A Writer’s Garden–Through the Garden Gates with author Catherine Castle

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A Writer's Garden-Through the Garden gates with writer Catherine Castle, daylily, gardening, Gardening blog, How gardens inspire authors and writers, multilayer petaled daylily

Sweet Remembrances

 

We’ve had a few 60 degrees days mixed in with the 20s here in Ohio, and the most treasured plants I own are beginning to poke tender leaves out of the ground.

photo by Catherine Castle (c)

 

These plants aren’t a fancy hybrid, nor did they cost me tons of money. They were free. This flower, however, is one I have carried from home to home. I’ve even excluded it on the sale contracts of the houses I’ve owned.

Why would I do something like that, you ask?

Because the origins of this humble plant came from the gardens of one of the homes I grew up in. This is a flower my mother carried from house to house when she was alive. Because I love this flower, I followed her lead when I reached adulthood. There are ancestors of this plant in at least four states in the USA, and in the gardens of countless friends to whom I’ve given starts. In fact, when I lived in Texas, my mother dug up some tubers, mailed them to me in November, and when I planted them they popped through the soil and bloomed in January!

Until recently, I had never seen a plant quite like this.

Are you dying to know what it is?

It’s an orange daylily.

But this one, aside from sentimental value, is special because it has layers upon layers of petals.

photo by Catherine Castle (c)

These daylilies normally bloom around the 4^th of July and go into August. But something special happened in its bloom cycle a few years ago. The year my brother-in-law died unexpectedly in June, the flowers burst into blossom a couple of days before he passed. In all the years I’ve had these flowers they have NEVER bloomed before July 4. That year I cut three vases of blooms to place around my brother-in-law’s casket— for myself, my sister, and my daughter to honor his memory.

You might think this silly, but I believe Mom was there, too, honoring my brother-in-law’s memory through the flowers she had treasured for so many years.

Both my daughter and my sisters have Mom’s daylilies in their yards. My nieces and nephews will probably inherit a start of the daylilies when they own their homes. I know as long as a single family member has these flowers the memory of my mother, and eventually me, will never die. Can a gardener have any greater legacy? I think not.

What about you? Is there a special flower that your loved ones will remember you by someday? I’d love to know the story.

Gardener/writer Catherine Castle has been gardening all her life in pots, plots, and wherever she can find dirt. Her favorite thing about gardening is the satisfaction she gets from a well-weeded flowerbed. When she’s not gardening she’s writing sweet and inspirational romance. You can learn more about her at right here on this blog.

To view additional garden posts on this blog search for the category Through the Garden Gates.

A Writer’s Garden–Through the Garden Gates with author Catherine Castle

Tags

A Writer's Garden-Through the Garden gates with writer Catherine Castle, gardening, Gardening blog, How gardens inspire authors and writers

Spring in Catherine Castle’s garden

There are three things I love to do probably more than anything else: Write, garden, and quilt. Over the years I’ve done the first two quite a bit. Quilting has recently become the third love in my creative bent. But gardening and writing have always been at the front.

My gardens, while they have won an award, are not always picture perfect. They have weeds and flaws, but they give me great comfort, inspiration, and satisfaction. Much like I expect your gardens do for you. I have even been known to gasp at gardens I’ve seen in movies, gasping so loud in admiration that my best friend and husband sitting beside me laughed at my response. Gardens–public or private, mine, yours and everyone else’s–will always make me stop and look. I even ooh and aww over a well-designed flowerpot.

As a young woman I would pore over my aunt’s plant catalogues for hours at a time, dreaming of fields of flowers. I have fond memories of my grandmother’s fenced-in vegetable garden in rural Kentucky where she grew everything she needed to can for long, snowy winters when fresh food was scarce. I can still taste her navy bean soup and smell the blackberry jam she put up every summer. And I was often in the garden with my mother as she tended her flowers and vegetables. Every place I’ve ever lived has had flowers or veggies of some sort in the yards or flowerpots. Gardening is a given for me as much as writing. Neither one can be separated from my heart and soul.

Recently, I ran across a book called The Writer’s Garden: How Gardens Inspired our Best-loved Authors by Jackie Bennett and Richard Hanson.

In the book, the authors examine how nineteen well-known British writers such as Jane Austen, Beatrice Potter, Sir Walter Scott, William Wadsworth and others drew inspiration from gardens, how they tended and enjoyed them, and how they managed their outdoor space.

The idea spurred me to create a new feature for my Through the Garden Gate series, showcasing the gardens of fellow gardeners who  happen to be writers. The posts will highlight gardener-writers who may not have reached best-selling acclaim, but love their little patches of Eden or gardens in general. After all, one doesn’t have to be an acclaimed author, like those in the above-mentioned book, to find inspiration among the flowers, vegetables, birds, bees and weeds.

To begin the series, I’ll be talking about my own garden. If you’re a gardener, who is also a writer, or a writer who is also a gardener, and you’d like to be featured on my series, please contact me through the contact page on this blog.

In the meantime, starting next Thursday, I hope you’ll enjoy the posts about my garden and the gardens of my guest bloggers, and how gardening and gardens inspire us.

Happy Digging!

To view additional garden posts on this blog search for the category Through the Garden Gates.