The Garden of Friends

The Garden of Friends

 by Nancy Martin     

The primary reason I’m unavailable for just about any travel or social events in early May is that in Zone 5 (if you’re a gardener, you know what I’m referring to) it’s the month when you must move plants in the garden.  These days, my garden boots are muddy by the back door.  I keep a box of latex gloves (for me, a better choice than gardening gloves) on the kitchen counter. My spade and hand trowels stand at the ready. My dear husband spends his Saturdays mulching like crazy.

The first house we bought previously belonged to the manager of the local Agway store, and the property was lush with flowering bushes and fruit trees.  I learned about growing blueberries at that house.  (The trick is knowing when to “recycle” old sheer curtains—throwing them over the bushes just before the birds realize the berries are ripening.) But there weren’t any flowers at that house.

Our second house—in a leafy neighborhood in a small town--came with one of the best assets never mentioned on HGTV—a neighbor who loved to garden and share her knowledge. The first flower I received from a friend came from her, my neighbor Mary—who, a couple of years later suddenly gave up gardening when she became obsessed with golf. (My theory about her giving up gardening is that her beloved dog died, and she buried her in the garden.) Mary gave me a plant that we call gooseneck. It used to grow under the fence between our houses, and I loved it, so Mary helped me dig up a clump and move it into my own garden.  It’s actually a forbidden plant in my state—it grows rampantly in wetlands, choking out all native plants—so it’s very naughty to move it, but I am careful to keep it contained in a dry part of my garden.  The flowers are shaped like the heads of geese, and they bloom just in time for the 4^th of July, so they make wonderful holiday bouquets when combined with red bee balm---together, they look like fireworks.

                            

Mary started my life as a gardener.  I’m not very good, mind you.  (I tend to learn from disastrous mistakes.)  She taught me one of the greatest joys of gardening is sharing cherished plants, passing them along to friends.

For my birthday one year, my mother gave me some hard-to-find daylilies that bloom dark red with hardly any yellow in the throat.  I accidentally left most of them at another house when we moved here to Pittsburgh, but I have a small clump I’m gently coaxing to expand.  (Molly W, are you there?  I should consult you on this subject.)

Last week, when I should have been pounding toward my June 1 deadline, I divided some of my favorite plants to share with my daughter, Sarah, who has started her own garden this year.  She gets some of the four o’clock that I divided out of a plant that grew along the side of the house beside Mary’s—the house where Sarah grew up.  Sarah's favorite color is purple, and she was fascinated that four o'clock bloomed every day at four o'clock.  So now she has some of her own. Sharing flowers with her has been a great joy to me.  Yes, I could go to a garden center a buy a bunch of flowers to plant in her garden, but where's the challenge and the made memory in that?

Also from the house where Sarah grew up, I took a chunk of variegated hosta that has since been divided so many times that I’ve lost track of many of the places it’s ended up.  But I know some of it grows on my father’s grave.  Some ended up at a house where we lived briefly on a Virginia mountaintop.  Some grows along the Delaware sidewalk of my friend Ramona.  Ramona, by the way, has given me the wonderful Siberian iris, which is just about to bloom in front of my house.

My friend Hannah—a creative person who wrote and illustrated a wonderful children’s book set in Africa and featuring her magical drawings of animals—gave me Sweet Woodruff, which I planted first at the big house we built twenty years ago. That Sweet Woodruff looked beautiful around a small pond she helped me dig—a pond that was home to some goldfish until the raccoons came for buffet night. (See my earlier note re: disastrous mistakes.) The following year, I was talking on the telephone and looking out at the pond through a window and realized something was swimming around in the pond.  I was delighted—thinking somehow some fish has survived---and then I realized the pond was full of snakes.  (Major disastrous mistake.)  So when the gardening shows gush about “water features,” I’m the one shouting at the television:  “Water brings snakes, you fools!” 

So I can’t think of Sweet Woodruff without thinking of Hannah. 

We have moved several times since we married over 30 years ago---sometimes by choice (we had a great time building our dream house, and the garden at that house was my masterpiece, but oooh, I am so sad that I can't see what that garden looks like now!) and sometimes we have moved because there was no other choice. When we happily moved here to Pittsburgh, I was glad to have my minivan, which I packed to the gills with the two Dalmatians and their paraphernalia and huge clumps of flowers and plants.  The minivan smelled like dirt for weeks.

Yes, I have books and knickknacks that have been given to me by friends, and I love them. Harley gave me a blue Buddha.    Or is it a Shiva? I don’t know the difference, but I love it. (I keep it on the shelf by my desk.  See the lips?  That's from our first TLC reunion at the RT convention here in Pittsburgh.)

But there’s something about seeing a plant poke itself up from the dirt in May and start to grow—to come to life—that makes sharing flowers with friends such a circle of life

Comments

[Reine]

Beautiful, Nancy. Gardening is something I really do miss, so it's lovely reading about yours.

[Kathy Reschini Sweeney]

Love this time of year - all the perennials are in full bloom!

Last year we discoverd 'Sunpatiens' -which are like impatiens but do better in direct sun with less water and grow thicker rather than leggy.

[Reine]

I think I'm going to try raised container gardening. We're in Zone 9. I wonder if sunpatiens would grow here.

[Nancy Martin]

Sunpatiens?? I'm headed to the garden center soon! Well, as soon as this book is finished. (It's putting a definite hitch in my gardening this year!)

[Ramona]

What's really funny, Nancy, is that the irises that I gave to you, you first gave to me!

A few years ago, I bought one small sedum (spectible?) plant from a local family nursery. It was the end of the season. I think it cost me 99 cents. I have separated that thing to 17 plants, at last count. All huge mounds, all in dry spots where nothing else would grow. Best investment of my life.

At my next writing workshop, I should give out little buds of it.

[Nancy Martin]

Where did those irises come in the first place? I know I didn't buy them! Hmmm...a mystery.

Sending safe travel vibes for those headed to the Royal Wedding today. I hope somebody keeps a travel journal. (We should have sent Her, Margie along for the ride.)

[Mo]

I learned to love gardening by following my Mom and Grandfather around as a child. When I settled into my own house 25 years ago I my Mom started sharing her perennials with me. My Mom and my childhood garden are now gone but I have the lovely peony, iris, lilac, day lily, and many more blooms that carry me back to them. My son has now settled into his own house and this year we will start moving pieces of the family garden to is yard.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Nancy, you are such a treasure. (And those lips de-magetized about fifteen of my hotel room keys--but that's another story.)

Our tulips were so great this year---I cut dozens and dozens of them--the house was full of pink and white and they just kept coming. And the lilacs!

Now the peonies are arriving. Funny, huh, if you love your garden, how the arrival of rain (in moderation and pre-slugs) is such a good thing. Changes your perspective.

We haven't seen the sun for days, but everything is incredibly lush.

[Nancy Martin]

Mo, I bet your son is thrilled. Peonies are my very fave.

Hank, for my big garden in the house we built, I planted 300 tulip bulbs one fall. In the spring......I had one tulip. And a lot of fat chipmunks.

[Nancy Martin]

BTW, I can't believe it's pouring BUCKETS again today. If Ohio and Indiana have much rain as we do here in Pittsburgh, there's no hope for Louisiana. Build your arks!

[Sandi]

My mom is an avid gardener, and I am an avid garden planner. We work well together. We have a number of plants that came from neighbors, friends and family, but my favorite story is about a peony. This plant has been in my mom's family for close to 100 years, brought to Wisconsin from Michigan over 40 years ago. My grandmother cared for it for 20 years, and when she moved she gave it to my mom. Her house didn't have a spot sunny enough so a neighbor offered a patch of sun by their garage. Several years later, my father passed away and my mom moved to the house we're in now. Meanwhile my grandmother and her partner moved again, leaving his house to his daughter. Grandma and John were both gardeners and they had an incredible wildflower garden. For some reason Mom thought the peony was in that wildflower garden, and she was devastated when the black-thumbed daughter burned the garden to the ground ("it's just weeds"). Grandma passed away, then a few months later the neighbor ran into Mom and asked if she wanted the peony back. Mom was thrilled, of course. When we moved it to this house it was just a tiny thing, a few stalks, but Mom put it in the ground (we cut a new bed just for the peony) and babied it through the season. The next year it came back, small but determined, and even had five flower balls. My aunt asked Mom when she thought it would bloom and she replied, "On Mom's birthday." It did. The first birthday after Grandma's death, that skinny little peony popped out five big pink and white flowers, one for each of her children. We've had the peony for 12 years and it's as big and healthy as it ever was, joined now by several other varieties including three that we brought from my dad's parents' yard.

[Nancy Martin]

Sandi! What a fabulous story! I have always heard peonies don't like to be transplanted, so yours was definitely the spirit of some hardy Michigander from long ago. There is nothing more beautiful than a whole bank of peonies blooming together. Roses may last longer, but the ephemeral nature of peonies makes them special.

[judy merrill larsen]

Oh, I love this, Nancy. And all your stories about where your plants came from.

Twelve years ago, I was a broke singe-mom with a narrow strip of grass/weeds between my house and driveway. I talked my two best friends into driving 6 hours for a weekend to help me transform it into a perennial garden (one of them has an incredible green thumb). We worked like dogs that year and then again the next, hence we had created a "Gardening Weekend" tradition. The third spring, the garden was well-established and it was raining so we decided to shop (and drink) instead. Now, I putz around in the garden each spring (it looks fantastic) getting it in top shape for their arrival . . . we still call it "Gardening Weekend" which amuses our husbands no end--they arrive this Friday (their husbands are coming this year to hang out with mine while we shop. And drink). It's one of the best weekends of the year for all of us . . . and it all started with flowers.

[Harley]

Nancy, you have just given me a Big Insight: I need a gardening mentor. Some things you can get from books, but there's nothing like a human being (gardeners for hire don't count) who can come look at the yellow leaves on your bay laurel and tell you if you're watering too much or too little.

BTW, I have no memory at all of giving you that Blue Buddha. And I would worry about my fading memory, but it seems to me that worrying about anything is non-Buddha-like.

[Laura (in PA)]

What a wonderful blog, Nancy! I love Sandi's story. And Judy's weekend.

I love gardens, but I'm not a great gardener. I wish I were. I muddle around in there, but not often enough, and the best plants for me are the kind that survive benign neglect.

I do have a pretty, salmon-colored iris that my sister gave me, which her friend gave her, which came from her friend's mother's garden when the mother died and they sold her house. I love to think that plants are passed around to grow memories of the people they came from.

[Margaret Maron]

I'm not the gardener I once was, but I've kept my grandmother's lilacs blooming in this too Southern garden, her crepe myrtles, and her gardenias. Like you, Nancy, almost everything in my garden has a personal story attached to it. AND I have daylilies from Molly Weston, too!

[Nancy Martin]

Judy, can I come to your gardening weekend? I like the idea of drinking and admiring your previous handiwork.

Harley, you sent the Buddha in the mail. (Is it a Buddha?) After staying at my house--by which I mean you mostly came and did laundry. I think you left a bra hanging in my basement, and I mailed it back to you after months of wondering whose it was!

[Laraine]

Gardening mentors are terrific, Harley--I highly recommend it. My landlord was sometimes a grumpy guy, and fighting a never-ending battle against alium (nasty invasive weed) didn't improve his mood; but I learned so much from him, including the pleasure of tucking a tulip bulb into the little well in the center of each of the cinder-block bricks that line the garden beds. Whether the beds hold veggies or ice plant or what, the border glows at tulip time. A minor gesture that pays off big.

[Nancy Martin]

Laura, "muddling around" definitely describes my gardening style! Along with benign neglect and disatrous mistakes. Only Martha Stewart can garden with strict precision.

Margaret, next year I have a summer book, so I'm going to visit Molly when the daylilies are in bloom!

[marie]

Nancy, what a lovely blog.
Although I feel wistful for peonies I still have many beautiful flowers here in California.
I treasure my gardenia plant that is yielding so many blooms as are my rose bushes.
I remember the four o'clocks and how beautiful they were back in Canada.
I am sending you virtual bouquet of roses from my garden to you, Nancy!!

[judy merrill larsen]

Come on down, Nancy! We'd love to have you.

[Nancy Martin]

I have never tried a gardenia. I was just watching a black & white movie, and some gentleman made a point of buying a gardenia for his lovely lady, and I realized I have never even smelled a gardenia! Life still has adventures to offer.

[Karen in Ohio]

Nancy, we have had so much rain in Cincinnati. We normally get 42.6 inches a year. In April and May alone so far we've had 20. Will whoever is in charge of this department please shut off the spigots for a couple days? And maybe raise the temps a bit, just high enough that we can turn the furnace off? Thanks.

I love sharing garden plants, and have some wonderful iris and daylilies given to me by my neighbor's mother from her garden in Arkansas, 23 years ago. When we added onto our house another neighbor came over and loaded up a truck bed with divided plants I didn't have anyplace to move to, and she later shared with her neighbor. It's so fun to drive past there to see my flowers living on again, and in way more profusion than they ever did here.

Ten years ago I planted three or four forget-me-not plants in the rock garden my husband built for me. They have spread like wildfire, and they create millions of seeds. I've shared them with friends all over the country (including some of the TLC backbloggers). If anyone would like some, let me know, and I'll save some for you when they dry out this year, too. If it ever dries out.

When we moved here there were ferns out behind the house. I've moved them all over, and now they're everywhere. And the lilies of the valley, one of my very favorite flowers, have really multiplied in the last couple of year. This year they were utterly profuse. My peonies have big buds this year; maybe there will be more than one blossom, for a change. The deer don't eat them, but they do chomp my daylilies (Stella d'Oro), phlox (in many colors, not that I ever get to see them anymore), autumn clematis, and carnations. And the Mr. Lincoln rose, which has never recovered from standing as dinner for some future venison dinner.

[Karen in Ohio]

I think gardenias are difficult in places that freeze. But I think you can grow them as a houseplant, as long as you are able to provide high humidity.

[Debby]

I am not much of a gardener, per se, however I do have my share of heirloom plants.

I have giant purple iris that originated in my grandmother's garden in Harrisburg, which mom liberated before that house was sold.

August Lilies. Sedum. Coral Bells. Day Lilies.

I also call them my friendship plants. :) Currently, I am waiting for one of my friends to show up with her fiance to dig up a giant August Lily that really needs a new home.

[lil Gluckstern]

I have a quote from an old Biology teacher-"Flowering is the Essence of Being." Seemed appropriate for the discussion of plants, and books, and Buddha, etc.

[Nancy Martin]

Lil, I love that!

Karen, the rain here is surely making your river high. Gah.

[Kerry]

I love all these stories! Neither of my parents were gardeners - the final landscaping at the house where I grew up in California was attractive and low maintenance, with a premium on shrubs and trees and a minimum of things that actually required digging, weeding, mulching, etc.

Me, I like digging in the dirt, but have never had much opportunity to do so; since leaving grad school, I've only lived in townhouses with next to no space. I have finally settled on converting our front patch of dirt into a tomato-and-herb garden that also hosts a fairly riotous lantana (aka, "the bush that ate Chesapeake). I've dug in more cubic feet of gardening soil than I can count over the years and have established rosemary, lavender, oregano, and chives. This year I added two kinds of basil, two kinds of parsley, thyme, sage, and about 6 tomatoes.

I like this approach because it's fun for me but not overwhelming, it looks nice and smells even better, and I get to eat the results :) But I sure do fantasize about gardens like the ones y'all are describing!

[marie]

Ironically, I would not have considered growing gardenias but the lovely plant was here when we bought our home over thirty years ago,
No blooms came forth until we removed a tree and now it is thriving in the right amount of sunshine.
Tulips abounded in Ottawa when I lived there. Holland's Queen Juliana sent plants to Canada.
My DH used to walk among the botanical gardens with our movie camera and we have many, I mean many pictures of us walking aimlessly among the tulip gardens.
Flowers are a gift that lift our spirits as well as music and books. Thanks, Lil, thanks for the lovely quote.

[Lynn in Texas]

Nancy, gardenia is my favorite scent in the world, and if they grow in your zone, hie thee to the nearest nursery to get a plant! I'm eagerly awaiting the first creamy white bloom of my miniatures any day now!

BTW, when my dh was a toddler, he loved his mother's gardenia plant so much he used to eat the flowers like candy, lol!

[Karen in Ohio]

Fragrant flowers are my favorite: peonies, old roses, autumn clematis, iris, daylilies, lilies of the valley (muguet des bois), lilacs, phlox, magnolias, butterfly bush, BEEBALM! (Beebalm/monarda is the basis of Earl Grey tea) Before the addition I also had a wonderful herb garden, from which I made gallons of potpourri, but that's all gone. I'm trying to reproduce it at our farm, but so far all I've been able to grow there is lavender and peppermint.

Our garden boasts flowering plants from early February until late November. But it's a work in progress, and no one would make the mistake of hiring me as a garden designer! My gardening "technique" is to plant it. If it grows, keep it. :-)

[Harley]

So THAT'S where I left that bra.

[Nancy Martin]

Karen, I had no idea Earl Grey starts with bee balm! (It's a member of the mint family. You can tell by the square stem.)

Kerry, you are a scientist. Of course you would choose herbs over flowers. I am a writer. I like pretty things that essentially serve no purpose.

Lynn, I think I'm in love with your dh. That's such a charming story.

[Deb]

Nancy, thank you so much for writing about your gardening experiences! I especially liked reading about the four o'clocks. My siblings and I were apartment dwellers as children, but we spent many happy hours during the summer across town at our grandparents' home. My grandmother was such a great gardener that I swear she could make rocks flower! Her tiny yard was filled with flowers of all kinds. My grandfather dug the garden beds for her(he didn't believe that a woman should have to do that:-) and she did all the planting and weeding. There was one disatrous summer when Grandpa tried to help with the weeding, and accidentally eliminated a lot of the plants that she worked so hard to cultivate. He was kindly told that he should stick to what he did best.
She had a four o'clock garden on one side of her house, and we kids had fun waiting for four o'clock to come!

[Margaret Maron]

When I was 13, I read a romantic novel in which the man presents the girl of his dreams with a gardenia corsage and I thought her pleasure was way over the top. Took me a while to realize that what's a common bush here is special in the north. My NY sister-in-law loves gardenias, so we gave her a miniature for a house plant. She must have the touch because it's now about 10 years old, is 4 feet tall and seems to bloom continuously, keeping her living room perfumed.

Karen, I'll take some of those forget-me-not seeds, please. They enchant me, but so far I haven't found a place shady and moist enough. I want to keep trying though. E me through my website and I'll send you my address, okay?

[[email protected]]

That was great, Nancy. I'm gardening for the first time this year. We were lucky enough to buy a house with established gardens, so, at first, I simply tried not to ruin them. Now I'm more daring. And by daring I mean I'm adding hostas and hydrangeas. And maybe a rhododendron.

[Nancy Pickard]

Those gooseneck and the bee balm look SO much like fireworks. You've made me want to plant some of them. Such a beautiful post, Nancy.

[marie]

One of the prettiest plants that I have on my walkway is the Bird Of Paradise and is very majestic as it guards the front of my home.

[Storyteller Mary]

A college friend said she happily gave cuttings of favorite plants, considering it good insurance in case something ever happened to hers.
I'm only good for a few minutes at a time outside . . . so my "gardening" is haphazard and the lawn service paid for with my association fees does most of it. I do have a few pet plants I try to keep out of reach of their weed-whackers. A "frog plant" from my mom's house that began as a little potted Bible School Mother's Day gift, a hibiscus from a friend, some tulips and daffodils (one a rescued potted plant from years ago, which somehow made the trip from the condo).
My favorites are the irises my favorite principal rescued from the site of Henderson Jr. High . . . just days before the bulldozers would have buried them. His wife kept them alive, and when our perfect Jr. High was closed to transform into a high school, he handed out rhizomes of the "Henderson Iris." My mom grew them at her house, and had my brother dig some up for me to plant at the condo, and I managed to bring some here to my little eco-home, where they seem happy.

[Nancy Martin]

Oh, cuttings! Those are far above my level of expertise. I kill 'em off fast.

[Reine]

Nancy M,

A friend of mine pulled a pad off her beavertail cactus, walked it across the street, and stuck it in the ground in my front yard. She watered it twice. In three weeks it has beautiful flowers, all now with large swellings becoming new pads, just a couple months later. It's really like magic I think.

[peg s.]

Like you, Nancy, I've moved plants from house to house. One of the most difficult moves was in July (zone 5) but things mostly survived. It's fun to remember who gave the starts.

[Karen in Ohio]

Margaret, will do. Mine are not in a shady spot, but there's a lot of really rich soil there. Leaf mold, maybe?

Forget-me-nots need lazy gardeners. They are biennials, and they reseed prolifically, but you'll only get more plants if you leave the seedlings be at the end of summer.

The best time to plant them is just after the plant here goes to seed, so it will be important to get them into the ground as soon as you can. However, they sprout so easily, even just lying on top of the soil.

[Reine]

Storyteller Mary,

When we lived in Bakersfield I woke up early one Saturday morning to a very loud chainsaw outside our bedroom window. You can only imagine where my half asleep thoughts took that. I looked out the window and saw the HOA gardener "pruning" the rose bushes with a huge chainsaw. I just don't get that at all.

[cheap jerseys]

My Mom and my childhood garden are now gone but I have the lovely peony, iris, lilac, day lily, and many more blooms that carry me back to them.