The long arm of Mama’s gardening began with her youthful green thumb. Her first effort involved moving a clump of milk-and-wine crinum lilies from the corner of a fence to line the side of their home. After that, the only time the lilies were ever touched was to take a clump out for a pass-along plant. My first memories of “going to see Papaw” meant catching sight of the lilies crowding each other for room along the length of the south side of his house. My sister and I called them “Papaw’s Lilies.” Who knew they had a real name?”
Those childhood overnight visits in the summer meant sleeping in the bedroom with its high ceilings, but no air conditioning, with the windows raised all the way up to take advantage of any stirring breeze. If it had rained, the lilies right beneath the window were in full bloom. Relaxing Into the heady aroma, I readied myself for the “pleasant dreams“ wished to me by my aunt.
My sisters and I had no clue that it was Mama who had rescued the lilies and planted them in her youth. We did know about Mama’s love of gardening. Daddy was a country preacher, and we moved fairly often. The furniture was hardly arranged in a different house before Mama was busying herself in the yard. Any outside task took precedence for her over an inside one. With four girls who could dust and wash dishes and one who liked to cook, Mama happily took herself out to see what had bloomed, pick off a tomato worm, or pull a few weeds.
In country churches, the members brought flowers for Sunday morning. Mama considered it a perk of being the preacher’s wife to go out and reclaim any that were left on Monday morning. She pulled out any that were promising for rooting and stuck the stems in the ground without the benefit of any rooting medium. The rest she arranged to go on the dining table or the piano.
The plants seemed to know whose garden they were in and what their responsibility was. They took root and grew. Before many months in a new church, people were asking, “Mrs. McGee, what kind of rose is that?” or “What’s the name of that shrub?”
Her answer always had a person’s name. “That’s Miss Tilda’s rose. She brought it on Mother’s Day.” Or “That’s Miss Birdie’s blue hydrangea. It was in a bouquet in early July.”
Soon members were coming to her for flower arrangements. Mama also had an eye for how flowers should look in a vase. In one church, one of the ladies showed up early every Sunday morning with a bounty of cut flowers from her garden. Mama created a beautiful arrangement for church. You guessed it. The leftovers went into an arrangement for the dining table or the patio.
Imagine the chagrin of this same lady a few years later when a new pastor’s wife replaced Mama. The lady showed up as usual with her abundance on Sunday morning. The shocked new pastor’s wife said, “I don’t know how to arrange flowers.”
“But,” stammered the lady, “Mrs. McGee always did.”
Mama and Daddy moved back to Papaw’s house in their retirement. Mama enjoyed being back with the original milk-and-wine lilies even though she had placed “starts” of them in many parsonage yards.
Papaw’s lilies continued beside his house undisturbed except for digging to go to a daughter in North Mississippi or one in Birmingham. I took mine to Leesville, Louisiana, where they thrived and were passed along to my daughter, Anna, in Texas. My attempt to move them to my retirement home in Hattiesburg was unsuccessful. It took three attempts by Anna to share back from her garden before I got them to grow.
The long arm of Mama’s green thumb has also been passed along. A love of flowers and gardens rests in her children and grandchildren with varying degrees of success. Understanding of responsibility to grow and bloom on the part of the plants seems most pronounced when one visits with her daughter Gwyn Pennebaker who gardens in New Albany, Mississippi; her granddaughter Anna Lane who digs the dirt in Longview, Texas, or her grandson Murray Butler who coaxes flowers to bloom in the desert of Chandler, Arizona. And I must point out that it is beginning to show up just a tad in my yard in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
You know what? From now on, I am going to call them mama’s lilies, instead. ❖
About the Author: Virginia McGee Butler, author of Becoming Ezra Jack Keats published by University Press of Mississippi, lives in Hattiesburg, Mississippi where she gardens to take a break from writing and writes to take a break from gardening.
