“The garden reconciles human art and wild nature, hard work and deep pleasure …”

–Irish poet Thomas Moore

 

A home garden serves as a kind of landscape art piece, executed with care, offering dashes of pleasure to the creator or passers-by, or both. And Sara McNair’s varied garden spots seem to check all the boxes.

 

It’s that promising time of year with spring plantings and cultivation around Meridian, and anyone within eyeshot is a beneficiary. The birds and squirrels are enthusiastic too.

 

At the heart of historic Poplar Springs Drive, the 71-year-old McNair, a retired nurse, has quietly cultivated an oasis of plants to surround her distinctive Mediterranean-style home, built a century ago. She’s not looking for attention, but her unique yard and residence contribute to the beauty of this iconic corridor.

 

“Roses are kind of the base, and I’ve filled in with other plants. It’s kind of a cottage perennial look, that’s what I call it,” McNair says. “I spend a lot of time thinking about it and planning. I do something every day.”

 

Beyond a few towering pines beside the busy street, her “double cherry knockout” roses line the front of the cottage, and potted citrus plants are clustered on the porch. Elsewhere on the property, there are flowers, vegetables, and fruit plants. The mix includes plums, peaches, pears, satsumas and oranges. There’s even a banana experiment, which she concedes may fail because Meridian is north of ideal conditions for that plant.

 

McNair, who has three grown daughters, lives with two dogs and three cats. “I sort of consider myself an urban homesteader” who enjoys mixing edible and decorative plants, she explained this week. She plans to rely on her produce if the regular food supply chain is somehow disrupted, noting, “I look at it like my Noah’s Ark.”

 

Her reflections on growing things come at an exceptionally busy time for Meridian-area gardeners generally, and for those who sell them supplies.

 

“Everybody’s getting their seeds in the ground – it’s THE week,” Halie Jackson, garden center manager at Lauderdale County Farm Supply, said Tuesday as she and others assisted customers. “They’re buying flowers, they’re buying yard art, all kinds of things.” Just steps away at the sprawling center near I-20, one could find bags of soil mixes, plant pots and water fountains, ferns and blooming beauties like a Monarch Combo.

 

Elaborate gardens have long been popular around Meridian – making the most of our spacious, rolling yards — as they enhance a neighborhood’s “home” feel. There are very personal benefits as well for the gardener, whether master or novice, as almost everyone relishes memories of playing in the dirt as children. As one local gardening expert noted: “It’s sustaining yourself and your soul … It’s a spiritual thing.”

 

I’ll add this: It’s the perfect escape from scrolling cell phones and jarring political news.

 

McNair, who bought and restored her Meridian home in 2005, picked up the pace of her gardening after retiring in 2017. It’s hard work at times – and it’s rewarding.

 

Growing up in the Mississippi Delta community of Ruleville, McNair gained an appreciation for growing things from her father, a carpenter, and mother, who worked in a factory. “They had big gardens – vegetable gardens – and my mom would grow flowers. She had a pretty yard,” McNair recalls. “She had the greenest thumb of anybody I ever knew.”

 

Warner is a veteran journalist and cultural historian, and can be contacted at legacypress.warner@gmail.com.