A Little More Yellow

THROUGH THE GARDEN GATE

Visiting the Gardens of Honey Hill Country with Maggie Greenleaf

“A Little More Yellow”

Maggie Greenleaf has a habit of noticing the things others sometimes walk past — a butterfly resting on a blossom, a toad beneath a flowerpot, the scent of lilacs on a spring breeze, or a friendly conversation beside a garden gate.

Through the Garden Gate invites readers to visit the gardens of Honey Hill Country and the people who lovingly care for them.

I meant only to admire Mrs. Nellie Sutton’s flowers from the road.

Then I saw the yellow Mums beside her gate, and Nellie saw me slowing down.

“You can see them better from in here,” she called.

She was standing beside the porch with a small basket over one arm. Behind her, bronze blossoms crowded the edge of a garden bed, and a few late Sunflowers leaned above the fence. Fallen leaves had gathered beneath the steps.

But it was the yellow Mums that brought me through the gate.

They grew in cheerful clumps along the walk, some spilling a little farther over the stones than Nellie apparently minded.

“My mother always liked the yellow ones,” she said. “Said she wanted something sunny to look at when the days began getting short.”

“Did she have a garden like this?”

“Bigger vegetable patch. Fewer flowers. Though she generally found room for another one.”

Nellie shifted her basket and bent to lift a fallen twig from the blossoms.

“I seem to have inherited that difficulty.”

I looked along the walk.

“You appear to be managing it very well.”

“Oh, there is still room by the back gate.”

She said it with the confidence of a woman who had already decided what would go there.

Some of her first plants had come from a seed house in St. Louis, ordered from a catalog and collected at the depot.

“Such little things when I unpacked them,” she said. “My husband looked into the parcel and asked whether that was all.”

“What did you tell him?”

“To give them a chance.”

We stood looking at the garden.

“He did,” she added.

The Mums nearest the house grew in a sheltered bed where the ground drained well. Nellie had learned which places suited them, which plants came through her Winters best, and which needed moving.

She mentioned these things as she might have spoken of neighbors — from long acquaintance, with affection and a clear understanding of their preferences.

A dry rustling came from the fence.

One of the Sunflower heads was trembling, although the others scarcely moved.

A Goldfinch clung to its edge, working at the seeds. Another waited on a nearby stalk, then thought better of waiting and found a place of its own. The heavy head nodded beneath them.

“I wondered whether you were saving those,” I said.

“Those I leave for company.”

We watched a tiny husk fall.

“They seem pleased with the arrangements.”

“They come back often enough.”

There were still a few yellow petals on another Sunflower farther down the fence. Beside it stood the darker, ripened heads, their work continuing long after their brightest days.

Nellie followed my glance.

“I used to tidy those away sooner,” she said. “Then I noticed who was using them.”

Before I left, I admired the yellow Mums once more.

“Come back in Spring,” Nellie said. “When I divide them, you can take some home.”

“I would like that.”

“Mrs. Bell down the road has some already. And there is a patch over by the school.”

“All from here?”

“Those yellow ones, yes.”

I looked back toward the gate. Her mother’s favorite color had found its way a little farther than this garden.

Behind us, the Sunflower stalk rustled again.

Nellie glanced over her shoulder.

“See? Somebody else has brought a friend.”