Owensboro Woman’s Whimsical Kentucky Garden Cultivated With Love

I try really hard to have a green thumb. When we first moved to our house, we did a whole makeover to the front flower bed. Michael dug up the rock used for ground cover and the overgrown hedges and holly bushes.  I added Hydrangeas, Azaleas, and Daisies (my favorite) and then went to look for inspiration in the most beautiful garden in town, my mother's.

Sharon Weber AKA Mimi, has been gardening for as long as I can remember. Actually, when we first moved to the home I spent most of my life in, the front and back yards were pretty sparse. They have both transformed a lot over the years as she has used her creativity to curate the perfect eclectic oasis. This year, she has added lights to make it even more magical at night time!

The kids in the neighborhood have always loved to visit and see what fun new things she has hidden in the blooms, her cool fairy gardens, or the digging patch she had when they were all into trucks and playing in the dirt.

I remember one time she told me about how she was working in the backyard and a little boy wandered in. She told him hello and that the other boys who lived on the street were down playing at someone else's house. He said, "Oh I know, I just heard this was a cool place and thought I would check it out!"

The musical instrument section of the garden has to be my favorite. As a singer and music teacher, this is totally on brand for her.

A treasure-hunting queen, one of her favorite things is to find something old and discarded and use it to grow something beautiful. If it can hold dirt and she can figure out how to modify it for proper drainage, it becomes a planter.

From chicken feeders to teapots, old hard hats, and toolboxes, nothing is off-limits! One of my favorite things is when she sends me a picture of her latest addition with where she found it and how little she paid for it. She gets so excited!

And she should be! She spends a lot of time and energy making sure her flowers are properly watered and weeded. Her garden, other than her lovely daughter and family, of course, is her pride and joy. I think the reason it thrives the way it does is because of her love.  No matter how horrible or hot the weather is, whether she is tired or her body hurts, she is out there making sure all of her plants have what they need.

Mimi does that with the people around her too. She taught in the Owensboro Public School system loving on kids for over 30 years. Having never met a stranger, if she finds out that someone in her life needs help, she's gonna find a way to help them. There is never a time she isn't thinking of something nice to do with her ladies at church or making goodies to share with her neighbors.

If you are really lucky, you are on her list of weekly floral arrangement deliveries! Using flowers from her beautiful garden and unique vintage planters, she takes them all over town to her doctor's office, banks, her beloved physical therapy folks at RPI, and she even brings some to the WBKR studio every Monday.

She also shares her flowers in a way that keeps on giving. Each year, she opens up her garden for friends and acquaintances to come to dig "starts" of perennials they can take home and plant in their own gardens.  I absolutely love that this means her flowers grow all over town.