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My gardening history
I owe my passion for gardening (some might say obsession) to my mother and, in turn, to her maternal grandmother for whom I am named (more on that below). At an early age I was inculcated into the world of gardening; the beauty, the frustration, the joy. Mom’s early efforts were directed at roses, Japanese style landscape design and vegetable production. It was an eclectic beginning.
In my twenties, however, I became an urban dweller and foreswore all contact with gardening. I even banished live plants from my apartment; silk plants reigned.
Then came the spring day when Mom said she just didn’t have time for the vegetable garden that summer. I was aghast! No juicy sun ripened tomatoes? No fresh green beans? At that moment I uttered the fateful words from which there was to be no return. “I’ll run the vegetable garden this summer.” The next thing I knew I had a couple hundred seedlings sprouting along the window sills of my one bedroom apartment. A home in suburbia was not far behind.
During the ensuring years, I tried almost any gardening project: pruning any shrub or tree I could reach, composting, hand digging a pond (which was thwarted by some very weird construction debris and a high water table), reconfiguring existing perennial beds and moving shrubs, more pruning, erecting trellises, designing new gardens and experimenting with new plants.
To expand my knowledge base, I attended many classes offered by the Chicago Botanic Garden as well as the classroom portion of the Master Gardener program sponsored by the University of Illinois Extension. In 2003, I decided to obtain more formal training at Harper College in Palatine, IL and in 2005 was graduated with certificates in Landscape Design and Plant Propagation.
And so … here I am, a garden coach, excited to share my gardening knowledge, skills and passion with gardeners of all ages and all stages.
I am often asked “Is Dicie your real name?”
Yes! Dicie is my real name. I was named for my great-grandmother who was an accomplished gardener and who was named for her mother’s best friend from Norborne, Missouri.
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