Gayle Thompson has found a new life in the garden behind the Lewiston home she shares with her husband, Glenn.
They were in their mid-50s, newlyweds, barely settled into the home where Glenn had lived alone, when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 13 years ago. She had to learn to talk and walk again after the episode that led to her diagnosis, Gayle said, and she works continuously to recreate the pathways in her brain that had given her a long career as a nurse and lab technician.
The garden in many ways became the center of her therapy. A raised bed was built along the rear fence where she can stand to plant, weed and cut flowers for the bouquets she shares with family and friends.
Glenn, retired from the city of Lewiston water treatment department, has claimed one end of it for eight varieties of tomatoes, a few cucumbers and other vegetables, and he makes sure to get them in early.
“I like to experiment, and if I don’t plant them, flowers encroach into my garden,” he said smiling fondly at his wife.
She fills dozens of pots, edging the deck and path with a variety of flowers — at least one of almost everything, Gayle said. Her favorites include coleus, which come in a variety of shapes and colors.
“They get big and beautiful,” she said.
For hanging pots, she likes calibrachoa, also known as million bells.
“They deadhead themselves.”
She also likes zinnias: “You never know what you’re getting, like a box of chocolates.” And this year she tried seeds for the climbing nasturtiums along the back of the raised bed. She plans to start more flowers from seed next year and would like to have a small greenhouse.
The jumble of shapes and colors that includes mixing attractive vegetables in with the flowers extends into a circular bed created by Glenn out of a thicket of old, out-of-control shrubs.
That was before the fence was rebuilt and a gate installed.
“He wheelbarrowed in every bit of the brick and soil to make that for me,” Gayle said.
She tucks the small identification tags that come with most plants into the pots and beds along with solar-powered lights. The tags jog her brain into remembering what they are and what their particular needs may be because the MS also left her with cognitive issues.
The garden is the subject of another hobby: photography. She mounts artistic photos of the flowers on coordinating colored paper to make cards.
In the center of the backyard garden, just off the small deck, is a swimming pool, sparkling blue in the sun.
“I get in it a lot, even at night, because it helps me move,” she said.
It can take two to three weeks to get everything planted in the spring, she said. She works at that every day, because she doesn’t want to be in a wheelchair. She balks at even the occasional use of a cane, Glenn said.
That’s the additional beauty and benefit of having a garden, Gayle said.
“It makes me move every day.”
Instead of a cane, she has Cody. Cody, who may be a coonhound, she said, was about a year old when he came to live with the Thompsons. He’s about 4 now, she believes. He is beside her when she walks through the garden or climbs the steps to the deck or when she takes a break on the shaded deck. He’s happy to be petted, but it’s obvious where his loyalty lies.
Gayle uses a mix of organic products, reading labels carefully and applying everything from pesticides to fertilizers with a light hand. Her favorite is Proven Winner Premium Continuous Release plant food, in 15-7-15. “It’s almost too good.” And if something is looking a little puny, she falls back on the old standby, Miracle-Gro.
It’s been a lot of work, she conceded.
“But it lifts my spirits, and to watch things grow gives me, I don’t know, it gives me a light inside.”
Lee is an avid gardener and a retired Lewiston Tribune reporter. If you know of or have a special garden or yard, you can let her know at sandra.lee208@gmail.com or call Close to Home Editor Jeanne DePaul at (208) 848-2221.
