Menu
Published on 08/31/00

Growing Things a Great Way to Build Memories

As your parents always told you, you can't recapture time. The closest you can come is to work on building memories. You can recapture those, and they only get better as time moves on.

This is probably the most important thing you can do today: make a memory with someone that will last a lifetime. Making a video of your little one chasing the pigeons in the park is something she can show her children.

A Family Affair

Planting a tree or a long-lasting shrub can create memories just like that. Can you go to a place today and show your children where your father or mother helped you plant a tree? If so, the tree has grown, and so has the memory that accompanies it.

Plant a garden. Capture (mentally, or on film) the expression of the little ones when they harvest their own Halloween pumpkin. Who knows? They may even eat spinach if they grow it.

The memory of that phone call or television show is fleeting. But growing things with your family will create life-long memories. And fall is a great time for growing things.

Planting Advice

Here are just a few of the many opportunities available to you. You can find these information sources on the World Wide Web. Or just pick them up at your county office of the University of Georgia Extension Service.

* Fast Growing Shade Trees (http://www.ces.uga. e du/pubcd/L350.htm).

* Growing Dogwoods (http://www.ces.u g a.edu/pubcd/l104-w.html).

* Selection, Production and Establishment of Wetland Trees and Shrubs (http://www.ces. u ga.edu/pubcd/b1082-w.html).

* Xeriscape: A Guide to Developing a Water-Wise Landscape (http://www.ces.uga . edu/pubcd/B1073.htm).

* Wildflowers (http://www.ces.ug a .edu/pubcd/B994-W.HTM).

* Environmental Enhancement with Ornamental Plants: Attracting Birds (http://www.ces.uga.edu/Agriculture/horticulture/birds.html) .

* Environmental Enhancement with Ornamentals: Butterfly Gardening (http://www.ces.uga.edu/Agriculture/horticulture/butterfly.h t ml).

* Growing Vegetables Organically (http://www.ces. u ga.edu/pubcd/b1011-w.html).

You can't recapture time. Plan something today that will grow a memory when you and your family look back in two, 10 or more years. The time to plant your memory is now.

Wayne McLaurin is a professor emeritus of horticulture with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.