From The Gardens

As a young girl I would spend hours with an old trowel digging in the sandy soil of my mother’s garden at our little ranch style house in western Massachusetts.  My parents had rented a duplex until I was about twelve years old, so it was a real novelty to have our own planting space.  My mother worked to help pay for this house which my dad built himself from a kit.  It was a pre-cut home.  Everything came in a railroad boxcar; windows, doors, all the lumber cut to the correct length and numbered.  My dad never let on that he was overwhelmed, although he certainly must have felt that way at times.  He had no previous experience building anything out of wood, much less a whole house.  It took about two years of Dad working on the house every night after work and weekends and vacations.  We moved in during the summer that I was twelve with great joy.

Dad planted some yews in front of the picture window in the front of the house.  It was up to Mom to put in the rest of the plantings.  Every year I helped her choose the color of petunias for the year, and of course there had to be red salvias planted between the yews!  The “garden” was a two foot wide strip around the foundation of the house where we put in the petunias, marigolds and zinnias purchased at the Dabrowski Farm Stand.  We tended that garden carefully, and every evening after supper, Mom and I would walk around the house to check on the flowers.  It would take quite a while because we would stop at each corner of the house and at each section of plantings to see how everything was growing.  Perhaps a neighbor would come over or be walking past the house and stop and chat.  This was my introduction to gardening.

I did not touch a trowel again until 1969 after my marriage to my husband.  He had many interests and hobbies and I quickly discovered after the honeymoon that he often would be in the basement building something, refinishing a piece of furniture or playing with his table-top metal lathe.  My complaints of lack of attention were met with the observation that I needed a hobby. My only previous hobby had been shopping (I had practiced long and hard and had become very skilled). I tried needlework, cooking, sewing, and a few other pass-times but nothing caught my attention. It wasn’t until I picked up a trowel again that I realized my calling.

Our city lot measured 80 ft. by 40 ft. and the house that sat on it was a pretty good size.  There was a nice stockade fence across the back with two large cedars in one corner.  A narrow border rimmed the yard on three sides where I was able to try my hand at sweet william, gaillardia, daisies and phlox.  For eight years we lived in that house while I played sporadically at gardening.  The arrival of three children (separately) slowed me down, but every summer I managed to plant a few perennials and even try my hand at growing perennials from seed.

We realized that the house and yard were too small after our third child, Katie, was born.  While on vacation that summer, friends told us of a couple they knew who were fixing up an old farmhouse they had bought for almost no money.  This seemed like something we would like to do.  Money was tight, but we knew we wanted more space, indoors and out.  It took about six months of looking at really broken down old houses before we found our “dream house” about 20 minutes outside of the city.  At first we thought we ought to bull-doze the whole thing, but after closer study we decided to renovate, not restore, this old house.

The out-house was still in the back yard, there were old doors applied to the back porch (as a wind-break, we later learned), and every thing except the house was covered by wild grape vines. Peering through the vines we could just make out large tree trunks and huge mounds of what appeared to be trash and junk.  One path, the width of a lawn mower, led through thickets of wild black raspberries to a round stone covered with myrtle.  Al this would eventually become a perennial garden. The  circa 1820 farmhouse sat about 20 feet from the road and was sided with gray and white cement-asbestos shingles.  We bought the property of about five acres for a cool $20,000 in October of 1975.

The first spring and summer was spent clearing the land. We felt like pioneers, whacking at entangling vines, cutting down hawthorns, wild pear and plum trees, and carting all the brush to the town landfill. Somehow we managed to put in a good sized vegetable garden.  That whole summer was spent enjoying the garden, devouring garden books, and eating and preserving the bounty from the garden.  Along the edge of one side of the vegetable garden I planted a few columbine, daisies and gaillardia that I had brought from our house in the city.

That’s how it all began.  I did not know I was embarking on a gardening journey that would lead to a back yard business selling perennials, teaching, lecturing and writing about perennial gardening.  The flower garden has become quite substantial and covers a large percentage of our five acres.  I kept taking over more and more of the vegetable garden.  Then, because I wanted to grow hostas and astilbes, we chopped away at the woods and removed underbrush.

A dozen years ago, I began selling excess perennials form the garden. The way it works is people come to view the garden, choose what they like and I dig up a previously divided plant for them to purchase. They take home a healthy, mature plant ready to transplant into their own garden.  My garden still looks like a garden.  There is no sales yard or sales staff, plastic pots or wasteful packaging or tags used.  Somehow from this, teaching gardening classes evolved to the point where in March and April I am teaching at some continuing education venue or other every night of the week. I am active in many local gardening clubs and am asked at times to give demonstrations and presentations about gardening. I formed a group called the “Perennial Travelers” and organize overnight trips to gardens and cultural points of interest. We have gone on dozens of trips throughout the northeast, to places like Winterthur, the Philadelphia Flower Show, Wave Hill and Longwood Gardens. It is all very enjoyable and I love every minute of it. One thing has led to another, and as my “hobby” continues to evolve, I try never to say “no” when asked to try something new, and look forward to sharing with you all that is sure to come!