Since becoming a Master Gardener in 2015, I started thinking back on when my love of gardening really “blossomed.”
I suppose being a farmer’s daughter was certainly an early influence. Having no experience in farm life and after a few years with Dow Chemical during the war years, Daddy decided to try his hand at growing rice. That was not an easy endeavor, as you can imagine, with frequent summer hurricanes ‘laying the crop down’ at just the wrong time. I remember asking him, “Daddy, why can’t you just scoop it all up to save it?” “It can’t be done after it sits in all that water” was his reply, so another year lost and creditors not very understanding.
But there were many successful years and our household wanted for nothing. He worked long, hard hours and I wish I had thanked him more often for all he did and sacrificed.
In addition to the rice fields, he managed to always have a vegetable garden out there and would bring in the bounty for delicious meatless suppers. Several years he grew watermelons, (which was his and my favorite) and I think I even set up a stand one summer in the front yard to sell what we couldn’t eat up!
Then there was the other influence. My Mother absolutely loved flowers! It didn’t matter what it was, if it had color and fragrance and could grow in gumbo soil in our yard in Brazoria County, she tried it.
Of course, all those flowers and huge St. Augustine lawn needed care so many an early Saturday morning I could hear her downstairs, “could use a little help outside!” With a too-young sister and two older sisters already gone on their own, guess who answered the call! You got it! I’d throw on some clothes and be outside even without breakfast.
We had a long flagstone walkway to the street and in the days before noisy edgers or blowers, I would edge and weed that walkway by hand. But the thing was, when you stood up and saw the results, WOW, how proud I was of that straight line and of how pretty it made it for people to walk to our front door. That’s when the gardening bug started gnawing on me and he hasn’t let go. But don’t even bring up mowing that huge lawn with a push mower!
We had a precious Cape Cod house with a little fenced area off the kitchen that had a Chinese tallow tree with all those little white berry clusters and in the flower beds, a plethora of red Spider lilies! (Note: as a MG, I’ve learned those are ‘Lycoris Radiata’ and we sell them in our annual fall bulb sale. How impressive is that!?)
Mother also planted a confederate jasmine on the lattice out on the breezeway plus a huge Lady Banksia rose that grew on the other side. Live oaks in the front, a cluster of three pine trees, two crape myrtles at the end of that walkway she got from her sister in Houston. Years later, old friends still comment that we had the prettiest home and yard in town!
She loved that yard and she unwittingly passed that love on to her four daughters who all have the same passion for a beautiful yard. Mother would be happy to see all we’ve done, both as homemakers and avid gardeners. And yes, I wish I had thanked her, too, more often for so many things!
So I managed to grow up, (even after all that hard Saturday yardwork) married and after living in two distinct areas of Texas, with a seven-year ‘endurance’ in Michigan, my husband and I moved to Tyler, where he grew up. The very next year, I saw the ad for MG class and joined up and haven’t looked back. Well, maybe on really brutal, summer days digging bulbs for our sale or bitter, freezing days in winter working in the IDEA garden, I sometimes wonder “what was I thinking, I’m too old to be doing this.” But then I think, “of course you can!” That’s the stuff tough gardeners are made of! So out I go and never regret it. I’ve had it worse.
Where I grew up and lived for a while after marrying, we called it “defensive gardening.” Things grew so vigorously, you worried about that wisteria vine strangling you in the night. In fact, I had one in my first rent house and when I went out to trim it one day, I pulled on one runner and had to coil it up like a water hose! It ran the under the entire length of the house which was sitting on cinder blocks! I haven’t had a wisteria in my yard since. And if you think it’s humid here, try the gulf coast..
Then on to Michigan, where we tried to plant our first veg garden in March! Hahaha, the spade hit the frozen ground and knocked us over. It was May before we could even think about planting and later we were begging the tomatoes to turn red before the first freeze in September. But I will say, if you can get through a Michigan winter, you deserve the beauty of the other three seasons. They are glorious!
Retirement came and it was back to Texas to Kerrville in the hill country. My parents had retired there and were getting up in years and I sensed needed help. So for 18 yrs I tried to ‘garden’ in the caliche, rocky, dry nothingness of three different yards. If you put a shovel in, you immediately hit rock but somehow I managed to garden with mostly nandina, yaupon shrubs, yucca, lantana and lots of scrub oaks but I really missed the gentleness and colors of real flowers. However, I was successful in growing an outstanding specimen of ‘Nelly Moser’ clematis and still have the picture.
And now to Tyler. I have loved living here for nine years but my favorite thing is wonderful sandy loam soil that will grow most anything. My next favorite thing is all the good friends I have acquired through the MG program. Such a good support system for gardeners of all levels! Who would not love a place that can grow roses, azaleas, dogwood, redbud, bulbs of all kinds, etc. and be able to garden with all those good people?
I’ve raised a tiny Sassafras tree that a bird gifted me in the flower bed to a seven foot specimen. I didn’t even know about Sassafras until I moved here. And I’ve got azaleas, both Indica and Encore, several clematis, coral honeysuckle, roses, redbuds and my favorite, daffodils! This year we’re going back to a vegetable garden where I was ‘trying’ a perennial bed and am excited that we’ll have Celebrity tomatoes, okra, black-eyed peas and squash. I’ve tried to keep my yard manageable for what we’re able to do and I love getting out there every day, if possible. We will love the vegetable suppers and with them maybe some rice, but what’s a rice farmer’s daughter to do!?! Mother cooked a lot of rice, too.
I’ll do anything to have blooms, fruits and vegetables… just don’t ask me to edge any long flagstone walks.