Welcome!

Hello friends!

Welcome to Generation X/Y Gardener, a blog written to educate, engage, and encourage “young” people about plants and gardening. As a graduate student finishing my degree and looking to re-enter the floriculture industry, I have realized there is a lack of interest and participation by my friends and contemporaries in plants and gardening. Some say it’s due to the economy or lack of spare time, while others feel a pressure of appearing cliché or worry about a lack of knowledge. All cases may be true – we live in an increasingly busy and stressful world. Some may argue that personal interaction and appreciation for “cliché” traditions have fallen by the wayside to text messages and “virtual gifts”. However, I believe that plants can be incorporated into our current lifestyles easily by brightening an office space or replacing a bottle of wine as a house warming gift. Some industry leaders claim our generation has never had an interest in plants and would rather spend a sunny day inside with our video games and PCs instead of outside. I beg to differ, as we are the children of an era which brought forth the Clean Water and Air Acts, recycling, Green Peace, extreme sports, and Kermit the Frog.

The goal for this blog is to bring forth interesting, innovative, timely, and sustainable topics and ways to incorporate plants and gardening into the Gen X/Y lifestyle each week. I encourage everyone to post questions, comments, and concerns he or she might have about plants, flowers, trees, shrubs, and anything that’s green to create an open dialog. In turn I hope that this blog will help increase awareness and enthusiasm, and get young people talking about plants.

Rock on and plant on,

Stephanie