Making your house a home

How to personalize your abode

Making your house a home

by MARK AND BEN CULLEN

In your opinion, how does a house become a home? Is it the smell of freshly baked cookies straight out of the oven? The planting of a beautiful flower garden? Maybe for you, it was bringing your child home for the first time. Either way, I’m sure we can all agree there are specific moments in life that turn a house into a home.

When I was four years old, my father pointed to five pyramid cedars planted in a row across the rear of the yard. “The middle one is yours,” he said. Without any more explanation, he had given me ownership over a living thing, and it felt very special. After all, I was the middle kid of five children. As the years passed, I never forgot that cedar tree; for me, it made my house a home.

Today, when you walk up to the front door of my family home, you will always be greeted by some sort of plant according to the season – large hanging baskets dripping with fern foliage in the summer, and evergreen boughs in the winter. Ben plants window boxes with fresh herbs at his house throughout the summer, and always has a pumpkin and squash at his door come fall. Food gardening has always been the thing that makes his house a home.

After you garden for a while, you learn a lot about people by observing their choices used at the front of their house. A swing on a porch, visible from the street, says the owners are social and desire to be inclusive. A tall hedge at the street that blocks the front door’s view tells us that the owners enjoy their privacy. An unkempt hedge or yard and a lack of outdoor furniture are likely signs of, well, you know, and we hesitate to say, “indoor” people.

When it comes to making a house a home, it’s not just one thing that completes the process. It’s an accumulation of honest efforts and memorable events that can warm up a place. And gardening can be at the heart of it all.

Mark Cullen is a Member of the Order of Canada. He reaches more than two million Canadians with his gardening/environment messages every week. Ben Cullen is a professional gardener with a keen interest in food gardening and the environment. You can follow both Mark and Ben on Twitter (@MarkCullen4), Facebook (facebook.com/MarkCullenGardening) and Instagram (instagram.com/markcullengardening). Receive their free monthly newsletter at markcullen.com.