The Gift of the Marigold

I never thought I could gain so much insight from such a simple activity such as gardening. You become more patient, develop an eye for detail, and learn sustainable methods to keep your soil fertile and plants healthy. I think that some may overlook or even scoff at such a trivial pastime. But not everyone. With that said, I’m incredibly grateful for the time I spent gardening with my grandmother; her sweet, benign nature and deep, holistic wisdom permeates through my mind to this day. Without her, I wouldn’t have looked twice at such a graciously impactful flower as the marigold.

My grandmother grew up in Hart County, Georgia, a rural area near the South Carolina border. Born to two sharecroppers, she reflects “Hard work was all we knew back then.” However, at a young age, this was a difficult concept to instill into the curious, carefree mind of a child. While her dad plowed the farmland, and her mother worked the cotton gin, my grandmother would be elsewhere, collecting milkweeds and rooting through the turned-over soil for earthworms and eye-catching stones.

Though this was taken as a sort of defiance, or neglect of important matters, these traits ended up benefitting her for many years to come. At age 9, she had much to learn, and the value of hard work was a definite sticking point. However, there was an advantage to this naivete-her unbridled enthusiasm for exploration and innocent curiosity proved to be one of her most valuable assets, well into her old age.

One day, my grandmother and her mother were working the cotton gin. My grandma fed in the cotton, and my great-grandma would spin the wheel to sort out the seeds. Sometimes they switched places. “It’s exactly as exciting as it sounds.” my grandma laughs.

By some divine intervention for my grandma, their work literally grinded to a halt. A small rock became lodged in one of the gears and the cotton gin needed to be disassembled to reach. Though her mother had a great deal of experience with the machine, her father had the thorough mechanical aptitude necessary to fix the machine as quickly as possible. The cotton gin was an invaluable tool on the farm-there was no room for error. “Run and get your father as fast as you can. And don’t dilly-dally!”

“At first,” my grandmother explains today, “I really wanted to do what my mother told me to do. But sometimes, I couldn’t help but give in to curiosity’”

She ran off to fetch her father. Yet, she couldn’t help but look at the ground as she ran. Stolen glances mid stride turned to long, interrupted stares as her pace steadily slowed to a stop. Soon enough, she was back in forbidden territory-picking flowers and playing with ladybugs, without a worry for the task at hand.

Serendipitously, her stopping point was but a stone’s throw away from the landowner’s home, about a quarter mile from the fields where her father toiled. As my grandmother had stopped, the landowner was just beginning his walk around the premises. My grandmother had never spoken to him, and seldom saw him. As he emerged from the home, my grandmother was arranging her treasured finds in the grass beside her. In her absorption, she didn’t hear the man quietly approach her.

He startled her when he finally spoke, “ That’s quite the collection you have there.” Her heart skipped a beat. She turned around and saw the landowner smiling at her. Was this a trick? Was his comment tongue-in-cheek? She felt guilty jeopardizing her family’s livelihood by pursuing her immature endeavors.

Sensing her guardedness, he brightly explained, “ It’s okay! My wife is quite the naturalist herself.” The landowner looked at my grandmother’s collection: an array of small flowers, a small collection of bugs milling about, and even some worms squirming around, all enclosed by a tiny fence constructed with twigs and stones.

“These were the days before Barbies and video games”, my grandmother now reflects, “back then we made our own fun.” Fortunately for my grandmother, the landowner and his family shared the same intrigue for wildlife. “How long have you been making these enclosures?” the man asked. My grandma relaxed a bit. It was the first time her little side hobby had gotten any notability, though she was still nervous about her parents being upset.

“Well sir, I’ve been doing this for about as long as I could walk.” my grandmother began. “I’ve always loved butterflies, but I could never catch them,” she said meekly. “That’s why I started planting flowers, so they could come to me. And I can see them when I’m done with my work, but I’m not so good at the ‘work’ part.” She looked up cautiously, and was relieved to look up to an understanding smile.

The man laughed, and smiled at her little ecosystem. “Do you like any other little critters besides butterflies?” the man asked. “Yes sir!” my grandmother exclaimed, “I like digging for worms. Sometimes I find other bugs. They used to scare me, but now I think they’re interesting.” The man nodded, “Well you won’t be expecting too many other bugs around here. You see those little yellow flowers you have there?” He pointed to the ground. My grandmother nodded.

“These are wild, so they don’t smell the best. But they’ll keep pests away so you can enjoy your creation oven longer.”

“When he said that”, my grandma says looking back, “my mind flooded with questions. I knew butterflies were attracted to flowers. I didn’t know why. I just assumed everyone liked flowers. And butterflies. Who doesn't, they're so pretty.” my grandmother said with a gentle laugh. “There was just so much to know.” A pivotal moment in my grandmother’s life, her mind was brimming with concepts that never occurred to her. Flowers were not only pleasing to the eye, but effective as pesticides? The many uses of nature!

The man noticed the wonder in her eyes. “Let’s go for a walk” he said brightly. My grandmother, fascinated, yet nervous, expressed her doubts. What about her father? Her mother? The cotton gin? “Don’t worry about them.” the man said reassuringly. “They’re wonderful people, and have a tremendous work ethic. I think everyone could use a break. I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble, I promise.” he said with a smile.

Together they went, first to inform her father of the cotton gin. “My father knew exactly what to do,” my grandmother remembered. “ He said it should only take a few minutes to fix.” The landowner even offered to help but her father respectfully declined. “My dad loved to fix things.” my grandmother said, in a warm retrospect.

After visiting with her father, they went to see her mother, relieved to finally see her daughter come back after such a long time. But with the landowner? What did her daughter do this time? The landowner explained finding my grandmother, talking about wildlife, and apologized for causing any worry for her unauthorized absence. After coming to a common understanding, the landowner asked if he could take my grandmother on a tour of his backyard. Her mother agreed. “Make sure you’re back by sundown!” my great grandma implored.

Finally, the landowner and my grandmother set off to the backyard of the landowner’s palatial home, hosting several garden plots, as well as manicured shrubbery, ornate plants, and vibrant flowers surrounding the area. “It’s my little slice of paradise.” the man said contentedly.

From there, the man showed my grandmother around the yard, identifying the various botanical species decorated around the yard. After sharing the names, countries of origin, and unique properties of each plant, they moved on to the garden. Upon looking at the tomato beds, my grandmother asked about the interesting orange flowers lined up in rows throughout the plot. The man was more than happy to inform her.

“Those are marigolds. The ones you had out front are like weeds. These are a little more pretty, and help keep my tomatoes safe from pests, like nematodes.” the man answered.

“What are nematodes? Do they hop? Or ribbit?” my grandmother asked innocently.

The man laughed. “No, not quite. Nematodes are tiny creatures that live underground. They feed off the roots and kill the plants, but they’re hard to see, let alone dig for. These marigolds do all the work for me. When the marigolds are planted in the soil, their roots work with the tomatoes to fight off the nematodes”.

He leaned over to pick a flower from the bed. “You can have this so you can tell the difference between a wild marigold and a manmade one.” My grandmother reached out to take it. “Man made?’ she asked incredulously. The man laughed. “That’s a question for another day.” he said amusedly.

My grandmother returned to her parents, excitedly sharing her new paradigm of botanical knowledge. They were pleased to see that there could be some promise to their daughter’s insatiable sense of wonder. From then on, my grandmother would meet with the landowner every Sunday, and discuss botany, ecology, and their personal lives at length, deepening as time went on. “It was a lot easier to work on the farm after that” my grandmother now reflects, “I had something new to look forward to every week. And everything felt so new and exciting. Even such a bland plant as cotton had taken on a whole new life.”

“That was the beginning of my pursuit into botany,” my grandmother reminisces. “My parents didn’t have the same opportunities as I did, so that made me even more determined to go to school, learn everything I could about botany and ecology, and give back to them the same way they gave so much to me. I’m happy to say that I did." she said contentedly.

After a long career of vigorous research, peer reviewed publishings, and high profile achievements in her field, my grandmother now lives in a quaint cottage tucked away in the bucolic Massachusetts countryside, quite a difference from her humble beginnings on a Georgian farm.

The origin story of her fascination with botany is one of many that I’m fortunate enough to hear while helping her tend the garden by her cottage. I come to visit her when I’m done with my studies at my university, and over time, we’ve shared laughter, our hearts, and even butt heads at times (“That’s not a tiny shovel, that’s a spade!” she’d say exasperatedly) but that story always stuck out to me the most.

We all have instincts, or a certain intuition, finely tuned just for us, that we can’t help but follow. My grandmother is proof that although at times scary, and uncertain, following these hunches can lean one down a path of splendor. Though she’s much older than that young girl she once was, rooting around for worms, staring at the mysterious beauty of flowers, she still has that same youthful presence and unrelenting enthusiasm for the curious and unknown.

I once asked her “What’s the best present anyone’s ever given you?” as we were pruning her tomatoes. We were discussing birthdays. She thought for a moment. “The kind that give everything, and ask for nothing in return." She smiled at the flowers lining the tomato beds. "The gift of the marigold.”