For The Love Of Gardening?

My mother had no interest in plants other than the necessity of “putting up” produce from our huge vegetable garden. My father, a depression era farmer, thought anything on the land that didn’t make a profit or food was “nonsense.”

How on earth did I get the love of all things gardening? I had this love from the time I was a small child, picking violets and dandelions for bouquets and making hollyhock dolls.

As I got older I was given the chore of mowing with a big difficult-to-maneuver piece of machinery. I was always sure it was my punishment for dawdling away my time over the flowers. In truth, my older brother was expected to help with farm work and I was “it” by default.

We lived in a big old barn of a farmhouse and some prior owner had planted beautiful perennials. There were two large round beds out front that held what my mom called “French iris”. I’ve never found that variety but it had tiny royal blue flowers.

Another beautiful attraction for me was the row of pink, rose and white peonies that ran beside the clothes line. The fragrance from a vase full would perfume an entire room.

The climbing rose bush was situated out by the garage (actually it was placed to strategically hide the outhouse.) The rose was a single yellow and had a strong sweet fragrance. I never let a season go by without picking those little roses to float in a bowl of water.

The yard had many large trees. As all Indiana farmsteads did, it had a large catalpa grove out in one of the pastures. We would spend many an afternoon among the trees playing cowboys and Indians.

A pine tree that was as tall as our two story house held my brother’s tree fort and my swing. I found this old swing when we were sorting things for my dad’s estate sale.

A large arborvitae had a tall rock beside it and it was always “base” on those nights when the children of family and friends would play hide and seek. A large willow tree swayed in the summer breeze and caused my mother endless chagrin when the branches continuously dropped.

My folks, my grandparents and my great-grandparents homes were all destroyed in the 1965 Palm Sunday tornado that tore through Indiana. In addition to the lives, livestock and buildings lost, it pretty much wiped away all significant yard landscaping.

At the time, we mourned much more than the loss of flowers. My aunt had been killed as had hundreds of others. At my father’s age, it eventually proved too difficult and costly to start over with new farm equipment, livestock and buildings.

Almost everything in their home and outbuildings had been destroyed. Even though we celebrated that they and the rest of our families had survived, it was not a time when even the smallest thought centered on pretty.

All these years later I realize I am drawn to little royal blue iris, old fashioned peonies and an heirloom yellow rose bush. I have pines, a willow, and a couple of catalpas.

I’m not trying to hold on to or recreate the past. Heirloom plants from my past bring a bit of comfort from childhood memories. They’re an affirmation that these good things shaped a lifelong love of the soil. Perhaps, it’s for the love of gardening.