On a Memory Garden

          

Call me “old-fashioned.” Or perhaps I’m just getting old and sentimental—and that would be accurate as well. But I feel the best garden you can plant and maintain is one that evokes personal memories whenever you wander through it…or even glance at as you pass by the window.

One of the first things I do on a daily basis is to open the blinds and peruse my garden. I need to cut back that African Daisy, noting the twenty-degree temperatures nipped it back. Oh, yes. I want to plant those foxglove seeds Betty sent me in that space I just weeded. They will be magnificent next summer as I sit at my computer and watch them grow.

I make a mental list of the things I need to do before Winter sets in, many times reminding me of the person who gifted me the plant or its history. I note changes as this gardening season draws to a close and admire the remaining fall beauty.

A Mother’s Day gift from long ago, the Black Lace elderberry has lost its leaves. They should be removed from the ground. My grandgirl’s transplanted blueberry bush, given when the family moved, is ablaze with vibrant reds. The Chocolate cosmos I saw in Jennifer’s garden—and was compelled to buy for myself--needs cut back. The dahlias shared by friends have turned to mush. That clean-up chore is put on the list. The hostas in the back yard, another gift, are slime as well. A former client and friend planted impatiens and cyclamen under her shade trees. I borrowed the idea and did the same. They have “bit the dust” too, but their beautiful statement during the growing season reminded me of Sandy.

The Lorapetalum and smoke tree I purchased at Peggy’s nursery where I worked as a newly single person will need hefty pruning when dormant. Her nursery was a literal, yet symbolic place of growth and nurturing in my life as my damaged, fragile inner confidence absorbed the beauty of living things in an environment of pure love and acceptance. I thrived there while watering, feeding, and caring for the hanging baskets that came in for Mother’s Day, the annuals filled with color, the fuchsias, shrubs, and fruit trees. When I look out my window, I am filled with memories of the greenhouse--stifling, steamy in the summer and bone-cold in early Spring, learning to operate a bucket on a tractor, and Peggy’s wonderful laugh.

My friend and partner often visited his favorite nursery. I reaped the benefits as my garden is filled with snapdragons, creeping phlox, a variety of perennials—including echinacea, liatris, and hydrangeas—that he insisted on purchasing for me. Since his recent passing, I treasure not only the plants, but the memory connected to them as well.

I have visited some expansive, beautiful gardens on the grounds of castles and estates. But I must say my “memory garden” is the best. The next time a friend, family member--or even a stranger on a gardening site—offers you starts, tubers, bulbs, seeds, or cuttings…receive them with thanks and appreciation. You’ll not only be planting a living, growing thing, but a memory as well. The end result is you will be surrounded by a personal element in your garden that cannot be replicated—the kind money cannot buy.