My Turn: A garden grows appreciation and memories

I’m glad to live in the suburbs where trees, bushes, plants and flowers abound. Like my dad, I love nature’s flora and fauna. When my dad was alive, he took loving care of the lawn and garden around our modest home, though when my parents bought the property more than 50 years ago, there was little to see. Over the years, Dad transformed it into a small private park. After he died, we hired someone to mow the lawn and do the larger outside chores. Caring for the little backyard garden fell to my mother and me — and later, mostly me. My satisfaction in creating and maintaining a small patch of beauty has grown along with the flowers.

No, I haven’t always relished the gardening — planting, weeding and watering flowers through spring, summer and fall — but I loved the results. Our garden is right beside the house and easily seen from the dining room windows. We enjoy the view all year round. Some flowers are perennials, springing up year after year, like the day lilies we bought from a gardener in Montauk. Others are annuals, planted each year and flowering from spring through fall, if we’re lucky, like the bright pink impatiens.

A stone bird bath adorns the center of the garden, so we’re also entertained by robins, sparrows, blue jays, cardinals and mourning doves as they enjoy a drink or a bath — or both! At times we spy a catbird or an unfamiliar feathered visitor that we attempt to identify with my dad’s old bird guidebook.

Certain flowers are tied to my memories of loved ones. My grandmother, my mother’s mother, lived in Queens, which was “the city” to us. But that didn’t stop Grandma from growing flowers and vegetables. My grandfather had built raised cement gardening beds with small paths around them in their tiny backyard. Grampa designed the layout to look like a sailboat, and I enjoyed strolling through it when we visited. My mom once told me Grandma was partial to geraniums. Now the hearty red ones blooming in our garden call her to mind, a brave German immigrant who made a new life for herself in America.

The slips of red primroses my Aunt Rosie gave my mom are a yearly reminder of her cheerful spirit. And the crocuses my dad had long ago sprinkled around the back of our yard opposite the garden patch pop up every spring. They’re the first flowers we see each year, bringing the promise of milder weather as well as fond memories of him.

During the worst of the pandemic when I was confined to the house for long periods, the garden became a welcome respite. When I worked in it, I was distracted from the hardships of the outside world and vented my frustrations on the weeds. After I’d finished organizing this small piece of the universe to my satisfaction, I was left with a colorful testament that there was still goodness in the world and better times would eventually prevail. It lifted my spirits through the seasons, turning into different hues of loveliness as various flowers bloomed and faded. Sometimes we were surprised when flowers mistaken for weeds, or a stray unwanted plant, unexpectedly turned into black-eyed Susans or bright blue hydrangeas.

Despite whatever troubles exist in our lives, our garden remains to silently encourage us with touches of beauty if we tend it well.

Mildred Rose Kestler,

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