the Austin Garden | Studebaker: reflections on my grandmother

Masks away: the Natural Gardener has taken one step closer to normal and more natural times by lifting its mask requirement for shoppers and staff who have been fully vaccinated. On Tuesday they will start accepting cash for payments. TNG ❦

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Pond Society Tour: next weekend 13 beautiful pond gardens will open their gates to the public. $20 for a 2-day pass. Day 1, all of the ponds will be within Austin. Day 2, the focus will shift to the gardens of Round Rock, Georgetown and Sun City. PST ❦

Create your own indoor greenhouse.... with IKEA. Writer Shelby Vittek shares 'the ultimate DIY hack for houseplant parents.' I. Buy an inexpensive glass cabinet from IKEA ($59+). 2. Install grow light. 3. For tropical plants, add a humidifier and mini-fan. 4. Add plants 'to please the eye.' Modern Farmer ❦

Squash blossom special: apart from painting their beautiful blossoms, artist Linda Anderson has enjoyed some success cooking them up in the kitchen. First you have to remove the stamens and pistils with tweezers, she advises. After washing and drying, she stuffed hers with cheese and other fillings, and then sauteed them in melted butter. squash blossom recipes ❦

Central Texas Gardener: in the studio, Casey Aicklen (Barton Springs Nursery) introduces viewers to such reliable summer bloomers as volcano bush, black and blue sage, and penta. On tour, a visit to a Cedar Park couple who re-created a honeymoon paradise in their back garden. KLRU ❦

Hancock golf course-to-park: there's no kite-flying or picnicing upon the great lawns of this central golf course right now. But there could be. Please join us to help heal the land and open up what will someday be a crown jewel in Austin's park system. (painting: Linda Anderson) Hancock Conservancy ❦

Reflections on my Grandmother

by Renee Studebaker

My front yard garden is aglow in shades of orange and yellow, with a few pops of red, blue and purple.

Black-eyed Susans, calendula, cosmos, gomphrena and zexmenia are the standouts at the moment, but a few lingering larkspur are holding up their end of the color wheel for a while longer until the African blue basil is ready to take over.

The borage is blooming too, but its tiny blue blooms are almost hidden by its big fuzzy leaves. Showy purple coneflower blooms will be coming next. And blanket flowers too.

This joyful mess of May flowers always makes me think of my grandmother, Esther, whose love of gardening rubbed off on me at an early age. Esther was by no means a perfect role model in the garden.

She was a small-town farmer who used to hang dead snakes on her garden fence to bring rain. She also spread broken egg shells around her tomato plants to add calcium to the soil.

Of course, those kinds of folksy gardening superstitions and myths make most modern day gardeners (including me) cringe because we’re trying to incorporate more science-based advice into our gardening practices.

That said, there are some bits of garden wisdom I picked up from my grandmother that have stood the test of time and science. In particular, her advice that no matter how old you are (or how old you feel), don’t stop gardening.

In her later years, my grandmother liked to say that gardening gave her a good reason to get out of bed every morning. She especially liked to say that in response to anyone who questioned whether she might be too old to garden.

Now that I’m old (ok, oldish), and semi-retired, I totally get what she was saying, and I wish she were still living so I could tell her how right she was.

A recent study found that the brains of subjects in their 70s showed significant cognitive improvement (indicated by neural growth and synaptic plasticity) after just 20 minutes of light to moderate gardening.

It seems that the judgement, problem solving and critical thinking that is routinely required while working in a garden give the brain a workout, with one of the big payoffs being improved memory.

My grandmother was living proof of this finding. At age 92, she had slowed down considerably, but she was still doing some gardening almost every day. The day before she died (in her sleep — the absolute best way to go), she harvested two big pumpkins from her vegetable garden.

Later that evening, when family members came to visit, she won two out of three games of 42. The much younger family members she was competing against were not surprised. They were used to her winning whenever she played dominoes.

A few days ago, as I was deadheading calendula so I could save the seeds, I thought of another bit of gardening wisdom I picked up from my grandmother: No matter what kind of garden you’re growing, always plant flowers. A lot of flowers.

So I love it that those brightly blooming flower jungles she adored so much have also been validated by science. Numerous studies have shown that a diverse mix of vegetables, herbs and flowers increases crop yield, pollinators, weed suppression and pest suppression.

In addition, a diverse community of plants increases the growth and activity of mycorrhizal fungi, which results in healthier plants and soil.

So what’s the takeaway from all this? The next time you’re feeling a little tired and achy, go out and work in your garden anyway, even if it’s just for 20 minutes. And while you’re out there, plant more flowers. ❦

(Find more info on the benefits of gardening in this National Institutes on Health article: NIH)

Longtime Austin gardener and writer Renee Studebaker is a retired newspaper journalist who now teaches children how to grow and cook vegetables. (photo above by Renee)