0:01 good evening Thank you again for
0:04 participating in my oral history
0:06 interview This is the second of a set of
0:10 a few interviews that I will be doing
0:13 for my interviewing class Today I want
0:16 to discuss one of your hobbies gardening
0:19 All my life you've kept amazing flower
0:22 gardens and had exotic plants I want to
0:24 learn more about what got you interested
0:26 in gardening
0:29 So I'm going to ask you a few opening
0:31 questions Uh what got you interested in
0:33 gardening
0:37 My parents and my
0:44 grandparents I
0:47 always worked in the garden We always
0:50 had a garden as a
0:53 family growing up
0:57 And my
0:59 grandmother had a garden that she
1:04 would grow all of her own
1:07 food and can it or freeze
1:11 it and that is what we would eat there
1:15 all winter
1:20 So she also grew a lot of
1:26 flowers and I got very interested in all
1:30 the different flowers she grew and just
1:34 really loved flowers and having my hands
1:38 in the earth
1:44 Um when did you start your first garden
1:50 of my own Yes of your own
1:54 A vegetable garden or a flower garden Um
2:00 either or I was thinking more of a
2:02 flower garden
2:10 Um
2:14 thinking thinking
2:23 So
2:25 the first
2:27 place I probably had my own flower
2:33 garden was when I lived
2:38 with my first husband's
2:42 family before I graduated high school
2:47 So I was 18 or
2:49 19 and my grandmother
2:53 uh was
2:55 ill and wanted
2:57 to get me starts from her different
3:03 flowers and Aunt Monica
3:12 Okay Um what do you remember what kind
3:15 of flowers they were That's what I used
3:18 to start my first flower garden
3:22 Um
3:24 irises
3:28 coline and
3:33 um
3:39 pineies
3:41 daffodils a lot of pretty flowers
3:46 Yes
3:47 Um so now I'm going to move on
3:50 to like the more like core questions for
3:54 the interview Um what was your first big
3:56 memory when it uh comes to gardening
3:59 That could be vegetable gardening or
4:01 flower gardening
4:06 It would
4:10 be
4:11 that at certain harvest
4:16 times at grandma's
4:21 house everyone
4:24 was
4:26 helping Not
4:29 that I would ever not want to help but
4:37 You were expected to
4:40 help shelling limema beans snapping
4:45 green
4:46 beans Um because the green beans were
4:50 getting canned water bath
4:53 canned and the lima beans would get
4:56 blanched and frozen
5:02 But my earliest memories of gardening
5:04 would have to be
5:11 that Thank you Mom Um so who is someone
5:15 I know you kind of mentioned this in uh
5:18 the like our opening questions but who
5:20 is someone who nourished your love for
5:22 gardening
5:25 Definitely my grandmother Virginia Funk
5:29 My
5:32 paternal
5:37 grandmother
5:39 Um what is one of your favorite plants
5:42 to
5:47 grow One of my
5:50 favorite plants to
5:53 grow is knit
5:57 There are many different kinds of mint
6:01 and
6:03 um what you call like uh lemon balm
6:08 I know you've always had patches of it
6:11 somewhere around the house It's fairly
6:15 hardy So that
6:18 means you know at the earliest times and
6:22 the latest times there's always mint
6:31 It's very good to put in tea and stuff
6:33 too
6:35 Yes it makes
6:37 wonderful addition to your tea And some
6:42 of it you just I mean the lemon bomb is
6:46 quite
6:49 medicinal and it kind of grows like a
6:53 weed in Chase Town Ohio
6:58 I don't know what about the
7:01 soil here that it just really loves but
7:04 I have recently thought
7:07 of getting some soil
7:11 tests of different to see what's going
7:14 on with the soil out here
7:19 I feel like um that's something I've
7:22 never done and I'm just kind of
7:26 interested in it
7:28 See what different minerals are in the
7:31 um that are in our soil and stuff
7:34 Right And also
7:38 um acidity is a big thing
7:48 Because it also that acidity can plays
7:52 in part with what plants you can grow
7:54 there Correct
7:56 Right It
7:58 does Certain plants
8:01 prefer a high
8:04 acid soil which is what I think we have
8:09 here
8:12 probably all from all the farming and
8:16 stuff because this is all farmland
8:21 Um so moving on to my next question It's
8:24 kind of similar Um what is one of your
8:28 most exotic plants that you've owned
8:31 Exotic meaning like the most unique or
8:34 from like another part of the world I
8:39 brought
8:42 a They have them in all
8:45 the gift shops and
8:48 things in
8:50 Hawaii A
8:53 stick of
8:56 plumeriia and I got two of them and I
9:00 grew them into beautiful trees
9:06 I really nurtured those and drugg those
9:10 around with me to many different homes
9:18 I know you uh were they with the batch
9:20 of tropical trees that you had the other
9:24 ones like the um
9:27 um no they
9:34 um died
9:38 in
9:40 maybe let's
9:43 see probably about 02
9:48 to they got some kind of a strange
9:52 fungus
9:54 Oh okay
9:56 But I by the time I realized what was
10:00 going
10:01 on because they
10:04 also there was an incident with your
10:08 older
10:10 brother
10:13 Um they were just recovering from that
10:19 when they caught a fungus
10:28 much like one that our pine tree caught
10:31 or you know something similar Similar
10:35 Yes It actually just
10:39 uh turned
10:41 the it's a
10:43 barky
10:46 tree It doesn't really get ranches It's
10:51 all
10:52 bark And um I mean it just turned to
10:56 mush
10:59 Oh that's really upsetting
11:01 Oh it
11:02 was
11:04 Um similar to that um what was the
11:08 longest that you've kept the same plant
11:10 for The longest time like that you've
11:12 had the same
11:14 flower or
11:20 tree I
11:22 had a couple of those hibiscus trees for
11:26 over 20 years
11:32 Wow that's a really long time
11:36 Yeah And one I had gotten from a lady at
11:42 work and it had been her grandmother's
11:50 So those hibiscus trees just say small
11:52 like that all their lives don't they
11:56 I mean I cut them back but they're more
12:00 of a I think they're more of a shrub
12:03 than a
12:05 tree And they're from a tropical climate
12:08 so I remember you'd always have to lug
12:10 them
12:11 out during the uh during the summer and
12:15 lug them back in during the the fall
12:19 right
12:22 Um and
12:25 then here uh I'm here's my final
12:28 question Uh what year garden were you
12:31 the most proud
12:40 of This can be like a flower garden or
12:44 vegetable garden or just a mixture of
12:46 both
12:48 I mean but it was a lot Your dad's
12:53 vegetable garden his last one that he
12:57 grew was absolutely beautiful It was
13:00 perfect
13:02 Um
13:04 but the first few years we lived here
13:12 um
13:13 2008 2009 then probably around
13:22 200 was
13:26 probably the best
13:30 flowers I ever
13:32 had I had flowers around each one of
13:36 those trees out in the front
13:40 yard Just like 2 feet of flowers all the
13:44 way around them
13:47 Yeah You sprinkled It was like a bunch
13:49 of wildflower seeds wasn't it
13:53 Well yeah butterfly garden type
13:59 seeds
14:01 cosmos and
14:04 um
14:07 daisies Uh sweet
14:10 William some
14:13 uh
14:15 flax is a very beautiful plant
14:24 Um so was there any particular reason
14:27 why you were so proud of that garden
14:32 I would have to
14:35 say just the variety of
14:38 things and
14:41 still being able to just put a lot more
14:45 work into it than I'm able to now
14:51 And it was just you know so much bigger
14:55 I had flowers
15:01 everywhere But
15:04 now I have more perennials going
15:10 strong than I ever
15:13 have
15:16 So I mean now's a good time too
15:22 cuz all and all the perennials are nice
15:24 and big like the rose bushes and stuff
15:28 right I've got that one red knockout
15:33 rose is
15:35 just that's a happy place to be planted
15:40 no matter what I've had planted right in
15:42 that spot
15:46 And um I mean it's going to take a
15:51 little
15:52 time because we had kind of a harsher
15:55 winter than usual for things to pop back
16:00 up this
16:01 summer But we should have three
16:06 beautiful butterfly
16:11 bushes Had those for a long time too
16:15 Yes we have
16:17 Um the one that is out by our
16:23 um
16:25 stump is actually from dad's house in
16:34 Lynchber nearly 20 years ago
16:38 Right
16:40 And you know I could take you around and
16:44 show
16:45 you each thing that I planted the first
16:48 year we lived here
16:53 I'm sure it was a lot of the tulips and
16:56 bulbs and stuff because a lot of those
16:58 take sometimes years to come up Like you
17:01 got to plant them the winter before
17:05 right
17:08 Well that concludes all the questions I
17:10 wanted to ask you Uh thank you again for
17:13 participating in this interview Mom Um
17:16 your gardening has always been a big
17:17 part of my
17:18 life Uh and during my life I've always
17:21 been interested in learning where that
17:24 love for gardening came from
17:28 It was nurtured very sweetly by my
17:32 grandmother
17:34 She would say "Oh look at that tiny
17:38 little
17:40 flower." I
17:43 mean I try to do that for my
17:47 grandchildren and I'm glad to know that
17:50 I did it for
17:53 you Thank you for having me Thank you
17:56 Mom
17:58 You're welcome
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