Y Gardening
Shannon Hunt meets a member of the Y-Generation who’s living proof that being twenty-something and renting is no barrier to gardening.
When Rebecca (Becs) went flat hunting last year, she had a couple of criteria she wanted met if she was to make a house her home. There must be plenty of room for her container plants, indoor plants and a vege garden, plus lots of space for Willow her Border Terrier.
She found the perfect place, said ‘yes’ to the landlord and set about making the place her own. “My indoor plants instantly transformed the flat so I felt at home almost straight away,” she says.
Becs is a member of Generation Y; born in the mid eighties. Gen Y relies on computers, smart phones and laptops for entertainment, learning and communicating with the world around them. Some research suggests that as a result, Generation Y has grown up spending all their spare time indoors on their electronic devices and that getting their hands dirty in the garden with Mum and Dad just didn’t happen. Not knowing how, or simply not wanting to garden seems a logical outcome of all this.
So, if the research results are right, should the horticultural industry be worried? If Becs’ passion for plants and growing is anything to go by, that might
“If I could pass on just one thing to the Y generation, it’s how to grow “nutrient-dense vegetables that are really good for your gut and the environment.
all just be a big storm in a little pot plant.
“As a teenager and in my early 20’s I loved the Bird of Paradise flowers in my Nana’s garden and eating Grandad’s big juicy strawberries straight from the garden, but that was as far as my interest in gardening stretched back then,” Becs says.
However, at 25, Becs had completed a Conservation and Management Course in Australia that sparked her interest in flora and fauna. She accepted a position at a Wildlife Park and then later completed her Horticulture Certificate. This ultimately led to a job in a Tasmanian plant nursery.
“I learnt so much about propagation and growing plants at that job and developed a deep passion for it but it took a few more years to decide to do it as a fulltime career,” she says.
Today Becs, who now calls New Zealand home, lives in Havelock North in sunny Hawke’s Bay. Her flat is adorned with her indoor plants; Majesty Palm, Ficus, Cypress Bonsai, Dracaena, Pseudopanax, Peace Lilies and Anthurium to name a few. Outside in containers is an arrangement of favourite plants, including citrus trees, cabbage trees, a spiky dracaena, some pittosporums, and a cheerful red Chinese lantern with red impatiens to match.
“I grow these plants in pots so I can take them with me when I leave,” she explains. In the soil along the fence line she has created a bed of flowering annuals for a bit of extra colour. But the place she spends most time gardening is in her vege patch. In wooden pallets and raised beds Becs grows raspberries, herbs, salad ingredients and a healthy range of vegetables.
“This year I’m trialling the ‘3 Sisters Technique’ with beans, corn and cucumbers. It’s a spacesaving, nutrient-dense growing system. The beans add nitrogen to the soil while climbing up the corn and the corn adds calcium to the soil. The cucumbers do very well nestled at the base of both of them.”
Becs says she loves growing her own food because it gives her control over the nutritional value of the fruit and vegetables she eats, something she believes is important to her generation.
“If I could pass on just one thing to the Y generation, it’s how to grow nutrient-dense vegetables that are really good for your gut and the environment. I use organic compost and potting mix and I feed my veges with seaweed fertiliser to ensure they get the nutrients they need including Boron, Zinc and Selenium, 3 minerals that are lacking in our New Zealand soils.” Becs says. “When I grow my own veges I know I am eating well.”
“As a conservationist, I believe in companion planting too. Shoofly is a very beneficial plant in my garden ‘cos it repels whitefly and I have calendula to repel aphids and borage to attract the bees.”
When Becs is not tending her own garden at home she can be found helping customers and tending to stock at her fulltime job at Palmers Garden Centre in Napier.
Ordering, displaying, maintaining and selling an exciting range of companion plants, potted colour, edibles, herbs, seedlings, organic media, organic plant food and perennials, are all in a day’s work for Becs.
“We have a popular service at Palmers where we will create a hanging basket made-to-order. A customer only has to ask and we will happily make one to their specs or ours if they prefer. It’s a great way to grow flowers and food and you can take the baskets with you if you move.”
Becs says, “My generation is really hungry for good, honest ‘green gardening’ info and we like ‘on the spot’ answers. We will listen and then go away and do it.”
She finds more often than not, it is the ‘perceived’ cost of gardening organically, along with a lack of practical knowledge that keeps her generation from picking up a trowel or spade earlier rather than later.
“When they do visit us at Palmers they find plenty of plants and seeds they can buy, we have lots of eco-friendly, organic garden tips and we love helping them with their queries,” says Becs.
If Becs’ passion for gardening is anything to go by, the future of gardening seems in good heart. She believes members of the Y Generation do eventually get green fingers when they leave home, go flatting or buy their own home and have children. It’s important to our younger generation to have control over the food they eat. For many of us, there is simply a stage in life when gardening becomes a satisfying and very affordable way of spending our leisure time. These marker points in the lives of Gen Y may come along later than they did for previous generations, but Becs is a perfect example of how it does happen.
Perhaps all the garden industry has to do to reach Generation Y is talk their ‘eco-friendly, straight talking, justdo-it, do-it-now’ language.
It’s food for thought!