always interested as a child but discouraged my parents too time poor to risk letting me play with beds and plants.   Discovered only in my 40s, and long after he was dead, that my paternal grandfather was a keen amateur gardener and prize winner up in South Shields.

What started me as an adult was buying a house with a garden - 85' long and with a row of 30' high leylandii down the eastern side blocking the morning sun from our garden and the afternoon sun and prevailing rain form our neighbours.    Suddenly, we had grass to mow, dead roses and weedy laburnum to get rid of and those trees making it all dark.   We cleared the rubble and planted a fruit cage, took down the trees and found our garden was suddenly a whole lot wider and lighter and then started planting with help and advice form our new neighbours who were delighted the trees had gone.

We'd come home from work and make a cup of tea and wander about the garden admiring blooms and veggies and pulling weeds and gently de-stressing and now find that a garden and the process of caring for it are essential to our well-being.   Love sharing plants and info and tips too.

Zenjeff

Bromton Stocks my dad used to bring them every year from the market wrapped in newspaper would help him plant them in the front garden the fragrance was wonderful 

B3

The first flower that I ever noticed was a calendula. I still have a fondness for them.

Dovefromabove

I went to a tiny village school ( only13 pupils in the whole school at one time) and we were taken out for regular walks along the footpaths by a plant-obsessed gardening teacher who taught us all the plants' names and where to find orchids and stuff like that - I've been obsessed with plants ever since - and when I was very little my granny's gardener showed me that a horrid prickly plant produced wonderful delicious raspberries, then gardening seemed like a good idea to me   So I suppose the plant that had the first big influence on me was the raspberry.

Last edited: 18 March 2017 10:05:22

raisingirl

Dovefromabove says:

when I was very little my granny's gardener showed me that a horrid prickly plant produced wonderful delicious raspberries, then gardening seemed like a good idea to me   So I suppose the plant that had the first big influence on me was the raspberry.

Last edited: 18 March 2017 10:05:22

See original post

You have that in common with my greyhound. I have many times looked around because I could hear a strange rustling noise in the fruit beds to see Jenny carefully picking the ripe raspberries off the bush 

I doubt she'll get a vote in the GW survey 

I think you may be right about the leylandii 

Dovefromabove

raisingirl says:

 

You have that in common with my greyhound. ...

 I think that's the only thing I'm likely to have in common with her - if only I had her metabolism and elegant figure