OT - Age of posters on this NG (and gardeners in general)

 I have just cut the lawn and cleared a bit of overhanging shrubbery at my
daughter's place (she rents it out ATM and we were letting a tradesman in).
Took me about 30 minutes.

The tenants, 30 and below, show absolutely no interest in the garden and so
do not maintain it.

This does not bother my daughter because she has no interest in the garden
either.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of neglecting a garden it did make us
ponder about "the younger generation".
[Just a minute, when did we stop being "the younger generation"?]

Her tenants can afford to buy, but don't want to because they don't want the
responsibility.
They still seem to live as students with the same short term view of
accomodation as somewhere to dump stuff between work and socialising.
This is not uncommon, from talking to other "Baby Boomers" about their kids.
Not many seem to settle into the life we were lead to expect - married,
kids, good job for life.
Not that this "dream" is practical now; jobs and carreers are not expected
to be long term and life expectancy is much longer so everything seems to
have an air of impermanence. Marriage and kids has gone down the priority
list for many. Expecting to have to work until you are 70 or more must be
quite daunting.

Please note that I do not criticise people for not following the route we
were encouraged to take. The world is a very different place and each
generation makes their own decisions.

However gardening seems to be tied in to a focus on the home and a
willingness to spend time at home working on it. If life is so busy that
there is no spare time and energy to maintain your home and garden then
something has got to give.

So to finally get to the point.

How many urgles (contributors and lurkers) are aged 30 and below?
Is gardening as popular as it always was (the amount of stuff in the sheds
does suggest a strong demand) or are most of the people gardening Baby
Boomers and the next decade or so, who bought houses before the last couple
of the housing booms?

Has the extended period in education (did we ever get to 50% going to
University instead of 5-10%) and the massive availability of electronic
consumer goods and availability of various entertainments given the 30-
generation a whole new set of priorities which render serious gardening a
waste of valuable time?

Just wondering (and not too seriously) :-)

Cheers

Daver

--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

 On Wed, 8 Jun 2011 09:01:10 +0100, "David WE Roberts"

<pruned>

I've always been somewhat forgetful when it comes to birthdays - even
forgetting my own occasionally. I think, over the years, I've
forgotten my birthday about 30 times so now consider myself to be
around 27.

I had my first "garden plot" before I started school - my little bit
with a fence with a gate around it - ok, made with bamboo canes and
string but it was mine. By the time I was 7, I'd acquired a larger
chunk of the garden and by 12 had a decent veg patch going. My mother
said she caught the gardening bug from me, rather than the other way
round. Dad was only interested in football and regularly took me along
to matches; I could never understand what the excitement was all
about.

So clearly I didn't acquite my taste for gardening from my parents,
nor did I follow the lead in becoming a sport fanatic (rugby aside).
Nor did I become a gardener just because houses generally have gardens
attached - I was too young to appreciate that when I started.

I have neighbours whose idea of "gardening" is to get a handyman in
now and again to do whatever. But their kids (all in the 10-12 age
group) are regularly out weeding, cutting the lawn and having a go at
pruning shrubs and, it seems, because they like doing it rather than
because they're told to do it. There's even the occasional argument
over whose turn it is to cut the grass!

So I don't think there's any great social trend here. There are people
of all ages who just like doing something so they do it. And they'll
continue to find time to do it because they like doing it.

 
I'm 37.  I bought the house I currently live in about a week before I was
30.  Before that I lived in rented flats and houses, which either didn't
have a garden, or I had no time or enthusiasm to deal with.

When I rented a house in Newcastle I did attempt to plant some flowers,
which the landlady mowed over because I wasn't keeping the lawn mowed enough
for her.  And I planted some courgette plants at the back of the garden
which died because I was never home during daylight to look after them (long
work hours, rarely at home during the weekends)

So yes.  Probably.  :-)

 

I'm 71, and in the American Diaspora, to take this with several grains of
salt:
I've always gardened, as did my parents in a suburban location on a
smallish plot.
A data point, perhaps:  this July will mark my 10th trip to the Seed
Saver's Exchange annual campout/convention in northeast Iowa (north-central
U.S.).  When I first went, the participants were mostly my age, but
following a change in leadership a few years ago, I notice a lot of folks
in their thirties, and a lot with small children; certainly a hopeful sign.
The programs there now have a lot of kid-friendly events.
(Political warning)
It seems that whenever there's an economic downturn or increased concerns
over mass-produced food, there's an increase in local veg gardening and
particularly heirloom seed preservation.  I think of it as an earthy facet
of "Fahrenheit 451:"  
"I'm Macomber rutabaga and Brandywine tomato!"


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic
Zone 5/4 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

 "David WE Roberts"  wrote  (SNIP))

I think it may partly be the lack of the old Protestant Work Ethic, most of
the older generation were sent to Sunday School and learnt there that they
had a social responsibility and that every aspect of life was about work and
if you happened to enjoy the work lucky you. A lot of younger people seem to
believe life is for enjoyment and if you are not having fun something is
wrong.
I can't say which is right and which is wrong.
That said, that is a generalisation, we have some youngsters on our
allotment, some in their 30's and at least a couple of plot holders in their
20's. Some seem to have a problem with time, especially those with older
children, but then they are at work so only have weekends and they have a
lot to cram into the weekend.
One young couple probably still in their 20's are good gardeners and I
suspect the husband learnt it from someone (an old codger!) by the way he
gardens, certainly not from a book.
Another rather good looking young Mum is doing a superb job on a very
neglected plot but then her parents run a locally well known plant shop but
she (and her sister) are putting in a lot of time and effort.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK