Jean Maries Near the Coop

My father really knew what he was doing when he chose to plant Jean Maries (as we call them for short) in our garden.  I’m sure he chose them because of their brilliant scarlet color.  And maybe for their name – he was always impressed by a title… even an honorary one.

I think it was just a serendipity that the Jean Maries are usually at the height of their glory on his birthday, May 12^th.  Dad would have been 109 on Saturday.  It’s hard to believe that he’s been gone for 27 years.  Especially since our entire garden celebrates his birthday every year!

This year, thanks to a crew of volunteers organized by our friend Jay (when Nyel was in the hospital last year) plus a lot of tender loving care by Beach Time Landscaping, our garden is in better shape than at any time since Dad left us.  The garden was his passion and when he wasn’t working on behalf of the Oysterville Restoration Foundation or acting as the “Mayor of Oysterville” (a title bestowed upon him by neighbor Eddie Freshly), he was outside working with his dahlias and roses and rhododendrons.

Jean Maries in the South Garden

He usually had help with the heaviest chores.  In the 1970s, in the days of push mowers, I think Chris Freshley did the mowing for Dad.  When Nyel came into our lives in the early eighties, he took over the mowing and a lot of the weeding.  Then Hank Batten came along and he and Dad worked side-by-side trimming and fluffing and keeping things looking fabulous.

My father inherited that love-of-gardening gene from his mother, right down to his interest is dahlias and roses.  I don’t think Nana’s garden in Boston included rhododendrons, though.  Those were a love affair Dad began even before he and mom retired here — when he became acquainted with Dr. J. Harold Clarke and his amazing nursery on Sandridge Road.

I love the garden and I love the flowers and I love the memories of my dad “puttering” (as he called it) among the blossoms.  Unhappily, I didn’t get that gene of gardening passion. But if I had, I surely would have developed a gorgeous rose or rhododendron or dahlia and named it The Honorable William Woodworth Little.  And everyone would call it “Bill” for short.  Except me.  I’d call it “The Honorable Dad.”