Do you garden? Have house plants? Grow your own veggies?

I would like to have more plants but my cat prevents it. I had a nice plant that I had been growing from a clipping at work for over a year. We were later told we could no longer have plants in the office (bug problems) and I brought it home. I was so pleased with myself because it fit in perfectly on my kitchen table. Then one morning I came downstairs to find it mostly devoured by my cat. I've sort of brought it back to life but it doesn't look that lively any more.

I have the least green fingers (Brit version of green thumb...?) of anyone anywhere, ever. I kill plants apparently by my mere proximity to them. I have managed to kill the hardiest of plants, including cacti. I wish I didn't, because I genuinely appreciate greenness in my environment, but I seem incapable of finding the middle way between neglect and rampant over-watering.

That's houseplants (and officeplants). When it comes to actual gardening, I may well have similar problems but I have never found out, because I have always either rented or lived in a house I owned, but with minimal yard, and I am apparently too selfish to invest effort in a garden which ultimately belongs to someone else.

My mother is a wonderful gardener. When my parents moved out of London (when us kids had all flown the nest) they found the garden mum wanted, and bought the house that came with it :) She has a lawn with a dove-cot, a flower garden, water features, a vegetable garden and an orchard, and it all looks wonderful. Those would be the genes that I did not get. I got my dad's genes, which are awesome for sitting in a lawn chair reading a book, while someone else who knows what they are doing does the gardening.

No plants in the office? That's a harsh workplace... like at the beginning of Joe vs. the Volcano. Could the bugs be attracted by leftover food instead?

Try spraying Bitter Apple spray on your plants (at pet stores it's sometimes in the dog aisle instead of the cat aisle). Works 100 percent for me. I sprayed it once on my plants, and after a taste of it my cat left them completely alone. I re-spray maybe every half a year, or when a plant has a lot of new growth.

I guess I classify as a green thumb. The secret is to water consistently but not too often; most people go to one extreme or the other. If you water when the soil dries out (for most plants, two or three times a week is about right), you're good.

I grow orchids and some years (including this one) a windowbox vegetable garden. My produce so far this year has amounted to three or four tiny tomatoes, and a handful of peapods. Just not the right conditions indoors for the full-on crop, I guess, even though I have a ton of sunlight. I'm on the waiting list for two nearby community gardens; it takes years, and if my name finally does get picked I'll probably just enjoy one or two good seasons and then get bored of driving over there.



Hee. That sounds like a garden worthy of buying a house for.

The running theory is that a vendor gifted someone a cheap plant that already had bugs and then they spread to all the plants in the office. This included the ones they pay a gardener to come in and maintain so the company got charged extra for bug removal. C'est la vie.

At least you have some plants left… I always feel like the greenery and extra oxygen are important.

Black thumb of death here. I've killed cacti...the swath of green bodies in my wake is truly terrifying, so I've given up on trying to be plant-friendly.

Another black thumb here, and like trifling_matter, my Mum and Nanna got all the good gardening talents. I do enjoy the beauty of a freshly cut lawn though.

I'm looking forward to taking on my first garden soon - it will be a lot of work but my partner's parents, who are quite experienced, have promised to help. Hoping to be able to grow some organic veggies and herbs! Not sure if I'll be any good at it, though; I've managed to keep my houseplants alive for years, but they are perhaps not in the best shape. It doesn't help that one thing I seem to hate to do is re-pot them. If possible I'll just replant them all in the garden now.

Ananda, I thought I was the only one. I've managed to kill aloe vera - quite an accomplishment. I love the idea of a balcony garden, but couldn't be bothered with the reality.

I like to have a vase of flowers on my desk at work, but the airconditioning either turns them into fossilised sculptures or a drooping mess by day 3.

I'm not too bad -but then I try to choose plants that thrive on benign neglect - although I've got quite a nice Aloe vera I got as a cutting last year which has grown quite a bit. Spider plants and money plants are fairly hardy too!

MUm and Dad (mostly mum) are the gardener's of the family, I just about keep herbs alive. I am spoilt at my parents with a lovely sized garden - orchard, fruit bushes, veg patch (with raised beds I helped dad build).

Since I started getting into cooking I want to start growing my own herbs, but I haven't made the leap yet. I have a feeling it's going to be one of my new years resolutions.