Sarah's Garden

Few things feel more like spring than sunny days, pollen, and sprouting leaves. Spring means planting to me, but once upon a time, it meant a very special time of planting. It was time to plant “Sarah’s” garden. I needed to be ready in time for the annual visit of the second-grade class from The Heritage School to come and spend some time. Every spring Miss Ruth’s class would begin reading Sarah Plain and Tall, by Patricia Mac Lachlan, and the culmination of reading this book would be a visit to my garden with a section just for Sarah! Many of the plants were annuals, meaning they needed to be replanted every year, therefore spring to me meant it was time to ready the garden for Sarah.

As I have previously said, I first met Miss Ruth at my shop because of my gardens. When my now 25-year-old daughter was a few months old, Miss Ruth visited me to ask if I had any thoughts on how to enhance her students reading of Sarah Plain and Tall. We chatted for a while and I was fascinated by this challenge and could closely relate to the story of Sarah. You see, Sarah grew up in Maine near the ocean, and I had been born in Maine. Sarah moved far away from her ocean, to the prairie, and I had moved far from my roots to Atlanta, a long way from the ocean. Sarah loved plants and flowers, I loved plants and flowers, and I lived on a home built in the 19th century. So, there was a great deal of this story that I could relate to. Therefore, because of my love of the sea, my love of flowers, and my connection to history, I knew that I could help bring the story of Sarah to life for these second-grade students.

I came up with a few different ideas that would bring Sarah Plain and Tall to life for me, as well as the students who visited. I re-read the book, underlining all the plants and flowers mentioned in the story then set out to obtain as many of these plants as possible. Once found, I would then plant them in a special section of my garden, Sarah’s Garden. If you have a read a special book that includes many plants, you might want to try the same theme.

I always visited my family every summer, where I grew up, and because I missed being close to the sea, I would bring back reminders collected. Therefore, I had a large collection of sea rocks, sea glass and shells. I decided that I would use these shells to name the plants in Sarah’s garden. If you look closely in the picture you will see the large white quahog shells, naming each plant.

I felt it was important to create something special to remind the students of their visit, so we did a couple activities. In the story Sarah was recognized because she wore a yellow bonnet and she also mentioned drying flowers to enjoy during winter. We also felt the visit would be more authentic if the students dressed the part of 19th century American prairie life when they visited, which enhanced the authenticity. The girls would wear a “yellow bonnet”, decorated with dried flowers, while the boys made finger-print flower-decorated paper weights.

When the day came to visit the garden, we toured the garden and talked about the plants that were mentioned in the book along with special points mentioned in the story. Following the time spent in the garden, we made tussie-mussies for the students to give to their mom’s for Mother’s Day. Tussie-mussies were the small handheld floral bouquets that Victorians used to send special sentiments to those they cared for. Each tussie-mussie had a special tag explaining the meaning of each flower used, such as lavender for devotion, thyme for strength and courage, oregano for joy, rosemary for remembrance and so on. Now I have just hinted at one of my other garden themes without even trying! A tussie mussie garden!

As you read some of your favorite classics, maybe you too can discover the makings of a literary garden theme as well!