The Garden Path

By Beth Yarbrough

Does a certain garden live in your memory? I can think of two that shaped my childhood and even launched me on the artistic path that I try to follow today. Both of them were tended by women.

Growing up, I lived next door to a spectacular vegetable garden tended by the lady who lived there. Her name was Miss Georgia. Long since widowed, she enjoyed growing vegetables and baking bread. To this day, I have never tasted whole wheat yeast rolls as good as hers. Looking back, I now understand that she was a practical woman who probably needed the vegetables to carry her through the winter - but all I knew as a child was that she had created a little patch of magic and loved to have me come and visit. We would walk the rows of her garden together and she would explain each plant. Since I was barely school age, the rows of tall beans, corn, and even the tomato vines all appeared to me to be oversized wonders.

Three blocks away, my grandmother’s garden holds memories of a different sort - but even more magical. The whole town knew her as Miss Lizzie, but to me she was simply Nana. While she also grew huge quantities of vegetables every year, Nana’s flowers still come back to me. Accompanied by a cat named Topsy, who sometimes rode around on her shoulder as she tended to things, Nana reveled in her flowers.

The garden was not formal, but very prolific. Roses grew in abundance - climbing trellises, spilling onto porches, and making their way onto our shoulders as corsages on Easter Sunday and Mother’s Day. I recall a tall birdfeeder that presided over her vegetable garden, completely covered with morning glories. How she managed to keep them out of her garden, I’m not sure - but knowing Nana, she simply pointed to that vine and said (sweetly), “stay put”.

There were rows of zinnias, marigolds, four o’clocks and sweet william, borders of hydrangeas, and a great big gardenia bush that served as the official air freshener for her house. She always kept a clean white damask cloth on her big dining table - and when gardenias were in season, there was forever a crystal bowl full of water in the center, floating as many gardenia blossoms as she could manage. Their fragrance filled the house and whispered a sweet welcome as soon as you walked in her door.

Without realizing it, we very often create gardens that reflect who we are. And the older I get, the more I realize that they also reflect those who came before us. My own garden today features a couple of cats, and a list of flowers that very closely corresponds to Nana’s, although I do not have the power to tell a morning glory vine to stay put.

And while my rows of tomatoes and other vegetables no longer seem as oversized as they did when I was a little barefoot girl trailing along behind Miss Georgia, I can say with authority that in my kitchen, I have almost managed to recreate her legendary whole wheat rolls.

As I write this, the summer sun is getting ready to rise, and the back door is calling me toward the garden - looking forward to another glorious summer day, but also looking back with a hug and a kiss to the women who showed me the way.