When I visited Linda Douville’s garden last week, I saw lots of pretty flowers, but I was drawn to tiny pink ones that seemed to speak to me. I spent a long time trying to photograph these delicate flowers.  Despite there being no wind, they were always gently moving as I tried focus on them.  It was as if they were playing with me.  
I don’t believe in spirits or ghosts but became less skeptical when I asked Linda about these flowers and she told me the story of Mother Shea.  Mort and Pauline Shea used to live near Linda and her husband Gary.  According to Linda “Mort passed away a couple of years ago.  He was a wonderful man, an avid gardener, and loved by everyone who knew him.”   
 
Before the Pandemic plagued our earth, the Grantham Garden Club would occasionally run mystery garden tours. When Mort was asked to include his garden on a tour, he was more than happy to but wasn’t well enough to lead tours himself.  Linda volunteered to be his docent. To prepare, Mort walked her through his garden pointing out the various flowers and including some of their history for her to pass on to the visitors. When they came upon a patch of exquisite, pink flowers, Mort explained that they came from his mother’s garden.  He called them Mother Shea’s flowers. He told her that he often gave friends the opportunity to transplant some in their own gardens.  When he made that offer to Linda, she happily accepted. Years have passed, and Mother Shea’s flowers still flourish in Linda’s garden including the ones who beckoned to me.    
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A while ago, Linda and Gary were hiking in France and were delighted to come upon a field full of Mother Shea’s flowers. Since Spirits aren’t bound by earthly constraints, I believe that Mother Shea was sending love and affection to them for helping to keep her son's and her memory alive.  

This blog is about a well loved local legend who has a unique history with our small town of Grantham.  Her name is Joey Dunbar Holmes and here’s a small piece of her story: 

In 1900, Joey’s great uncle Lorenzo donated money for a library in memory of his wife Ellen.  The library was named The Dunbar Free Library.  Eighty years later when Linda Moore was the librarian, Joey would check out books for patrons while Linda ran a story hour.  That volunteer work led to Joey’s being hired as an assistant librarian.  At the age of 86, Joey is currently the Assistant Director of Inter-Library Loans.  

Joey grew up in a house next to the library where the parking lot sits today.  After her mother passed away, the home was sold and eventually acquired by the library.  A much needed addition was planned in 2009 which would mean that the homestead would have to go. The original plan called for clear cutting the lot with demolition of the house, barn, and outbuildings, and all the shrubs and trees.

Enter a Knight in Shining Armor--Andy Gelston.  Andy is Joey’s fellow library staffer who “didn’t want Joey, the town matriarch, to have to witness her childhood home being smashed with an excavator and hauled off in dumpsters.”  It took  Andy and another local hero Otis TenHaken three months to dismantled the buildings.  All the reusable wood was sold with the proceeds going to insurance (in case Andy or Otis fell off a roof) and to the library’s construction fund.  Many people took advantage of the wood sale.  Joey enjoyed speaking with the people who came in to the library to pay for their materials.  To be honest, there were a few midnight requisitions.  (I hope they got splinters.)   I like to think of the wood from Joey’s well loved home being embedded in rooms and sheds all around town and beyond.  (After the blog was posted, I heard from Janie Clark who wrote “I had not remembered it was Joey's house, but we too are enjoying part of it.....  The huge rocks in the rock garden here are from the foundation of Joey's house.  Matt Gallien moved them from the cellar hole to our garden.  

The original clear cutting plan also included destroying the flowering crab apple tree that Joey had planted for her mother as a tiny sapling in 1957. 
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Despite his not being a restoration expert, Andy changed the plans to save the tree.  That’s the tree that sits in the island outside the library to this day and is pictured here. 
Like many of the gardeners’ homes I have visited, there are keepsakes and transplanted flowers to remind them of their earlier lives.  When I interviewed Joey at her home, she pointed out the granite slab entrance to her house that once was the entrance to her home next to the library.  Growing outside her window are the roses that bloomed outside her mother’s.  Her favorite tree flourishes by the town library for her, and for all of us, to enjoy.  

Photograph of the crab apple tree in all its Spring glory was taken by Sir Andy Geltson.  

Janie Clark's garden with her rock garden on the right.  

This is the perfect time to share Mary O’Neill’s poem “What Is Blue?” from her enchanting poetry book Hailstones and Halibut Bones.  The reason why it’s the perfect time is because Gentians are in finally in bloom.
When I first read Mary’s poem, I was familiar with Forget-me-nots but I had no idea what a Gentian was.  Google gave me the prosaic information but I wanted to actually find the flowers, and to find the flowers in Grantham.  I was on a quest, and GGC Veep and gardener extraordinaire Janie Clark came to the rescue.  She had planted Gentian and showed me where to look and told me they were expected to bloom in a month or so.  Yesterday Janie invited me to see some new flowers.  I was in her garden for a long time before I spotted the Gentian.  There’s always a feeling of magic when flowers quietly pop up waiting to be found.  They are waiting to be found by pollinators and have no idea of the human beings who patiently look for them and shower them with admiration.  

The Gentian and Forget-me-nots are from gardens of Jane Deane Clark, Elise Kendall, and Sharon Parker.  The video is of a field of Forget-me-nots that blanketed the forest floor behind the Shakespeare Garden.  By luck and to my delight, I happened upon it one May morning.  I was enchanted by the sound of the birds, the bees and the wind.

With its unusual petals and different colored flower within a flower, Bachelor’s Buttons are always a happy find for me as I poke around my go-to gardeners’ gardens. I spotted my first one in late May and it's a treat whenever I find one. I had never actually seen any before. Being introduced to these delightful flowers was one of the many rewards I have received from my ‘photographing gardens’ project.

In doing a little research, I learned that historians say the name comes from the Victorian era tradition of unmarried men sporting these colorful flowers in their jacket buttonholes. The ladies would know that they were available and looking for a girlfriend. Today’s equivalent is a guy’s single status on his Facebook page.  The Bachelor’s Button boutonniere is much more elegant.

A folktale I heard about the Bachelor’s Button is that if you’re wondering if your current beau is the real deal, put a flower head in your pocket.  The next day, take it out and see if it’s still vibrant.  A fresh flower means he is the one for you.  If the flower has wilted, time to look for a better prospect. 
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If you have any Bachelor’s Buttons blooming in your garden, please let me know and I’ll rush over with my trusty camera to add them to the GGC’s growing photo collection.

Bachelor's Buttons from the gardens of Jane Deane Clark, Elise Kendall, Ruth Stavis, and Jane Verdrager.