A gardening aquaintance of mine recently shared that a gardening friend of his past away. It made me think of the people in my life who are still alive or those who have passed on. As I think about these people, I realized that their lives are like our gardens. Each one is as colorful and as interesting as the plants we put in them. Many of us are probably reminded of a certain person whenever we come across a certain plant. Or perhaps like me, your love for gardening was due to a parent or grandparent.
Whenever I see or grow certain plants, I am often reminded of someone I have known.
I have common Bleeding Heart (dicentra spectabillis) in my garden because as a child, I remember their stems creeping into our backyard through the fence that bordered my grandmother's garden. She use to tell me that fairies would pull the heart shaped flower petals apart and wear them as slippers. I can still see my grandmother sitting in the sun outside her backporch, tending her very tidy small flower garden.
A sniff of fragance and I see my grandfather tending his beautiful hybrid rose garden. It was his one luxury he allowed himself when gardening. Most of my yard and his was consumed with fruit trees, grape vines, rubbarb and vegetables. In the evening when he came home from work, he would take my sister and me to his rose bed to hand pick the Japanese beetles that would consume the petals. We had so much fun dumping them into his small jars of used motor oil and watching them try to swim, only to sink to the bottom. It was such fun to see how many we could collect in one evening. He always surrounded his bed with Peonies, Hybiscus, Oriental Poppies. Whenever I see beautiful rose gardens I am reminded of him.
When I moved into my new home, I tried to salvage an overgrown flowerbed that was covered with roses, privet and ivy. While digging up plants, I managed to save some irises, roses and one barely surviving rubbarb plant. It reminded me of the great rubbarb bed that still exists at my childhood home. That rubbarb bed has to be over 100 years old and it has been moved several times, but the plants still flourish. I took that one scraggy plant and replanted it at the end of one my perennial beds. Since then, it has taken off and flourished. It always reminds me of home.
My dad helped me plant my first flower bed of annuals when I was a young child. The first year, I scattered seeds and watched marigolds and zinnias come to life. After several years, he allowed me to go to a nursery to buy some plants. From there I carved out our yard with borders of annuals and eventually perennials. To this day, I still need to scatter some annuals in his and my flower beds and planters, so that is always provides a touch of color throughout the growing season.
My father and I have planted many a vegetable garden together. The first year we grew tomatoes from seed, we and planted nearly 8 dozen plants because he did not have the heart to throw them away. He said they looked better than the nursery grown ones. His vegetable garden was awesome. It was a Saturday ritual to head to the nursery in early spring to pick up our vegetable plants. He always pushed the envelope when it came to planting his tomatoes. One year he put them in on May 3rd. In our area, Memorial Day is usually the safe bet for planting them. He must have known something I did not, for a few days later he landed in the hospital with heart problems. It was a month long stay, but his tomatoes survived and produced a bumper crop that summer.
So many plants remind me of my dad. His love for daliahs, zinnias, strawberries,fruit trees, tulips, daffodils and tomatoes always make me think of him. Though our years together are drawing to a close, and each of us move a lot slower than we once did, I continue to create garden memories with him. And though we live a few miles apart, I plant a few of these plants in my own garden to keep him close to me in my heart. A daily walk through the garden always reminds me of those I love. I hope that your garden holds some special memories too.
