THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996                 TAG: 9606140074
SECTION: HOME & GARDEN           PAGE: G2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MARCIA MANGUM, HOME & GARDEN EDITOR 
                                            LENGTH:   46 lines

GARDENING IS A GIFT FROM FATHER TO DAUGHTER

WHEN I WAS a little girl, my dad would bring home scraggly trees and shrubs he'd dug up from a friend's yard or a roadside somewhere. They'd find new homes in our yard, and dad would nurse them along until we eventually had dogwoods, long-needle pines, gardenias, roses, hydrangea, crab apple and more.

My favorite part was the planting - piling the dirt in the holes around the roots and patting the mud as he watered. A grand opportunity for mud baths.

I was amazed as some of the trees grew to be as tall as I, and, eventually, as tall as my second-story bedroom window.

Dad also has dabbled at vegetable and flower gardening, but time for that was limited during his child-rearing years.

His mother, my Nana, helped tend our flowers. Though she could only visit a couple of times a year, she instilled in all of us an appreciation for blooming plants, especially gnarled brown bulbs that would turn into things of beauty.

It was always obvious where dad learned his gardening skills. He, in turn, passed along to me, my sister and my brother a love of nature and an awe for growing things.

Even as a renter, I dug up a desktop-size vegetable plot behind my apartment building. When I bought my first house, I built raised azalea beds around the stately oak and maple trees in the front, added a few small fruit trees along the side and planted annuals and forsythia to brighten the vast expanses of green. And I kept a small vegetable garden out back.

As a condominium owner on Norfolk's Willoughby Spit, I grew a few vegetables and flowers in containers and raised beds, challenging the salt spray and wind for each tomato, eggplant, pepper, petunia or marigold.

Now my husband and I have our own house and two young daughters. We try to find time for a few flowers and a small vegetable plot.

Nearly every evening when their dad comes home from work, the girls follow him out into the back yard. The 4-year-old searches diligently for an asparagus tip poking through the dirt or a pole bean climbing its pole. On the way in, she pinches a taste of parsley or mint.

The 2-year-old, not quite old enough to appreciate the difference between a plump juicy strawberry and a wild strawberry, plucks the tiny red fruits from the lawn and pops them in her mouth.

Like many gardeners before us, we hope they're learning a reverence for growing things that will last them a lifetime. by CNB