Grandma's Garden

As a little girl I remember helping Grandma in the garden, whether we were pulling weeds or picking off beetle bugs, there was always something to be done. She tended her flower beds so diligently, carefully making sure each flower had the right amount of space surrounding it to flourish, not letting the weeds over take it. She would carefully debud each spent flower so that a new one could take it's place. Her garden was always so full of color and blooms.

Her neighbors all raved about her flower beds and how much time she spent tending to them. People would drive by and stop to look at them. One time a bride and groom stopped to ask if they could have their picture taken among the flowers and all Grandma said was of course. Those flowers were her pride and joy besides her family.

Years later when Grandma and Grandpa were getting to old to live alone and tend to their everyday things my parents helped them move in with us. Little by little we packed their things up and moved them into our house. When it was time to move the last boxes, Grandma told mom she had a few more things that she wanted to move and that they were behind the garage. We all went back behind the garage and there in these big buckets were Grandma's beautiful red roses. She had carefully dug up each one of them, wrapped them in burlap cloth and gently put them in buckets, one by one. All together there were 6 buckets. She told mom that she could leave all the rest behind but not these particular roses, they were her most precious ones. Not one of us hesitated a moment, we each grabbed a bucket and took them around to my dad's truck to take to our home.

With shovels in hand, dad and Grandpa began to dig new homes for each of the roses. Grandma supervised and showed me how to prepare the ground for each rose plant. It did not take us long to put the roses into the ground in their new home. Each day Grandma and I would go out to her new flower bed, though it was much smaller then her last one, and she would show me what needed to be done to keep the bed healthy and growing. Every year those roses that we moved grew bigger and more beautiful. Beautiful full deep red roses would bloom year after year. With the most heavenly scent you can imagine.

A few years later, my father's job was transferring our family clear across the country. As they loaded the moving van for moving our furniture, Grandma and I carefully dug up each one of those 6 rose bushes, wrapped them in burlap cloth and put them carefully in buckets so they would move with us again. As the last piece of furniture was being loaded the moving men came and got all 6 roses in their buckets to transfer them as well. Since it was only going to be a couple of days before we could put them back in the ground it was safe to let them go with the moving van. When they arrived at our new home there was a new flower bed waiting for them to be placed in the ground. Again they thrived and flourished.

We dug up and transferred those roses, not losing a single plant one more time. By now I was a teenager and Grandma was much older and could only watch as I carefully tended to her precious roses. A few years later before Grandma passed away she told me why those roses were so precious to her. There was a rose bush for Grandpa, Uncle Fred, my mother, my father, my sister and one for me. When you love someone you must give them room to grow, weed out what can harm them, feed them love and you will see them bloom into a wonderful person.

When she passed, I tended her roses but I was not as well versed in roses as Grandma was. However, in my flower bed are the only two roses that Grandma and I transferred all those times. I now care for them and they are precious to me. The roses are now for my two sons, one for Nicholas and one for Daniel. I have learned from what Grandma told me and though the rose bushes have renewed themselves many times over they are still at the very heart of them quite old, yet they still have the most beautiful blooms that smell heavenly.