Flowers and Fruit from the Macbeth Farm Garden: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Colorful"

 

Green Thumb in a Blue Straw Hat: Grandma Nora and Her Colorful Garden

Nora Elsie Hoffman Macbeth: 1899-1994 (Maternal Grandmother)

 

My Grandma Nora had a green thumb and a true passion for gardening. Her garden lay on the far side of the Macbeth farm driveway, and it was huge. I am a terrible judge of acreage, but I think it must have been half an acre in size, and included some fruit trees at one end. In addition to the main garden, her yard was studded with flower beds and flowering shrubs. Every fall and winter, she pored over garden catalogs. She traded seeds and cuttings with friends, and loved to visit neighbors to see how their gardens were growing and what they had blooming. Grandma had two sisters who lived nearby, and they would call each other nearly every day. I remember that their flowers and vegetable gardens were frequent phone call topics. Best of all, Grandma was generous in sharing her gardening knowledge with her little grandchildren. I have such wonderful memories of hours spent in the garden with her, and of her sharing seeds and advice so I could start my own little garden at my home.

Grandma and Grandpa Macbeth in front of one of Grandma's flower beds--summer 1970

My grandparents’ house was surrounded by flower beds and window boxes filled with petunias, johnny-jump-ups and geraniums, and ground beds filled with roses, daylilies and huge dahlias in brilliant colors. Grandma was very proud of her flower beds, and eagerly awaited their peak bloom times so she could show them off to friends and family. A favorite family story featured a very young me (probably about age four) circling the house while all the adults were distracted and carefully plucking every single bright red geranium flower head. I proudly headed indoors to present Grandma with my “bouquet”. Somehow she kept her composure, pretending to be thrilled with my floral massacre and making a show of getting a pretty vase and giving me a hug before she retreated to the bedroom to cry.

Climbing rose, dahlias and petunias in bed on side of sun porch. Macbeth farm, photo by me at age ten or eleven in June 1970. I had a very cheap compact camera, and was so proud to be "taking pictures" all by myself.

Grandma’s garden started out as a necessity. Nora Hoffman married Ivan Macbeth in 1926. The year after my mother was born in 1928, the stock market crashed, along with farm prices, sending the country into the Great Depression. Money was scarce, so my grandparents had to grow what they ate to survive—they slaughtered their own hogs, ducks and chickens for meat, they ate eggs from the chickens, they caught fish from local creeks and rivers, and they hunted deer and pheasants. In addition to growing field crops like corn and wheat, they grew fruit and vegetables in a large garden. My grandmother canned and pickled her produce so they had fruit and vegetables to eat all winter long, and they kept root vegetables like potatoes and turnips in the cool “root cellar” to keep them fresh as long as possible. It was a hard, labor-intensive life. Photos from that period show the house with no flower beds or flowering shrubs—there was no time or energy for beautifying their surroundings.

One sad trellis was only attempt at landscaping in Depression-era photo of Macbeth family.

However, when their finances improved, my grandparents took pride in their landscaping. My grandmother’s large garden still had numerous rows of vegetables, and Grandma still gathered apples from the fruit trees and picked strawberries from the large berry patch next to the chicken coop. However, the garden also had lush beds of flowers—rows of zinnias, bachelor buttons and four-o-clocks, plus cottage-garden style sections of intermixed hollyhocks, daylilies, phlox, iris, cleome and sunflowers. It was a lovely color palette buzzing with bees, sphinx moths and butterflies.

Rose arbor and bed with dahlias and some white flowers.

My grandfather helped by building and caring for planters, arbors and garden decorations like a little Dutch windmill he built. He turned a tractor tire into a raised bed, and a round metal piece of equipment into a two-level bed for moss roses (portulaca).

Dutch windmill decoration Grandpa built for Grandma. Rex, Ivan, and Nora Macbeth, and my mom Ione Macbeth Peterson.

But Grandma Nora was the true gardener. She spent part of each non-rainy summer day in her garden. She had a woven straw hat painted a bright blue that she would pop on her head to protect her from the sun. She’d often wear her apron to cover her clothes, and had good garden gloves to protect her hands. She carried a stool with her to spare her knees. When I was with her, she’d give me tasks to keep me busy—weeding a row of carrots, pulling radishes for lunch-time munching, or tying up the climbing peas to wooden frames.

My little garden at home--zinnias prominently visible in front, along with bachelor buttons to right and what looks like bush beans against picket fence. A short, child-sized hoe is visible on the ground.

Grandma Nora encouraged me to start my own garden. My dad had removed an old lilac bush from our yard when it died back, leaving a bare spot about 8x8 feet. I started my little garden there, planting zinnias, bachelor buttons, and marigolds: seed gifts from grandma. Someone got me a little trowel and rake. I cared for that little garden area for several years. I carried my love for gardening into my adult life, and now that I am retired, I am still gardening in my retirement community.

Last year, my son and his wife had their second child, and named her Zinnia. The name felt like a little hug from heaven from Grandma Nora—zinnias were one of our mutual favorites. Perhaps Grandma Nora’s and my love for gardening and growing a colorful rainbow of flowers will be passed on to a new generation.

Sources:

Macbeth family photos and my personal photos.