A Great Mom, Great Gardener

This Sunday is a very special day, for this is when we celebrate moms.

I must tell an adorable tale on my mom, Margaret Caruso. The other day, she left me a message on my answering machine. It went something like this: “Hi, this is Mama. If any of you guys are going to get me something for Mother’s Day, I would like to have three roses to plant in place of the mess I dug out. I think they would make a wonderful present.”

As she hung up, I could hear her laughing in the background.

Ah, but she wasn’t finished. A short time later, another message came through. “When you’re passing the word along to the rest of the family about a Mother’s Day gift, I also need a 100-foot soaker hose.” Again, more chuckles as she hung up.

Is there any doubt where I get my fanatic love of gardening?

Without seeming like a very proud daughter, I would like to share with you a bit about my mother while showing you a little of her garden.

As you approach this country home in the city, it’s easy to see the landscape is designed for flowers. Even though there is an abundance of trees and spacious lawn, there are many beds cut out for annuals and perennials. Right now the lilacs, tulips and apple trees are in full bloom. Iris, peonies, poppies and rhododendrons are not far behind.

As you walk around the back of the home, you’ll spot the greenhouse. Though nothing fancy, this is Mom’s pride. It was converted from a small shed many years ago by replacing the walls with secondhand windows and adding a fiberglass roof. Running the greenhouse year round is cost-prohibitive. The vast majority of plants are started indoors under banks of shop lights and grow lights.

By this time each year, the little greenhouse bulges with flats of petunias, marigolds, perennials and vegetables starts. You have to watch your step as the flats not only fill the greenhouse but also the patio and every available pathway. Those plants that enjoy shade are resting comfortably under the apple and fir trees. With weather conditions as unpredictable as ours, Mom keeps close tabs on her little charges. She tucks them in for the night, covering them if need be, and rises early to check on them in the morning.

Mom never hesitates to share her plants with family, friends and her garden clubs. For years, she has provided plants for the courtyard of the West Central Community Center. This year she’s also providing around 200 potted impatiens as table favors for the upcoming Associated Garden Club’s annual Lilac Luncheon. In spite of her generosity, Mom can usually set aside enough flowers to provide her garden with a glorious show of summer color.

One of the old apple trees finally fell victim to a disease called fireblight. In its place stands a beautiful wooden arbor covered in clematis and morning glories. Pots filled with begonias and impatiens along with an old wooden chair rest on its cottage brick floor. In the lower garden, a covered swing sits among foxgloves, delphinium, hosta and drifts of escaped money plant.

This is the area Mom uses for biannual flowers - those that produce foliage this year and flowers the next. This group of plants will be shared with whoever wants them this fall.

Also in the lower garden is the vegetable garden, complete with raspberries, rhubarb and a few strawberries. There are seven 2-foot-high raised garden beds. Cucumbers are trellised on tomato cages and the corn is knee high on the Fourth of July. (Of course, the height of the beds helps a wee bit on this score.)

When the birds begin their early morning wake-up call, Mom is up and working. She says it’s easier to work in the early morning hours when it’s cool and peaceful (her little concession to being 87). Though the early rising never rubbed off on me, her love of everything beautiful has.

I will always have memories of a garden filled with rainbows of color, dappled shade and intoxicating fragrance. I will remember garden beds brimming with fresh vegetables - baskets of tomatoes, new potatoes, sweet carrots and family get-togethers for a corn feed.

I’ll remember the smell of the kitchen during canning season - homemade applesauce (of course the worms were always cut out first), stewed tomatoes, pickles and jams. I’ll remember a year when Mom’s plants didn’t do well in the greenhouse and she felt it was time to give up gardening. The time had come for pretty fingernails and clean knees.

The thought was fleeting. A friend washed the roof of the greenhouse and the garden season was in full swing once again.

Pretty hands and clean knees will have to come in the next life, Mom. Right now you’re having too much fun playing in this one. To you Mama, Happy Mother’s Day.

And a Happy Mother’s Day to all moms, especially my mother-in-law, Irene Stephens and my daughters-in-law, Misty, Jackie and Andria.