Re: Jeff Ball's comments on boomers and gardening

**"Yvonne Cunnington" y*@ispnet.ca**

I agree with Jeff. I'm quite pessimistic about the future of gardening and garden writing. In my experience here in Ontario, the only gardeners seem to be boomers and older, and they're giving up. 

Where are the young people? They settle down a lot later. If they have kids, they start that in the mid-thirties, which means small children and kid activities rule their 40s. Home ownerships comes later in life these days, and then the fashion now is to hire someone, not DIY. 

As for the boomers who started gardening in the late '80s and '90s, many are now downsizing. They're busy elsewhere, as Jeff suggests, and they're tired of doing physical stuff. 

Perhaps the way for garden writers to get to the boomers' attention is this message: the only effective recipe for staving off the problems of aging (loss of muscle tone, weight gain, heart disease, diabetes) is to keep physically active. If you could bottle exercise as a pill, everybody would be taking it. Gardening intensively is a great way to stay physically active.  

I turned 50 last year myself and I must admit the spring in my step is not what it used to be, and neither is my enthusiasm for gardening. (Do I dare admit that as a garden writer?) 

When I analyze why it's that the annual droughts and worsening heat each summer really get me down. My cure for now is only drought-tolerant plants in the containers (lots of semps and tropical succulents -- not ready to give containers up) and most everything in our beds is already drought-tolerant. Over the past few years, we have invited bus tours of our garden, but I'm cutting those down drastically so  I won't fret if the garden is fried because it hasn't rained in six weeks. (We have a large country garden and no irrigation system.)

However, in spite of all that, if I didn't garden and didn't faithfully walk two dogs every day, given my family history, I know I'd be 30 pounds heavier and be facing health issues. That fact alone is going to keep me going with both the garden and dogs for as long as possible. 

Yvonne
www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com

Jeff Ball wrote:

My  observations are that the Boomers have gone thru their forties and  did not pick up on gardening.  Neither of us see much  evidence of a reversal of that trend.  We don't like it, but we are  having to face up to the fact that the opportunities for garden  communicators are changing, and in many instances becoming more  limited.  
_______________________________________________
gardenwriters mailing list
gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gardenwriters

GWL has searchable archives at:
http://www.hort.net/lists/gardenwriters

Send photos for GWL to gwlphotos@hort.net to be posted
at: http://www.hort.net/lists/gwlphotos

Post gardening questions/threads to
&quot;Gardenwriters on Gardening&quot; &lt;gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org&gt;

For GWL website and Wiki, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/gardenwriters