With the much appreciated rains and the late arrival of hot weather, the gardeners in the neighbourhood are out en masse. On my long walks around town I love the whine of lawn mowers and the fresh scent of newly mown grass is as lovely as any perfume. I must be a farm girl to make a statement like that.
My sister would add to her “must have” list the pungent odour of sweaty horse, the sound of hooves clip-clopping down the road and the strum of a guitar.
When I think of summer I smell bug spray, hear the lazy buzz of insects against the windows of the workshop and feel the heat of long summer days. We remember the holidays as a lazier time but we were never exempt from chores on the farm.
I grew up in the atmosphere of work; required, admired, expected. My folks were dedicated gardeners. Their agricultural endeavours were both by choice and of necessity.
Mom had a large flower bed carved out of the corner of our lawn with its tough prairie grass. I remember when she asked dad to help her lay it out. He had a large Rototiller but it had a hard time with that site. The bed was set out as a squat triangle, likely carefully measured. As a carpenter dad liked anything he worked on to be exact.
Mom planted peonies in bright hues of burgundy, pink and white. There were stalks of gladioli that usually required stakes to support them. The front was bursting with pansies, such a collection of smiley faces. A smaller isolated flower bed in a shaded spot still held beautiful irises that had belonged to our great- grandmother, Lucinda. Mom continued to tend them but still referred to the plants as great-grandma’s flowers.
Mom also planted a variety of geraniums in her flower bed but in the late fall she repotted them. These came indoors as houseplants for the winter. To this day I don’t really care for the scent of geraniums although the blossoms are gorgeous. Of course the plants that mom cared for were always luscious and hearty. She was the one with the green thumbs.
When we moved into town the folks were happy with the size of the lot they purchased. The backyard already had a large garden plot and dad quickly widened it. We moved in with three teens, a family down by half, but we still had hearty appetites.
The soil in that garden was never as rich as the farm’s garden. Dad’s beautiful potatoes still grew to oversized monsters but the skins were never as smooth and perfect. I recall that mom’s flowers came along with us as did the rhubarb plants. I can still see mom wearing Marvin’s straw hat and working outside in her garden. The front flower bed nestled close to the house and there was a large overhang. There was mom in a steady rain, standing under the overhang watering her precious flowers.
The backyard had a hedge of lilac bushes that provided protection from the wind. The bushes grew to be gigantic over the years that the folks lived on 51st Street. For many years dad kept them trimmed but eventually he had to give up.
When mom and dad moved into a condo years later my sister came to rescue some of mom’s peonies. They went with her to her home in High River and later to Nanton. Of course mom’s clothesline moved with Judy as well.
Each of us has images imprinted in our minds of the folks. Dad was always working; lawn mower, tiller, tractor. He was happiest when hard at work. With mom it was her flowers. She confessed many times that she talked to the plants. That is probably why they did so well.
- Hoey is a longtime Gazette columnist
