Revisiting Stories "Planted" In My Garden
Have you visited stories "planted" in yours?
Hello, Dear Reader!
I’m so glad you’re here. I never take it for granted that you allow my writings to land in your inbox. I consider it a privilege that you do. Thank you.
I hope you enjoy today’s piece about stories “planted” in my garden. You’re invited to share a story from your garden if you have one or from a garden you remember.
Revisiting Stories “Planted” In My Garden
Who knew a garden could hold so many stories?
Summer officially arrives this week. Woohoo! Where I live this also means it’s daisy time. Nothing announces summer quite like daises. Meg Ryan had it right when she referred to daisies as the friendly flowers in the movie, You’ve Got Mail. (Love that movie.)
The sight of these delightful blooms kicking into gear this week got me thinking about the stories hidden in my garden. I bet if you have a garden (or remember one), there’s a story or two in yours as well.
Your garden might be a flower garden, vegetable garden, or possibly an orchard (lucky you). Or maybe you have a bunch of pots filled with plants on your balcony or deck. Or perhaps a terrarium or a house plant or two represent a garden for you.
Regardless of what sort of plant life you enjoy or even just dream about, I bet there’s a story in it somewhere. I can’t wait to hear about it.
When I was growing up, my family took a road trip to North Dakota every summer to visit my maternal grandparents. There’s a story in those road trips — but that’s for another day.
Every evening, one of my siblings or I would be recruited to help Grandma water her flowers. We reluctantly volunteered, all of us a little lacking in the enthusiasm for plant-watering department. While Grandma happily chatted and lovingly watered her many plants; what I mostly remember is swatting mosquitoes and the relief I felt when we could finally go back inside.
I think about Grandma when I water my flowers today and wish I’d been more attentive and appreciative. I sure could use some of her knowledge about plants. I hope I didn’t disappoint her too much with my lack of enthusiasm. It would be so lovely to speak with her again about flowers — among many other things.
When I was in sixth grade, my family and I moved into a green ranch-style rambler on Central Avenue South in Madelia, Minnesota. We made the move from Central Avenue North. Same street, just opposite end of town. That move made me feel like my family was moving up in the world.
One thing both my parents loved about our new green ranch-style rambler was the garden space in the back yard. With careful tending, it expanded and flourished. Year after year it was a lovelier sight to behold — even featured once in the local newspaper as “Yard of the Week”. People drove by our house just to get a glimpse of our backyard. A few were bold enough to drive through the alley that bordered the backyard so they could get a closeup look. My parents were so proud.
Some of the plants in my mother’s garden had made their way into it all the way from Grandma’s flower gardens in North Dakota. Of course, some of Grandma’s plants got their start in her mother’s flower gardens. And now, they’re in mine. Well, a few of them made it anyway.
There’s something special about that continuity. That circle of life. Four generations of women. Four generations of daisies and irises. That itself is an amazing story.
My flower garden has other stories hidden in it, too. Some of the stories aren’t about plants at all. There’s the stain-glass blue jay I claimed after my dad died when my siblings and I were cleaning out his stuff. It was a Father’s Day present I gave him years ago. It’s a bit bent and twisted, but I love it because it was once in his garden. Thinking about him gazing at it all those years while it perched there makes me happy.
There’s the hand-painted red and black ceramic lady bug given to me by an adorable second-grade student who was once in my classroom. It’s more than a bit miraculous it hasn’t been broken. Knock on wood. I think about that student and wonder if she still remembers me too. I hope she is living a happy life. I like to think I impacted it positively.
This year, Husband and I moved Best Father-in-Law Ever’s army veteran star to a more deserving place — front and center in the garden. His stories, his legacy living on right there in our garden, too.
Of course, some stories hidden in the garden you cannot see. There are the mistakes those of us without green thumbs have made. The plants that didn’t survive. The ones the critters ate or destroyed. And the ones we accidentally pulled out and tossed aside. Oops.
And hidden in my garden, there’s even a cancer-related story. That first Cancer Summer was not a good summer. For obvious reasons, the weeds took over. That summer, no one thought much about weeds, much less weeding.
I mention this because one lovely thing I remember about that Cancer Summer was the kindness of a friend. That friend not only brought over two containers of home-made chili — one to eat and one to freeze — along with the chili, she also left a note that simply said: I will come over and weed your garden.
Asking Cancer Havers what you can do for them can sometimes be too hard a question to answer. Sometimes, just volunteering to do something and then following through and doing it is more meaningful than you could ever imagine.
I have never forgotten that kind offer from a friend to weed my garden.
Those are just a few stories, a few fond memories, tucked away in my garden.
Who knew a garden could hold so many?
Now…
It’s YOUR turn to share a story or memory from your garden (or a garden you remember)!
Do you have a garden (any sort)?
Do you have a story hidden in your garden or in a garden you remember?
What’s your favorite summer plant/flower?
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Visit my website to learn more about my writing and my three books.
Thank you for being here with me. I appreciate you.
As always, I see you. I hear you, and I care about what you have to say. You are invited to say it, too!
Have a good rest of your week.
Happy summer! 🌞
Until next time…
With gratitude,
Nancy
I have long believed that the forest holds my stories, but you've opened my eyes to see that our gardens hold our stories too. My first experience with growing things was because of my grandma Julia, who grew vegetables, berries, and flowers that she used to attract or deflect certain insects. She also prayed in her garden. Among the green leaves were small statues of St Joseph or some other saint, the Virgin Mary, and other talisman that represented her faith. What I love most when I look back on those years was that her prayers were rooted in the earth, replete with dirt under her fingernails. Something about that moves me. In my garden today, I have small tea pots, a few crystals, and grief stones that I painted when my siblings died. The garden holds them all and all the stories behind them. Thank you for such a lovely essay on another place that is the holder of story.
Nancy, I love your posts, and I restacked this with a note about our apricot tree and how I grew it from seed from a tree in a green belt. I have so many stories about my garden, feeding the neighborhood with my cucumbers and grapes, neighbors kids bringing me worms, the flowers we have, and how it’s evolved over the years we’ve lived here. My favorite flower is the wild iris. They are so delicate and their colors are my favorite. I named one of my dogs Iris. I have tried to grow daisies here but for some reason they don’t do well. I do love them, though.
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