Member profile for BeeGuiled

• Name: Jeanie H
• Location: Katy, TX
• Gardening experience: I'm a serious hobbyist
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I grew up with a grandmother that was a professional Baker and hobby gardener.  I would spend hours with her in the garden, that was mostly flowers and some vegetables.  I would play under the fig tree, eating just ripe figs from the tree, while she would labor in the planting, pruning and cleaning. I watched my grandfather espalier a pyracantha bush to the garage wall. I marveled that he could train that bush to grow like that.  I grafted my first rose at age 11. I know that my appreciation of growing things came from my grandparents.  I have always been involved with plants and  animals.  My first job as a teen was selling flowers by the roadside.  I later sold plants at a retail nursery. Then I worked for a wholesale plant farm and became a Texas Certified Nurseryman in 1980.  I started my own interior/patio plant landscaping company and did the deck plantings for model homes for a short while. I was a florist for 10 years in the 80s.  I divorced in 1991 and realized I needed a real career to support my 3 children (infant twins and a 2 yr. old), so I enrolled in nursing school. Then became a registered nurse in 1994.  All the while being a fulltime mother since 1988.  I bought my first home in 2001.  Landscaped and maintained it myself. I met my love, Adam, in 2007. He has been an inspiration for me.  We started an organic garden, with the help of my family and have been growing organically ever since.  Whew!  What a busy life I have had.  Thank goodness it is calming down, somewhat in my old age!  Future plans are to buy a nice piece of East Texas forest/pasture to retire on.  I will always have an organic garden. The earth is way too polluted to add to it with garden chemicals.  There are so many ways to correct problems that don't require chemicals.  Natural balance in the garden is the best way.  I am a firm believer!