My Eden's location slightly changes

2008-10-29T19:32:00.002+05:30

http://davesgarden.com/tools/blog/

I've been trying to maintain a diary there in that link. To avoid repetetion, I've given the link.

Some of my pictures used by others

2008-10-29T19:11:00.005+05:30

Photography is the latest interest. Nature photos in particular. Through Dave's Garden website, a few of them have been used by others on request. It's a pleasure to share them with others. Here are links to a few:

http://plantsbulbs.suite101.com/ Angela England
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/manage/viewstory.php?rid=1699 Susanne Talbert
Angela England again, using picture of Sweet Violet.

My Gardening Story

2006-01-10T16:58:00.002+06:00

My gardening began in this small area of the house where I grew up.My gardening shifted to this bigger place [and space] when we moved over and had to start from scratch.
It's grown greeeeen!

READ ON!

It was July 2001 and the internet had become accessible even to me. Even to me! I had developed a great curiosity to identify by name the plants that grew in our premises. I had borrowed a book from the library but my searches found no direction. I went to Google where many of my plants were identified. It was here, a particular website showed up often - it was here: DAVE'S GARDEN {DG}. I wanted to know what it was. I buried my head deeper only to find myself being drawn like a bee to a flower and found my feet wet!

I must tell one thing. Not all are really fortunate enough to have space for a garden or even think about it, leave alone gardening. To me, gardening is one of the holiest and sacredest of hobbies one can pursue, provided they have the space, time a little bit of money to set apart. I can tell you, it is fully worth every minute you spend, digging, cleaning, nurturing, pruning, watering, or even sitting amongst the plants out there in a garden which we can call it our own.

Back to DG, I began watching the forums and it tasted like my own cup of tea. The tenor in the threads appeared friendly and honest - it still is. I signed up almost automatically and instantly. It did not take long to realize that I was amongst a most helpful and magnificent group of gardening people. There were already 2745 of them between me and Dave Whitinger, the man behind all this.

When Dave had to go subscription shortly afterwards, I was a bit worried. Because, DG had already become an obsession. I am profoundly grateful to the person[s] who saved the situation with a gift subscription. "Garden Angels" have repeated the act ever since. Such generosity can be very inspirational. I am stuck to DG like chewing gum, somewhat, but the flavour has never left the mouth!! I have learnt lots about gardening and more, almost from nought, thanks to DG.

I wanted to share pictures of my plants and flowers like the others but I only had a film camera. The scanned images were poor to upload. I must never fail to acknowledge the kindness shown to me by my colleague and her husband, Mr.Thomas who so willingly allowed me to use their digital camera, a simple Sony Mavica, for taking a lot of pictures whenever a new flower had bloomed. I could not have posted so many close-up shots in the initial stages and many other valuable shots esp. into the PDB. Digicams were for me at that stage, too expensive to possess. Here are some pictures from my EDEN

Seed trading was another great hobby there on DG and my first trade was with the young Evert of Finland. It's a great pleasure to see seeds from other parts of the world growing here. There were many seeds that also failed to germinate which has disappointed me. But I have learnt my lessons. I have slowed down on trading, but did not switch gears when it came to be sent.

2006 was a year that brought in much joy, again thanks to the dear friends here on DG. A kind DG-er sent me his small Digicam [DC] which was my first! Then soon afterwards, before I could get the hang of it, another DG-er sent me her Fuji which was slightly better than the first one. Yet another respected DG-er chipped in to offer me a DC, but that turned out to be a PC. Then when the PC arrived, Internet too arrived home. Then the DC came to me, which is a Panasonic with 12x zoom. I'm grateful to all of them for having contributed to my dreams going to fruition.

The seed of gardening was sown in me when young probably by my grandmother who used to dig a bit and water the plants with a hosepipe and I along with my young brother made pathways for the water to flow to all plants. I can remember the thrill I got from growing my own plant from seed (it was a cosmos) with the help of a friend. This was some 30+ years ago. We moved in to our great-grandfather's property 9 years ago and I owe my sustained enthusiasm to the space around the house as well as to my friends at DG, which has resulted in another DG?.. "Dinu's Garden"!! "Dinu's Eden" is what I chose to engrave on an old wooden plank to give that vintage touch.

I sometimes miss the wood for the trees with American humour but tthat is not a deterrent to stay away, because I have learnt so much from one and all. Dave, Trish, Terry, et al are doing a wonderful job to provide what gardeners deserve, an "e-garden" of their own. DG has really changed the way I look at gardening. I classify my career as pre-DG and post-DG eras! It has been such an impact. And, DG is the only one gardening website I have time for, no kidding!

My enthusiasm is the plant, DG is water and manure, DG-friends are sunlight and my curiosity is the digging tool.

Let our world be green, without envy!

Dinu

September 3, 2007

A few of my videos here