Gardening as a Family Heirloom

By Holly Ennist Stewart

When customers come to the garden center asking for specific plants, they frequently mention family members associated with the object of their search. More often than not, they’re looking for their mom’s or dad’s favorite thing to grow, although grandparents and other relatives also make an occasional appearance during these chats. 

The thing that’s universal about this type of query is that the customer wishes to honor his or her relation by recognizing that the plant holds a special place in the family. If the relative is still actively gardening, a gift of this nature tells the recipient that the giver understands the plant’s value. If they have passed away or are no longer able to garden, the customer may want to grow the plant as a tribute to the relative’s memory and green thumb. 

We all inherit things from our ancestors – physical traits, behaviors, interests. When you’re young, it’s easy to dismiss them as random and unimportant. In fact, gardening is like most things we hand down between generations: It’s hard to know how much of it will stick until one is much older. 

In our family, my maternal grandparents were keepers of the green flame, covering nearly every inch of their half acre on Long Island with roses, perennials, and a bevy of vegetables and annuals. Before he married, Grandpa Bill worked in a greenhouse owned by a wool tycoon. Later, he drove a truck for a lumber yard, but he always spoke fondly of those halcyon days caring for plants on his previous employer’s estate. Grandma Bertha had been raised on a cotton farm in south Texas; she didn’t miss the heat and hard labor of her youth, but she loved to honor her own mom by growing a fantastic array of roses.

My parents loved gardening, too, but because we lived in Smoke Rise, roses weren’t viable. Every summer, deer would ravage the bushes before the buds had a chance to open. So instead, we grew rhododendrons, boxwoods, barberry, blackberry, and lilac bushes. We also had a fenced-in vegetable patch that yielded all manner of delicious produce for four decades. 

As a youngster, I was enlisted to cut grass, trim bushes, pick veggies and weeds. For these chores, I was paid 50 cents an hour, which was enough to buy candy and baseball cards. Every family outing in those days became an outdoor classroom as my siblings and I learned to identify the plants, birds, and wildlife that surrounded us. More than 50 years later, our mutual appreciation of the natural world remains the primary topic of discussion between my brothers and sisters and me.

Until I was in my mid-30s, I didn’t do a lot of gardening. I was too busy with work, my husband, and our social life to do much digging. Once we acquired our own property, however, we both found we wanted to leave our mark on the land. In the 25 years since, we have completely transformed areas that were just rocks and hostas, and we’re not done yet.

My grandparents and parents are long gone, but I still feel their presence every time I take up the trowel and watering can. They share in my gardening successes and offer consolation after failures. Their love of gardening is a gift that keeps on giving. What a precious legacy they left behind.

Holly Ennist Stewart is a lifelong North Jersey resident. In 2019, she left a decades-long career in the newspaper industry to work with plants and people who love them. She’s been on staff at Glenwild since 2021.