Friend of Gardening--“The Heritage of a Gardener…”

By Gwen Podeschi, Christian County Master Gardener

A little armchair genealogy last summer provided me with a hint about my propensity for growing things. Now, I have to put in a professional disclaimer here and tell readers not to believe everything they find on a genealogy website like RootsWeb without heading for a more authoritative source, but it's fun to follow a line back anyway. Seems my 9 x great-grandfather was a Hugenot named Pierre Cresson, once a gardener for the Prince of Orange before emigrating to New Amstel (New Castle, Delaware), and being engaged by Governor Stuyvesant for service in his bowery (a colonial Dutch plantation). I take all this with a grain of salt since I haven't the time to cross all the t's and dot the i's, but it's still fun to use Pierre as an excuse for my preoccupation with gardening.

Closer to home, so to speak, is the gardening heritage in my own back yard, documented with plants from dear friends and relatives. I moved to Taylorville in 1980, armed with a telephone number to call about renting a place to live. Fortunately for me, I found my first home, on Hunter Avenue, and was immediately "adopted" by Lula "Red" Brewer. Red was my landlady and lived just across the street. She must have sensed a kindred gardening spirit just waiting to come to life in me and was soon sharing the plants she loved with the new kid on the block. Purple coneflower, lily-of-the-valley, and spiderwort all made the trip across the street to my yard.

Her interest in the natural world of Illinois resulted in a blend of traditional garden favorites with prairie natives. It was probably my first exposure to a garden that welcomed back the plants that may have lived there before city streets and farm fields put their mark on the Illinois prairie. Red had an eye for the beauty of roadside wildflowers, and these plants often found a way into her yard. She took a great deal of pride in the Prairie Blazing Star (liatris) growing by her back gate and was always extremely pleased every spring when her Dutchman's breeches appeared near the front gate. That is not to say that traditional cultivated plant material was ignored, but she saw no reason to omit Mother Nature's best from her garden. Today's gardeners benefit from a number of native plant sales and nurseries, giving us an eco-friendly source for everything from bloodroot to big bluestem.

Collections of peonies, daffodils, and irises lined the back yard, which was usually patrolled by a half-tame family of Mallard ducks and a couple of silky bantam chickens. "Now these are double-double," Red would say, pointing to a row of daffodil foliage, loaded with buds. And when the flowers opened, they were truly the most doubled blooms I had ever seen. I'm not certain where all her hybrids came from, but it was an impressive collection for the 1980s. Single-flowered white and deep red peonies were another source of pride. Clematis scrambled over clothesline posts and trellises that overlooked rows of amaryllis and other tender bulbs that were dug every year. New azaleas appearing on the market usually found their way into Red's garden as well.

Tiger lilies from my grandma stand tall in my own back yard, a link to my girlhood, and I have a snow-ball bush like Grandma's near the back corner of my house. In the last few years, I have let violas flourish where they sprout in a couple of beds, reminding me of the Johnny-jump-ups in Grandma's farmhouse yard years ago. Red's sister Mildred Dorman had a healthy blanket of hens and chicks in her little garden patch on East Main Cross and my own plants started with three from her place. A single successful tip-cutting from the bright pink azalea in Red's front yard has grown into a delightful three foot tall shrub near the northwest corner of my house. Not too far away, spotted violets from Red's yard grow here and there in a couple of beds.

One of the last plants that came to me from Red's yard was a start of her hosta plantaginea, a very old hybrid hosta. Her daughter Jeanne and I split the original plant and I have since divided my start into three plants. Recently I came across a reference to this hosta totally by accident, praising its value as a landscape plant that has stood the test of time. No kidding!

Another old hosta (no official name that I've found yet) is the one I refer to as the Shumway's Addition hosta that can be seen in our neighborhood. Marilyn Barrett shared this plant with me, but I've found very few old homes nearby that don't have a forest of these hostas around the foundation. Its hallmark is a strong, dark purple bloom, occurring much earlier in the season than most other purple-flowering varieties.

The color purple brings to mind my Siberian irises from Ida Sloman. Ida brought several large clumps to a Historical Society sale a number of years ago. They were not blooming and we didn't sell many of the clumps. I kept an eye on them all day and thought I would pay for a clump at the end of the day. What a treasure! The rich blue-purple stands out in the mid-spring garden, making me glad they were overlooked by visitors to the sale. Plus, I have another friend in my garden!

Everyone who has ever owned a trowel should have at least one friend's garden to hearken back to and a way to savor the memories of garden friends. Take advantage of generous garden pals and be one yourself. The plants that you give and receive will reward gardeners for years to come.