Looking down, I see my white baby shoes stepping on black soil and green grass. A yellow sulphur butterfly floats above my head, and bumblebees buzz nearby. My grandmother is on her knees in the garden digging with a shovel. I try to run on stubby little feet, but fall to to my knees in the cool, soft earth. I begin to cry, and strong hands set straight again. A soft kiss lands on the top of my head, and sure fingers wipe baby tears from my eyes. Then, her index finger touches the end of my nose. I look up into beautiful brown eyes crinkled at the sides by the sun.
“Come here, I want to show you something,” she says. She takes my hand and walks me over to where an earthworm wriggles in soil she’s turned over. A trowel is nearby, and I want to dig in the dirt too, and she lets me although it’s where she was going to place a transplant.
I’m fascinated by the wriggly worm, but then I smell something sweet, and I wander over to a large elm tree where a red rose clambers up the side and spills down into the branches.
She calls my name, and I turn. She stands in an old, but ironed dress with apron, hands on hips, smiling at me. When I run into her hug, she smells of flowers, starch, soap and all the sweet things grandmothers are made of.
This is my first garden memory, and even though I was only two years old, I remember it as if it were yesterday. I can still see the small white house with a green roof, roses climbing the black iron porch railings, and the porch swing which I painted the summer after my senior year of high school.
I see the back sleeping porch, where my grandmother ripened her tomatoes and sat her pies to cool. I hear Grandma Nita coming out, the screen door slamming behind her while she wipes her floured hands on her apron and then runs them through her curly black hair hanging in sweaty ringlets around her face.
Behind her sits the chicken house, the three apple trees (red delicious), the vegetable garden and the compost pile. In the center of the compost grows that huge red rose into the elm tree. Later, after my grandfather died, I discovered the rose is all which remains of her flower garden. The flower garden and the vegetable patch sat side by side for many years, but one spring she walked outside to find Grandpa Art tilling up the flower bed and turning it back to earth. When asked why, he said flowers were unnecessary, and she had plenty to do with the vegetables. You see, in his world vegetables were a worthy exercise, flowers didn’t make food and were expendable.
She cried, but she didn’t challenge him. I remember he was pretty mean, and he raised an angry son who later became my father.
The flower garden was long gone by the time I toddled after her in my white shoes, but it remained in my cellular memory.
Today, friends stopped by to visit, and a new friend asked how I was able to keep so many gardens by myself, and how they came to be. With her questions, this memory re-surfaced.
My gardens are large, floriferous and bounteous. The plants are held in a formal structure, but I let them spill over into the pathways. By July, the entire garden is a mass of overgrown plants and more flowers than anything else. Flowers even spill into the vegetable garden, some because I plant them there. Others, like many of the herbs, I let go to seed. The flowers feed the butterflies and other small pollinators with their nectar.
I think I plant the flower garden as I do for her, perhaps, to make up for the flower garden she lost.
Vegetables are food for the body, but flowers sustain the soul. I know they nourish me.
What a touching story, Dee. Unfortunately I don’t have memories of my grandparents and I lost my mother when I was four. You have a fantastic memory because try as I might I have none of my own mother.
I had an angry father so I know whereof you speak. My mother was a great gardener that managed to grow all the vegetables needed to feed her family, plus tend to the heavy demands of being a farmer’s wife . I was fortunate to visit the garden she left behind and her roses , and fruit trees, were still blooming many years after she passed.
Such a life, despite its hardship, makes us stronger and more determined to be happy. Thanks for sharing your personal story.
Dee, Such a beautifully written and wise story. Our gran was a huge influence on our gardening urges, though she was a bit of a character — not nearly so loving as yours. There’s a patch of rugosa roses in a park the next street over, and whenever I walk past (it’s a ritual) if there’s a flower in bloom I stop to sniff the scent, instantly transported to our grandmother’s garden. Soul nourishing, indeed.
I’ve commented twice on this post, Dee, but it’s not going through. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed it, and how much it reminded me of my own OK grandma, who grew red roses and vegetables and moss rose, kept chickens, wore faded dresses, and doted on her grandchildren.
Dee, your grandma Nita is clearly a guiding spirit in your garden. She passed along a valuable legacy and you have grown it into something very special.
Oh, Dee- you’ve gone beyond blogging to literature with this story.
My grandmother was left a widow with 5 kids at the beginning of the great depression – she had two wide borders running down the sides of her tiny city lot. There was no angry husband, but times were hard so maybe she had to replace the flowers with vegetables, too.
I have a few memories of her garden in the mid-1950’s…at that time border was full of flowers and the other border was full of vegetables.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I agree with Carol- this is a beautiful post. And confirmation that you are the one I need to be talking to about writing. 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing this memory- I loved gardening with my grandmomma also. And thank-you for the time talking about writing today!
Barbara, I’m thrilled to talk about writing anytime. Good luck with your work.~~Dee
Wonderful story. Very touching, and it’s so true, flowers do nourish the soul.
Thank you dear. I don’t think I could live without flowers.
That’s just about the sweetest post you’ve ever written.
Thank you Carol. I loved her very much.~~Dee
Dear Dee, My dear what a moving post and such a powerful memory. I am glad she was there in your life to help make you the incredible woman and gardener you are today~xxxgail
It was a very healing memory Gail. Powerful. I thought of you and some of our conversations when I wrote it.~~Dee
Thanks for sharing this memory. Its interesting to think about where we inherite our horticultural aspirations from. How sad for your grandmother to have her flower garden taken away, I bet if she had been of our generation she wouldnt have stood for it!! Makes you appreciate how lucky we are
Helen, I think she was sad, but also very philosophical about it. She said the vegetables were the most important, and probably for their generation, they were. They lived through the Great Depression. I’m glad women have more choices now than they once had, and no, I don’t think I would have stood for it.~~Dee
What a wonderful Grandmother memory. She planted many viable seeds. I know she is proud of you and your garden.
Hi Lisa, I have loads of memories about her because I loved her so much. I think about her all the time when I’m weeding.~~Dee
Beautiful, beautiful words, Dee! I am amazed you have such memories. I can’t get back that far in mine.
Brenda
Thank you Brenda. It’s the only early memory I have.~~Dee
Hey, I’m anonymous. I replied through twitter for some reason my name didn’t show! But I loved the article and I love you!! 🙂 Very touching. Very heart felt.
Dana, I figured you were Anon. It sounded like you dear. So glad you and Nancy came to visit on Saturday. It was fun.~~Dee
I hope that my grandchildren grow up to have at least one memory of me as lovely as this one you have of your grandmother. I have taken them out in the garden with me to see caterpillars, butterflies, and earthworms and one of my grandsons (age 3) loves them as much as I do.
Ginny, I think all of your grandchildren will carry memories of you in the garden. One suggestion is to have them smell beautiful things because our olfactory sense is our longest. I still remember how good that rose smelled.~~Dee
This is a lovely and touching post Dee. It is wonderful you can recall such young memories. Your images of your grandmother remind me of mine. Thank you!
Thank you so much Carol. This is the only young memory I really have. The rest start at about four years old, and they are few. I’m glad you had a wonderful grandmother too.~~Dee
Dee, you are one of the best and most interesting people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Thank you so much for sharing your life with us!
Dana, darling, you are too kind.~~Dee
Dee, what a beautiful memory. Flowers are beautiful and beauty does indeed sustain the soul.
Thank you so much Debbie. We need all the beauty we can get.~~Dee
I wish I known known my grandmothers. I do know from angry fathers.
Monica, I’m sorry about the angry fathers. There seem to be a lot of those running around. I wonder why. I wish you’d known your grandmothers too. Perhaps in heaven.~~Dee
Oh, that was bittersweet. My grandma was a big influence on my gardening interest, too.
Kathy, we all had someone who loved us enough to introduce us to gardening. It was bittersweet.~~Dee