The Elder Statesman

My Mother’s Garden
A collection about love, flowers and family
Chamberlain Bros.
A division of Penguin Group (USA) Publishers
Paperback $9.95

By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review

Gardeners are special people and at this time of year their green thumbs itch to get into the soil. The collection of gardening stories in "My Mother’s Garden" is a 179-page testament to those gardeners

who instilled the joy of gardening in their offspring.

Among the contributors are several Oregon writers, including Christopher Forrest McDowell and Tricia Clark-McDowell founders of the Cortesia Sanctuary and Center for Natural Gardening and Healing, a 22-acre sanctuary in Eugene, who describe the garden as an "occasional retreat from the frontlines of life — retreat into solitude, stillness and reflection. Their story tells of meandering paths, waterfalls, ponds, rock formations and "…a hidden room in the garden for solitude and reflection."

There is a story from Charlotte Matheny Kirkwood, as an excerpt from her book "Into the Edge of the Setting Sun," about her mother’s garden planted in the present site of Hillsboro in 1844 after she crossed on the Oregon Trail with a sack of seeds carefully tucked in a corner of her the covered wagon. "My mother was justly proud of her garden, for it was the first real flower garden in the Northwest." Kirkwood said plants and seeds from those original plantings now grow throughout the Willamette Valley. Kirkwood died in 1926, but her mother’s garden lives on in the plants she shared and in Kirkwood’s book.

Rose Marie Nicholas McGee, president of Nichols Herb Gardens in Albany, Ore. writes about the generations of gardeners from the Nichols family and says "gardening can sink its roots deep into a family and so it is with mine. My mother gardened all her life and I admired and appreciated what she did, but I wanted to garden for myself with my on successes and failures."

While there are selections from Northwest gardeners, the book features garden stories from all over the United States and many, if not most, written by famous authors like Barbara Kingsolver whose story from her book of essays, "Small Wonder" is a letter to her mother in which she recalls closing her eyes to discover "an endless field of flowers" and listening as her mother tells her about the butterflies that come to the garden.

Sharon Lovejoy, a garden writer and illustrator, whose award winning book "Trowel & Error," is a classic in garden lore, as are many of her books cleverly titled books shares stories about her grandmother’s garden. She wrote that her grandmother could "coax life from the tiniest seed or the most unlikely cutting."

One of the most heart rending stories in the book is Linda M. Frank’s "Seeds for My Mother," written from the memory of a five-year-old’s first experience in the garden when her older brother thrust a handful of dried, brown seeds in her hand and allowed her to plant them alongside the chain-link fence bordering their brownstone apartment building. The story is a mix of her planting a garden for her mother and the amazing story of how her brother cleared a debris strewn strip of land at their apartment and turned it into a productive garden of flowers and vegetables.

With childlike impatience, Linda can’t understand why it takes so long for the seeds she planted to grow and produce the blue morning glories her brother promised. She wanted them blooming in time for Mother’s Day, but it didn’t happen.

She grew tried of running out each day to check the plant’s progress and felt it would never bloom. Then one day she pulled back the kitchen curtains and "there it was. At least four inches across. Clear blue with a white throat. Its face smiling toward the sun. It was my mother’s morning glory."

When Linda wrote this piece, her mother had died, but she notes "every year I plant blue morning glories in my garden for her." She admits, however, "I’m still impatient to see them bloom."

Mother’s Day isn’t until May 11 this year, a little over a month away, but I have 15 copies of this book to give to readers, who are willing to write a brief essay about how their mother’s garden influenced their gardening. The contest is open to both men and women, but the theme is to be on gardening. Deadline for entering is Monday, April 21

A top prize winner will receive a $50 gift certificate to the local nursery of their choice. A runner-up prize of a $25 gift certificate and a third prize of $10 gift certificate both to a nursery of choice of the winner. All entries will receive a copy of "My Mother’s Garden."

The top three awards will have the essays published in The Senior Times in its May issue. All entries must be typewritten and limited to 300 words or less. The selected winners entries will be subject to editing.

Start thinking about your mother’s garden and submit your entries to:

Garden Contest

The Senior Times

P.O. Box 812

Roseburg, OR 97470,

or drop them off at The News-Review.

(Bill Duncan is editor of The Senior Times.)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.