Granddaughter of Juda

There were no gardens here at Rohan Farm 23 years ago. Now, they dominate our landscape. Cathy made this happen, through a combination of inherited knowledge, hard work and love. She is the daughter of Faye and a Granddaughter of Juda Catherine Strickland.

The hillside garden, the shade garden, the front garden, the vegetable garden, the cutting garden, Cathy designed them and created them. I provided a bit of the grunt labor for the hard scape, but the secret to all of it is Cathy. When she gardens, she is in her Zen Zone. For me, weeding is the ultimate drudgery. Not her. She spends hours each week weeding, improving and cutting in the garden. She once shared with me, “Patience is the key ingredient in gardening, and pays off when a plant reaches maturity and blooms. There’s a special excitement seeing something you have planted, nurtured, cared for and thought about finally bloom. The journey is as important as the end result.”

Cathy’s gardening talent was born long before I was on the scene. She inherited a love of gardening from her mother Faye. Mom was a wonderful gardener and always had flower gardens at the house. Cathy noticed. When her family lived in Chattanooga, Cathy persuaded her mom to let her have a flower garden of her own at age 12. Faye was fine with the idea, but Cathy had to plant it and maintain it.

Whenever mom moved to a new home, the first thing she did was start planning out the flower gardens. Her last home in Alabama was gorgeous with a combination of plants, pathways and surrounding woodland, and I could lose myself in thought while wandering through them.

Faye gained her garden skills from her mother Juda Strickland, who lived a hard life in rural Alabama. She and her husband Ernest had 11 children, 8 of them boys. Electricity and indoor plumbing didn’t come until much later in her life. Cathy remembers that when she visited as a child, they were still using an outhouse. I think two things sustained Grandma Strickland in life – her faith in God, and her gardening. For her, I think they were related.

Cathy spent years following Faye and Juda around grandma’s farm in Alabama, talking about plants and flowers the whole time. They were often joined by Jeff, Cathy’s cousin. While he did the usual “boy stuff”, he also liked to garden. They all discussed the merits of the plants, as they walked and talked. Some plant wouldn’t be doing well and they would decide if it should be replaced or maybe it needed a different spot, or just some love. Most were not exotic plants, but southern favorites like four o’clocks.

In Cathy’s telling, it was great fun walking around the farm. There was always something to see, whether plants, newly born piglets, or watching how live chickens were turned into dinner (I think there’s a whole other blog right here ;-)…). Sometimes the meanderings ended at the vegetable garden, where fresh tomatos were a tasty treat of summer – warm, fragrant and oh so juicy. Summer afternoons were spent on the porch with newspapers stretched over everyone’s laps. There were beans to string, peas to shell and corn to shuck…

Later, after Cathy and I were married, we made several trips to visit Grandma, particularly when stationed in Georgia. Grandma would lead Cathy around the house and garden showing her new, or different plants. She wasn’t quite as mobile then, having broken her hip during a fall in her sixties. She was using a wooden crutch to get around, and would point out the plants or blooms with the crutch. Cathy loved and cherished those times together.

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Cathy’s younger sister Bonnie also has the gardening gene. At her home near Mendocino, CA, she has roses, flower gardens, a big vegetable garden and fruit trees. It’s all beautiful and fits the Northern California setting perfectly. She has a greenhouse that many professionals would envy. Cathy and Bonnie trade cuttings and seeds back and forth, and more than a few plants have made coast to coast journeys.

There are several other Granddaughters of Juda who inherited her green thumb. As an example, in addition to Jeff, Cathy and Bonnie’s cousin Debbie has beautiful gardens in her back yard, and will frequently post pictures that reveal she too has the touch. Other cousins such as Margaret and Dylilah have the gift, and it’s already seen in the next generation – Sasha, the daughter of their cousin Rusty is also an avid gardener. It wasn’t a universal gift though. Cindy, Cathy and Bonnie’s middle sister, was never much of a gardener. Nor was their cousin Loretta, who claims she can’t grow anything. Still, I think Juda’s spirit remains with all of them. As Loretta related, “I definitely did not inherit her green thumb. I manage to kill every plant I get EXCEPT for one. I inherited a Mother-in-Law’s Tongue from Mawmaw in the ‘90s. Believe it or not, despite my best efforts, that plant is still alive.” 😉

Grandma eventually passed away in 1997, at the age of 98. She was in a nursing home for her last few years. Although she could no longer garden, her faith in God remained with her until the end. I like to think there are gardens scattered across America that are living testaments to her life and her legacy.

Addendum:

• Special thanks to Cathy, not only for her gardens, but also for sharing memories of her youth and visiting Grandma in Alabama. She filled in missing critical pieces that I “sensed”, but didn’t specifically know.
• Thanks to Bonnie, Loretta and Debi for sharing their own gardening backgrounds. Special thanks to Loretta for sharing the photo of her Mother-in-law’s Tongue (photo credit to Cynthia Smith).
• I first met Grandma Strickland in 1973, when Cathy’s family went there for a vacation over spring break. Cathy and I were dating and in high school, and we somehow persuaded our parents that it would be OK for me to go with them. I think at first Grandma was a bit suspicious of this token northerner who was dating her granddaughter. The suspicion was allayed at least a bit on the second night, when she cooked fried okra. I’d never had okra before. Three helpings later, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven, and grandma started warming up to me.

Here are two other blogs I’ve written in the past about Cathy and her gardening:

• Through Cathy, I’ve gained an appreciation for the colors that make up the palette of our life. For years, I didn’t get it, or understand it. Or perhaps even worse, I didn’t think about it. Sometimes though, you can teach an old engineer new […] continue at: https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2022/03/23/the-palette-of-our-life/
• Ask Cath how she grows orchids and she’ll say “Oh, I just water them. After that, it’s tough love.” Tough love evidently works. In winter, I enjoy looking at the results. The color, the texture, the beauty of orchids and their individual parts – Sepals, Petals, Lip, and Column, make each unique… Continue at: https://mnhallblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/04/cathy-and-her-orchids/