From the Improvement Era, January 1957 –

The Last Garden

By Harold Heifer

It was just that Gramp’s time seemed to have come, that’s all. And he was getting pretty old. His hair was snowy white and, especially lately, his skin seemed to be getting the same way, hardly any color in it at all.

Somehow you could just tell that Gramp had come to the end of things. And no one seemed to know it any better than Gramp. It wasn’t only that he didn’t stir about much anymore, but he seemed to be waiting now, waiting for everything to get itself over with. In fact, he said to me one day, “Joey, this is my last garden.”

If there was anything that Gramp set a store by, it was his garden, especially after Grandma died. And I guess Gramp had just about the nicest and neatest garden in town; every blade of grass seemed to be exactly in place, and so were the gladioli and the roses and the tulips and all the other flowers.

Gramp seemed to have become more listless than ever over the winter. He seemed to sink deeper and deeper into that old worn plush chair of his, as if he wanted to get away even more from the everyday things around him.

And that last week in February it really looked as if the end had come for Gramp. He hardly seemed to eat any more, and he barely seemed to have the energy left to get in and out of his chair. Dr. Hobbs dropped by two or three times that week. You could tell from the extra solemn way that he acted and from the way the rest of the family kept moving about as if they were on tiptoes and giving each other quick glances that this was one of the last visits Dr. Hobbs ever expected to make on Gramp. As a matter of fact, Aunt Dora and one or two others were even in touch with the funeral home and were making funeral arrangements. And then, the next thing anybody knew, there was Gramp fussing around in the garden again!

Of course, he wasn’t his old self. He seemed stiff and jerky, almost like a mechanical man. What had happened was that the rosebush had begun to bloom. It was somewhat unexpected, but then the weather had been unseasonably warm. Of course, the bush had to be pruned and sprayed and so forth, and so that’s what Gramp was doing.

Well, he’d hardly got through getting the bush in shape, just exactly the way he wanted it, with every bud and every flower in just the right and proper position, something which took about two or three days, of course, when the daffodils pushing themselves up.

Now some people don’t like daffodils, and try to get rid of them, almost as if they were crab grass, but Gramp loved to see the small yellow flowers popping up all around, and he was out there spraying around them and pulling up a weed here and there, too.

And then the gladioli began shooting up — and the tulips. And then I believe it was the azaleas, looking as if they were in technicolor, they were so scarlet.

I believe it was between the azaleas and the violets that Gramp said what he did about this being his “last garden.” I don’t know that he told anybody else, but Gramp and I always had been pretty close, taking hikes together and playing mumblepeg and listening to each other’s stories. Gramp seemed awfully weary when he made that statement. “I think June 15 would be a nice date. . . .” he said, his voice fading away.

I’m not sure that anyone else would have known what Gramp meant. But Gramp always had said that the last few days of June were when the garden was at its best. Gramp was simply saying this time that, because spring had come a little earlier, the garden would be at its prettiest sooner, about the middle of June — and that’s when he wanted to go.

Actually, the garden seemed to be at its fullest and brightest even earlier than that. I suppose for one thing Gramp kept sprinkling so much fertilizer stuff around. I guess you can hardly blame him for wanting to make this garden the loveliest and finest of them all.

You would have thought with everything coming along so wonderfully that Gramp would at last just sit back and take it all in. But, no, he was out there in the garden every day, doing something or other, some pruning or bug spraying or some weed pulling or something.

Well, come June 15 and, sure enough, everything looked perfect. I couldn’t help but thinking this probably was the most perfect garden since the world began. And Gramp sitting on the porch taking it all in seemed to sink farther and farther away into the depth of his chair, and I held my breath, feeling that the end had come at last.

But, some minutes later, there was Gramp back out in the garden again, fussing around. “Weeds,” he said. “I thought I had ’em all out. I guess I was a little too eager this year and overdid the fertilizing. That always means a little weed trouble. However, this should be about the last of the lot.”

Gramp turned out to be wrong, though. The next day there were some more, scattered about, in splurges, here and there.

Well, that’s the way it was all season. It would seem that Gramp would have all the weeds out, once and for all, and the next day some more would come cropping out. And Gramp tried all sorts of antiweed things, too. He not only tried chemical things, but he also tried burning them out. But just as he seemed to have some parts of the garden under control, why, some weeds would come sprouting out in other spots.

Well, that’s the way it was all season long. Gramp vows it’s going to be different this coming year, though. For one thing, he said he was going to give more attention to the garden this winter than he did the last. “I’m going to get rid of all those leaves right away, for one thing,” he said. “Letting leaves accumulate will sour the soil, you know, get you mushrooms and all kinds and manners of weeds.”

Then, with a sigh and a faraway look in his eyes, Gramp said, “Next season will be my very last garden also and the finest one of all.” I think Gramp may be just a little wrong about this, though — on the first count, anyway. One thing I do know for sure, however, and that is that while it may be a big nuisance to keep pulling out weeds, it’s even more work to keep replanting them.”