The Gardens of My Life

  Blog #17

       Gardens were something special I was told.  They were something talked about for hours by people who had nothing more interesting to do or say.  They would cause normally fun-loving people to take slow walks in a backyard or slow walks in a park.  As a child, teen and young adult, I think that I loved flowers and gardens, but looking at them was boring! If someone said, “Let’s go look at my garden”, I would shutter, cringe and yawn.

       Grandma’s garden was a beautiful, colorful flower garden perfectly designed and perfectly tended.  My grandmother and grandfather did it together.  It had every flower imaginable and there I grew to love them.  It was there that I learned the names of flowers and their characteristics.  There were annuals and perennials all arranged the loveliest way possible. It was really fun to water the garden!

       My great aunt had a garden and hers was also stellar, designed well and perfectly tended.  Hers had the most beautiful prize-winning roses one could imagine.  The bird bath was the center of her back yard and it was surrounded by poppies, daisies and zinnias. She had fewer plants than Grandma did, but her flowers stood out more because there was more space between them. It was not so much a sea of color, but rather spots of intense beauty. My favorite part was swinging on the porch swing with my brother and sister as we looked at the garden

       My mother had a flower garden, too.  She did not get any help from my father on this, because of his work schedule, so her garden was not manicured at my grandmother’s and my great aunt’s. Her children helped only a little.  It was every bit as much a source of joy to my mother as a perfect garden world have been.  I know she had flowers that came from cuttings from her mother’s and aunt’s garden in it. Some lasted for years.  Mom’s garden was loved and treasured and was very beautiful, but it was not what you would call “manicured”.  It had a “wildness” to it.  Plants were overgrown and often would take over an area, because they were never pruned.  Other plants would die if it was a hot summer. Mom “sort of” planned her garden, but the carrying it out was sometimes difficult.

       My least favorite part of Mom’s garden was weeding.  At five cents a bushel basket for weeding, this was slave labor!  Her monetary rewards and motivation for weeding left a lot to be desired.  My favorite part of gardening was picking flowers and making beautiful bouquets for the dinner table.  Mom did not like to do that, so I got the job, which I dearly loved.

       All of my relatives planted some vegetables as well as massive amount of flowers.

 A summer without fresh tomatoes, cucumbers or lettuce was uncommon.  It was always a delight to see how big you could get something to grow.  Everything tasted better when it was home grown.  That I learned early in life!

       When I was a single adult, my roommate noticed that there was dirt around our patio.  She went out when I was at work and bought many packages of seeds.  Just by looking at the picture on the seed package, she chose the flowers she would plant.  Sun, partial sun, shade, partial shade; it was all the same to her.  Coming from the family I did, this was considered such a risky thing to do and I just knew it would be a mess.  She strung some string near where she would plant her morning glories and poured her twenty plus packages of seed in the narrow strip of dirt surrounding our small apartment patio. In a few weeks, there was evidence that something had actually been planted.

         Within a month, we were to begin to experience what I would never forget: a jaw-dropping, gorgeous, array of every colored flower in the rainbow.  Some no more than a few inches tall and some were at least ten feet tall.  Columbines, cosmos, daisies, morning glories, zinnias, hollyhocks, snapdragons, cone flowers, sunflowers were just few of what was planted.  I was not a participant in this very cool garden, but I did appreciate its beauty.

        Gardening, as a wife and mother at our home, has been a rocky journey for me.  I tried small amounts of gardening years ago, but had so much competition with the groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels and family obligations, I gave up. 

         Then, as my son got older, out of somewhere and nowhere, I found myself dreaming of a garden and planning it. Four summers ago, I decided to begin to make it happen.  I could not wait until I could afford all the fancy terracing and stone work I imagined, but I could afford raised beds and a few plants.  I wanted to have a rose garden with roses commemorating the lives of those family members who had died since my husband and I had married.  I wanted vegetables planted among many colorful flowers and I wanted a curved shape to the garden. There were to be herbs in this garden, too. Somehow it became a passion to make it beautiful.

         After one year of somewhat successful gardening at my home, the principal of the school where I teach asked me to coordinate a school garden at our inner city elementary school, which located in an urban food desert. I want the children to know that gardening is not boring. I know I would have liked gardening more as a young person, if I had been more actively involved. All the parts that I loved the most were found in the doing. I now have the unique opportunity to inspire children and their parents to garden for healthy eating, for the understanding of where food comes from, for discovery and learning, for appreciation of beauty and for JOY!

         I want the children to plant and water the garden!  I want them to “swing” in the garden and pick the flowers and the produce! I want the garden to be a special place for the children to share with their families and have fun. I want them to talk about their garden! I want them to be totally involved, so they will remember their special garden…at school!