I know some must think why start another blog? Well gardening is a big part of my life and I am writing about it more and more. I am being invited to speak to garden clubs and plant societies as well. So why not?

I still am who I am. A home grown gardener. Someone toured my garden a while back. They were looking for inspiration and plant ideas. Partway through, they turned to me and said “Are you a master gardener?”

I told them no. I think they were surprised that I was just a regular old home gardener. And that is all I am. O.k. I am a rabid gardener, but I just like to dig in the dirt. Sometimes that offends the more professional and structured and well-studied master gardener. I know it confuses some from plant societies who seem to think you can’t have a garden without a giant crop of plastic plant name stakes.

I have liked digging in the dirt as long as I can remember. My parents, my father especially because he was a home gardener, had me out in the garden from the time I was a little girl.

Gardening is a happy joyful thing to me. When I am filthy and aching from head to toe you will still see me grinning as I look around my garden. It’s my creation, my vision, and I love it!

Here’s a fun fact: when I was about 11, maybe I was even 10, I helped plant the first kitchen garden of modern times at the Todd House in Society Hill (Philadelphia). There was a gentleman named Bill Spann who lived down the street from my parents. He also had an amazing garden at the corner of 4th and Locust Streets. I also helped him plant hundreds of bulbs one fall. Truthfully that is how I learned to plant bulbs in the first place. I was sad to learn that where he once lived with his father and mother and family seems to be subject to some kind of a crazy development plan.

Sadly the Todd House kitchen garden doesn’t look much like the way it did in the early 1970s when I helped plant herbs and such…

I wish my parents had kept photos of our walled garden in Society Hill from when I was little. It was such a transformation over time.

But I digress.

Gardening is as gardening does, right? Sigh. Lots of people don’t garden. They should, but they don’t.

Anyway, this blog came to be because well…my friend Jess suggested it after I had posted a garden video in our gardening group. I had remarked that I, the nightgown gardener, had struck again.

“I think it’s brilliant that you garden in your nightgown. New name for your blog “The Nightgown Gardener”

Taaa daaa! A new blog is born and I need my head examined.

So here I am in all my gardening glory. I have cross-posted a slew of my gardening posts from Chester County Ramblings. To seed this new blog.

And I went wandering around and found some things I hadn’t posted like:

But wait there is more. My new Bayberry bushes that my neighbor Frank swears he will introduce his deer to:

And among my favorite perennials of late summer…turtlehead!!! Chelone lyonii! I love it! I love it especially since I now know what it looks like when it is coming up because this is a relatively new perennial to me and when I first started planting it a few years ago I kept pulling it up by accident. So the last photos in this post are of turtlehead.

I don’t pretend to be a perfect gardener. But I do love to garden. Weeding however? Not so much.

Thanks for stopping by.