The Grand Island Garden Walk

Today, with the help of friends, I was able to enjoy the annual Grand Island Garden Walk. Although it’s called a Garden Walk, it would be very difficult to walk the entire route. The ten gardens that were opened to the public were very far from each other. I was very fortunate to have a few friends who ferried me around. Because they did so, I was able to visit six of the ten gardens. And I was so happy to be able to do so. The gardens were beautiful and very different from one another. The things that they had in common were that they were colorful, that their creators put a lot of time and effort to establishing and maintaining them, and that the hosts were very hospitable. The differences were mainly the differences in how people chose to design their space. It was sort of like going to a paint night. We all paint the same painting, but the results are always different because we express our creativity differently, even when the subject is exactly the same.

I truly enjoyed my visit to each of the gardens.

I have to say, however, there is a bittersweet element to going to Garden Walks. I remember with great fondness the Garden Walks I went to with my dear friend and mentor Lenore Tetkowski. This was a friendship I never expected. I had interviewed her in 2006 for an article about the 40 year reunion of Grand Island High School’s first graduating class. She was a teacher back then. An art teacher. And an advocate. Grand Island high school students always went off the Island to go to high school. She and others advocated for the town to have its own high school. The first class of students, who were sophomores at the time, entered the school in 1963. She taught art to students through her art classes and through her art club. She was a weaver who continued to create her very creative and complicated weavings until she was 100 years old. And she encouraged and mentored me. About a week and a half ago, she passed away. She was 101 years old. She had a beautiful, wonderful life. She truly knew how to live. And she loved gardens so much.

I remember one garden we visited. In every garden area, there were quotations from scripture and all sorts of religious images. It was a tad excessive. When Lee and I got into her car to drive to the next garden, we burst into fits of laughter. Lee wasn’t overly impressed by excesses in religion, for sure. I have to admit that the Garden of Overbearing Faith was quite hilarious.

So, this year’s Garden Walk. I didn’t see any flower beds with more religious symbols than plants. No more Gardens of Overbearing Faith. These gardens were diverse and beautiful. There were lots of native plant species, which attracted bees. I think that the child that I once was would have been horrified by that. I was terrified by bees. I thought that they were all ready to sit on me and, if I even moved a little… STING!!!!!!!!! I’ve outgrown that fear, apparently. Now, when I see bumblebees or honeybees, I start squealing, “A bee!!!!” And I get out the camera and I try to take its picture. If the child Alice could see the adult me, she would roll her eyes furiously and then run. Because she wouldn’t want to be that close to a wacky future version of herself who was standing over a bee and trying to photograph it.

There were some fun and whimsical gardens, including a she shed decorated with images from The Wizard of Oz. There was a tin man and a green wicked witch of the west on a bicycle. There was a pair of ruby slippers. There was an emerald city. There were the legs of the wicked witch of the east sticking out from underneath the she shed, with the ruby slippers still attached. That reminds of of a walk that I did with a group to protest against… I’m not sure. It was probably drone warfare. One of the walkers was talking about a protest that he participated in. The protesters were busily doing something that might have been a bit illegal… when some cops showed up. But… the wrong cops. They didn’t have any jurisdiction at the site of the protest. Brian, the walker relating the story, knew that.

“You have no jurisdiction here,” Brian told the cops. “Be gone or a house will fall on you, too.” That was exactly what Glinda, the good witch, told the wicked witch of the west when she tried to pull the ruby slippers off Dorothy’s feet. Brian said the cops departed. The protest ended with no one arrested.

The garden with the she-shed also sported a sweet fairy garden. In another area, there were some poles. “Survivor,” one of them said. Carol is that survivor. She tends the gardens, along with her husband Chuck. She is a retired elementary school music teacher. In 2011, a year after she was diagnosed with cancer, she organized a concert with singers of all ages to raise money to help survivors of breast cancer. She actually created an adult group called the pink chorus. Four years later, when she was given the good news that her cancer was in remission, she organized a second concert to raise money for survivors of breast cancer. I had the honor of singing with the pink chorus for both concerts.

Check back here on Wednesday, for some more images to go with the theme of the Garden Walk.