Down the Yellow Brick Road with Millie

When Mildred Rose Ellis was a girl growing up in the Village of Batavia, Ohio, her family lived in an old schoolhouse. Although she recalls her parents being the poorest of the poor, Millie has only fond memories of her childhood home and the garden her parents made there.

“Mommy and Daddy competed with each other. They each had half the yard and half the garden. I really can’t say who was best. Both sides were always beautiful. They’d save seeds, and the neighbors would give them plants, and they’d grow them. They had the most beautiful flower garden. Ever since I can remember, our house had bushes and trees and flowers…like mine.”

After schoolmates teased her for being a Mildred, she proclaimed herself a Millie. Only later did she realize a fond association between her given name and her current favorite flower, the mild-red rose.

Today, the widowed mother of two, grandmother of seven, and great-grandmother of another lucky seven, is a thoroughly marvelous Millie. She lives in McKinney, Texas, a city that promotes itself as unique by nature. And, by gosh, it is.

There, nestled within a historic downtown neighborhood, Millie Ellis has made herself one humdinger of a garden. 

I first discovered Millie’s cottage in the spring of 2018, thanks to my being a highly accomplished garden surfer. Though I have often driven by, I was always too shy to stop and knock on the door.  It was only this spring that I had the good fortune to meet the maker of this magical space.

I had just delivered a thrilling talk on tomatoes for a youth garden club that meets monthly at the school across the street from Millie’s home. The talk had gone well. No tomatoes were thrown, at least as far as I know.

On the way to the car, I saw Millie out puttering around. I pounced. Bold as brass, I called out and invited myself into her private sanctuary, doing my best to look like a friendly gardener instead of an ax murderer.

We hit it off. She showed me around. We talked, and when I had to go too soon, she kindly invited me back. On my return, I found her sitting at a painted cafe table under the shade of a neighbor’s tree. Pen and paper in hand, she was making plans for the coming week. She had been praying for good weather, as we all should do. I presented her with a pack of white cosmos seeds and a mix of gladioli bulbs. I knew they’d find a good place to grow with Millie.

Millie’s magnum opus began with a gift from her son, a single yucca. 

She planted in the middle of an old tire ring. Then she planted the first of her namesake roses. Many plants came from her daughter and grandkids. Some came to her as pass-alongs from visitors, like the glad corms I’d brought. Occasionally, she buys plants from local nurseries or even QVC.

She has edibles like figs and cucumbers, and a fragrant pineapple mint.

She has many excellent native plants. Under the aqua blue bird fountain, orange milkweed grows for the monarchs. Coneflowers are scattered hither and yon, just days away from sprouting pink petals that will pick up on the trim around cottage windows. She enjoys sharing her plants, particularly the ones that have freely propagated themselves.

Quirky as this garden is, it works, or at least it does for Millie and me.

Isn’t it amazing that when you put plants together in a place where they want to live and grow, it’s like watching a miracle happen in plain sight?

Millie believes in miracles. 

 Like many gardeners, Millie is a person of faith.

Millie told me about how she prayed during a terrible storm. She asked God, “If the tree has to break, please watch over my garden.” When she woke, she found her garden had been spared. A huge limb was spread across a trellis top and a chair, but other than the tree, no plant was harmed.

Now past 80, Millie believes that God just does everything.

She spends her daily devotional time in the garden. Every morning, weather permitting, Millie is outside gardening before most people can crack open an eyelid. She works for a few hours, then rests until late afternoon, when she heads out again.

She watches for passersby, perhaps to gauge their reactions. If they like what they see, it pleases her. They may go home with a cactus start or whatever else catches their attention. If they don’t appreciate what she’s done with the place, it doesn’t matter. There’s no HOA to rain on Millie’s parade. We can all thank God for that.

Millie wants to stay in her queen-sized flower bed forever.

She thinks she can, though her days of late have been less than rosy. In October, a horrific late-night fall landed her in the hospital and rehab center. She broke her knee, her shoulder, and her arm. Since then, she’s become a homebody. Getting in a car and going somewhere holds no appeal. She gave away her car. Everything she wants is right outside her door.

I could lose my mind at Millie’s.

Her garden is a kaleidoscope of color. A few minutes in, and I’m near swooning, overwhelmed by layer upon layer of color, texture, and stuff.

Stone, metal, wood, brick, paint, and petals all come together in a mélange of pure joy. There is so much to look at. I want to find a seat in the middle of everything and soak it all in. Fortunately, Millie provides seating in all the best places. All the little rooms have a view.

I’m not the only one who responds to colorful gardens. People can’t help it. The wow factor is an intoxicating stimulant.  Research from the University of Sheffield found that most people feel energized and excited when they see a planting area with approximately 27 percent of the plant material in bloom. Like Ricky Bobby shifting into 7th gear in Talladega Nights, Millie blows past the magic 27 percent, leaving the neighbor’s traditional gardens in her dust.

How does Millie do it?

Attention garden snobs, you may need to sit down.

Take a deep breath.

Faux flowers are key players in this party.

That’s right, artificial flowers.

Uh-huh. That’s right.

FAKE flowers.

Get over it.

Keep your outrage out of my comment zone, please, for Millie’s sake and mine.

Just for a moment, set aside your preconceived horticultural correctness.

Try not to fret about microplastics entering the ecosystem.

Take some time to consider what your heart tells you about gardens that creatively express the human soul.

Love what you can love. Respect what speaks to someone else.

 

 

Why would a real gardener turn to fake flowers?

Quite simply, desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Millie recognizes that climate change is real. She sees it. She knows it. Plants stop blooming before they should. The plants struggle. The gardener struggles. Millie’s no pansy, but she will forever mourn her precious lost Vinca.

“I saved up all winter for flowers. I went out to the nursery and spent $200 on vinca, because they’ve always done well. They bush out. They just keep going. That summer, every one of them died. It was awful.”  

It was that horrible, no-good, very bad summer, coupled with a deep desire to be frugal, which led Millie to give in to the seductive temptations of attractive but false flowers.

Why not pop in a few artificial flowers? For a while, they might provide the long-lasting color she craved, and perhaps for less money in the long run. She held her nose and decided to give it a try.

Once the fakes were out in the wild, she noticed how much people liked them. “They’d ask what that beautiful flower was, and I’d be embarrassed to tell them it wasn’t real.”  

Soon, friends and family brought fake flowers for her to put out in the garden instead of the house. Why not go for it when they look this good, she thought? So she kept going. It is a testament to Millie’s skill in making real plant combinations that people find her faux flowers so appealing.

Millie has a few neat tricks up her sleeve.

 

Millie is a maximalist with a meaningful plan, and an artist’s eye.

Everything I saw in Millie’s garden is thoughtfully and carefully placed. I could see the wheels turning as she pondered new enhancements. She wanted my opinion, too.

I was most impressed by how she uses the bright colors she loves to define areas, unify space, and draw people where she wants them to go. As I followed her down the Yellow Brick Road, I was thankful that it made us move slowly so I could take in every carefully staged vignette. When I reached the end of the Yellow Brick Road, I found myself in the Land of Oz, and I considered sitting down in the wizard’s emerald green chair. 

Had I stepped off the beaten path, I would’ve done so at my peril. I might have been lost forever in West World, where Millie’s cactus blooms. 

Art crafted from everyday materials is in every corner of Millie’s garden. She has a painting station in the backyard and keeps it hopping.

Millie curates a fine collection of classic statuary and a menagerie of fanciful critters. Frogs, dogs, ducks, and cats frolic in every direction, and a rabble of butterflies flits through the space.

Millie’s garden is a happy place. 

You can’t walk up to it or wander through it without a smile finding your face.

In my travels, I’ve found that wherever there are people, if you look hard enough, you’ll come across more than a few gardens like Millie’s. To me, they’re treasure boxes, filled with interesting baubles and gems.

I admire the adventurous avant-gardeners who make these gardens. They begin with an unremarkable space that no one cares to talk about. Soon enough, a decade later perhaps, no one who sees that garden will go away unchanged. 

So, as you drive by these sweet vernacular gardens, slow down. Maybe pull over for a closer look. It doesn’t hurt to look. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder.