Why Guys Garden? Some Rediscover Their Inner Child

I've always felt some of the appeal of gardening is that it transports us back to childhood — it is one time, as adults, we can play in the mud and get by with it. Sometimes the urge stems from gardening with an adult who hooked us on the hobby. The appeal of a garden to our inner child can be even more interesting. As a boy, my husband moved a lot. One boyhood treasure from those days that didn’t survive was his train. For 30 years I heard the same story, until finally I said, “Enough”. I bought him a G-scale engine and some track (a genuine full-scale locomotive couldn’t cost much more). The plan was over the years to add passenger and freight cars. Problem was, where to put it in our North Fork apartment?

The answer turned out to be, the garden. Sketch pad and tape line in hand, he carved out a 10 x 17 foot spot and began to lay out track. As I saw my flower beds disappearing under a load of fill dirt, mountains and tunnels began to emerge. From a railroader magazine, he came up with an article about miniature plants suitable to provide to-scale trees, bushes and flower beds for the layout. Gardening around our place began to take on a whole new challenging dimension. Literally.

Why do guys garden? Sometimes it is to recapture a boyhood dream. A perfectly good reason in my book.