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The Kitchen Table

For the Love of Gardening, Remember a great man

14 years ago

My favorite flowering shrub, Nikko Hydrangea, and here is why.

I have a special Nikko Blue (and that nikko blues' babies-propragated children lol) that when I look at Nikko Blue, I think of my dear sweet father in law who died 12 years back. He live and breathed gardening. I never remember him not having a garden. When he found out he had some kind of lymphnoma cancer (it is the fast acting, sorry that is the only way I know how to describe it) he could not have a garden that year. It made him very sad. He loved hydrangeas. So my husband and I bought him a nikko blue hydrangea that we planned on planting outside his full length window where his bed lay. We told him that we would come back in the afternoon to plant it. We accidently left it where the scorching sun was on the Nikko. I happen to get off work early and went by my in laws and saw my father in law sitting in the dirt by the window where inside his bed lay. I went over and was panicked because I didn't know what happened to him, as my mother in law was suppose to be with him, and I was scared. He informed me that she had gone to pick up his med's and he was afraid that his little nikko was going to get sun stroke. It was everything I could do to hold back my tears when I saw he had taken a large cooking spoon from the kitchen as he didn't have the strength to walk out to the tool shed, and dug a hole for his little hydrangea and planted Nikko. The only thing he said to me was "can you help me back in the house, now? "Yes, Pop, I said." He died maybe 3 months after that. After my mother in law died, in a car accident several years later and the homeplace was sold, I was granted permission by the new owners to come and dig up Nikko in the spring. Nikko has many "babies" now. I have many other kinds of hydrangeas that I have bought here and there, but None mean as much as Nikko and her offspring. I will never forget my father in laws (Pop) love of gardening.

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Comments (8)

rthummer
Original Author
14 years ago
The other thread got me to thinking about my father in law, and my hydrangea. I made another post as I didnt want to take her post.))
yorkibear
14 years ago
Oh gee you really know how to make some of us tear up... My husband and I love hydrangeas also. We have some we call Family hydrangeas. They started when his Mom took some rootings from his grandmother's house. Then his brother got some rootings from his mom's house. Now they are at our house. Grandmom's house and Mom's house are no longer in the family but we do have a part of each of them that lives on.It just sorta makes you feel good to realize there is a part of each of these ladies' loves that lives at my house.
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lindyluwho
14 years ago
That brought tears to my eyes too. What a special man.

Linda
msmarion
14 years ago
Ya can't keep a good man down. He sounds like he was a very special man.
Your post has gotten me thinking of my Dad. He's been gone since 1995. I miss him every day.
Linda Wayman
14 years ago
rthummer, that was a sweet story. Your FIL was a true gardener right to the end.

Gardening was the main thing I remember my grandfather enjoying. He used to tell us Bible stories when we were young. My mother, dad and us kids lived with him. I remember going out in the back yard and looking at how beautiful it was out there. I used to think our back yard was the Garden of Eden my grand dad told us stories about. I'll bet he and your FIL are somewhere tending a beautiful garden together with no aches or pains at the end of the day. :)

Linda
janie_ga
14 years ago
Hydrangeas seem to have a way of making special memories in our lives, don't they?

Just looked up a picture of the Nikko Blues and realized they are the same ones I grew up loving but called "mopheads"!

Here is a link to the grist mill where my granddaddy grew up- it is now a hydrangea nursery.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wilkerson's Mill
helencolby
14 years ago
I have a family hydrangea too. I didn't get it myself, but an old friend of mine, (actually the brother of a girl I grew up with) was coming to visit for a few days. Well, he mentioned that my mother's hydrangea at our old house was so huge and so pretty. I asked him if he could maybe talk to the folks that own the home now and see if he could get a "pup" from it. He did speak to them and he brought it with him when he came for his visit. I treasure that plant too. So, I understand about your Nikko blue one.

Helen
lattefairy
14 years ago
What a touching, beautiful story.

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