Homage Gardening

Reader Contribution by Blythe Pelham

With the recent passing of my aunt, memories of creating my spiral herb garden flooded back to me. This garden is an homage to her brother and each of the fathers in my life— my birth father, stepfather, and father-in-law. Every time I look at, pass by, or harvest one of my herbs becomes all the more sweet and tender as I dwell on the good times when each of these amazing men were kickin’ around this planet.

If you haven’t channeled creativity to help you through the passing of someone special, I highly recommend it. The physical work and thoughtful effort that it took to incorporate my connection with each of these wonderful fathers into my garden helped immeasurably through the first weeks after the last one passed. Since then, because I put so much love, intention, and thought into creating the garden, every time I pass by the spiral it’s like my dads are still with me.

The page about building this garden shows a photo array of the process. Most of the construction took two full days, but the filling and planting has been a longer process. I have several perennials in this garden, but each spring I switch out the annuals. I end up interacting with the spiral nearly every day during the spring, summer, and fall—each time I feel connection or recall some loving memory of one of my fathers. Every time, I walk away with a smile.

Though he wasn’t originally in the energies when building my spiral, I credit my maternal grandfather with my veggie gardening thumb—in a way, he’s spread throughout my whole garden. I grew up with stories and my mother’s memories of his Victory Gardens. My mother’s own green thumb turned toward flowers, containers full that never cease to bring beauty wherever she tends them. I’m eternally grateful to have inherited green thumbs on both hands.

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