My Secret Garden

Many of you know that right behind Country Roads, right out those back doors, is a little garden area called, "Johnnye Merle Gardens & Nursery". Brande named it in honor of her Gramma and my Mom. What some of you may not realize is that garden means SO much to me. It is a great place to escape from a day when you feel you can't just answer anymore questions or your head will explode! Seriously, those days sadly are not that rare! Sometimes I have made a quick beeline out those back doors after getting into an arguments with one of my kids at the counter. After all, the family that works and plays together, also argues together as well! So there are days I need an escape, a place where no one can find me. A place I go to "walkie-talkie" free as in, "oops, I forgot my walkie"! And I just walk around, look at the flowers, and try to get my mind off whatever we were arguing about so I won't return to the counter even more pissed off! Usually, my time spent in the garden cures the need to explode! I think too much. I've always known that. My mind tends to wander, just like our morning glory has wandered all over our garden area. There are days it is hard for me to stay on task. My mind wants to travel to other places. I'll be out in the garden watching the bees. Then I wonder, "if bees are so smart, considering year after year the queen bee returns to the same spot to make a beehive and all the other bees follow her, then WHY don't the bees communicate well enough to warn each other never to drink from a pool! Why, because they drown! I can't tell you how many I rescue with my net at home. Johnnye Merle's is a good place to think about just random "stuff" without being disturbed! Sometimes I like to think about my Mom and how she taught my kids about gardening. She so loved plants and her Texas bluebonnets! I think at times when I'm out there about the days my Dad and his Alzheimer's and my Mom and her dementia made me want to set up camp in the garden away from all the madness back then. But I also quickly remember about how my Dad paid Home Depot to install a garden window over their kitchen sink of their home. Why? Because he knew my Mom could no longer physically work in her flowerbeds and wanted her to be able to garden in some way, shape or form. I think a lot about the love they shared that I never understood nor had in my own marriage. On some days I just love to walk around in the garden, taking in all the beauty that she holds. We have wild parrots here in Old Towne. I often wonder why they are so loud? Are they each trying to talk over each other and that is the reason they make so much noise? And which parrot gets to decide when and where they go? Is it random, or have the parrots made the decision who should be their leader? Yes, I wonder about that has I watch them all beautifully fly away each day! Johnnye Merle's has also shouldered many of my tears over the year as well. Things happen during work hours that you become aware of, and there are those days that you really just need to find some solitude quickly. I've shed many a tear over my own sorrows along with those of others as well. But most of the time when I visit the garden and nursery that was named after my mom, it is for the memories I hold dear to my heart. I think about Norm and Jeannie's daughter, Dee-Dee, that passed away a few years ago. Norm and Jeannie had set up a little area where Dee-Dee could sell herbs. And oh how Dee-Dee loved the feeling of having just a purpose for the day. You could see it in her eyes. She was our first original little gardener and never will I forget her coming up to our customers with her herbs in hand saying, "smell this"! It makes me smile as I write this. I remember one Memorial Day standing in the garden with one of my customers. Her mom had died the year before. Both mom, daughter and her son always shopped together at Country Roads. The garden was a special place to them. Zach was still in a stroller when they first started coming in, and now he is a senior in high school. That Memorial day we stood together, shoulder to shoulder, as vintage jets flew overhead, near the cemetery where her mom is buried. The jets flew in the, "missing man formation". We stood side by side, starring together at the sky, not speaking as it was a time no words were necessary. It's those memories that make this garden that much more special to me! There is a rosebush planted out in our gardens that is in the memory of Isabel. She was one of our dealers that passed away too young. I remember the night well that some of us gathered after hours to honor her memory at the store. Country Roads and our Johnnye Merle Gardens is just THAT kind of place, you know? Most of the time though, when I'm out in our gardens, I just walk around with a smile in my heart and feel good!! I guess I know, without ever thinking twice about it, that when I'm back there in "my secret garden", my Mom is watching over me and those I love! It's just that kind of place!