Thanks mom and dad for gardening lessons
I have my mom and dad to thank for my love of gardening. My earliest memories include walking barefoot in freshly rototilled soil, picking bouquets of dandelions, and exploring the woods that surrounded our property.
I planted my first garden with marigold and zinnia seeds in a small parcel of my mother's flower garden, tended them lovingly all summer, and proudly cut flowers for arrangements for the dining room table.
A thicket of raspberry brambles, a bed of strawberries, and bunches of rhubarb kept my tummy spoiled with summer desserts. The August nights we were treated to slices of fresh watermelon were as delightful to a country kid as the ice cream man was to city kids.
Long, tidy rows of sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, onions, potatoes, peas and lots more filled their huge vegetable gardens. An orchard bestowed apples, peaches, plums, pears and cherries. A 50-foot row of grapevines provided enough grapes to eat fresh and as jelly on toast. The gardens and orchard produced vast quantities of produce, and enough food was preserved to feed our family of four all winter long.
My mom and dad both worked in the vegetable gardens, but the flower gardens belonged to my mom. Her gardens began with plants from her mother's garden - irises, peonies and day lilies. Gardens enlarged as her perennial passions grew.
Whenever my grandmother visited, she and my mom walked through her gardens, arm in arm, admiring the blossoms. Sometimes they shared private time together; on other occasions I was allowed to walk along listening to them rave about the color, shape and fragrance of flowers.
The gardens at my first home began with plants from my mother's garden. A vegetable garden quickly followed with straight-as-an-arrow rows just like theirs. When my mom came to visit, we walked arm in arm through my gardens admiring my blossoms.
My mom and I enabled each other through copious phases of plant addiction - German irises, daffodils, day lilies, dahlias, hostas, dwarf conifers, and ornamental grasses. We attended classes and workshops together and went on countless garden tours. Without MapQuest or GPS, we inevitably got lost and laughed until we cried at our lack of map-reading skills and poor sense of direction.
Even in her 80s, Mom still gardens. Her cutting garden provides bouquets for her church each week. Her vegetable garden is smaller, but she still preserves part of the harvest.
As a child, much of gardening was a chore - something I did in exchange for an allowance. Weeding, harvesting vegetables, husking sweet corn and picking pint after pint of cherries were dreaded duties. Now as I plant, weed and harvest vegetables, I know my dad is smiling down from his heavenly plot.
I am still learning garden lessons from my mom, and I treasure every walk through the garden, arm in arm, admiring the blossoms.
• Diana Stoll is a horticulturist and the garden center manager at The Planter's Palette, 28W571 Roosevelt Road, Winfield. Call (630) 293-1040, ext. 2, or visit planterspalette.com.