Senior gardening club finds fun and purpose in plants
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Tomatoes growing under the hot Central Washington sun at Brookdale Hearthstone Senior Living in Moses Lake.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald Retired cotton farmer Mark Hunsaker, 90, and his wife Francille, 87, are members of the Brookdale Hearthstone Garden Club, which received some raised garden beds and planters from the Grant County Conservation District.
MOSES LAKE — A flower pot is a simple thing.
But for a retired farmer, a flower pot is a reminder of life as well as an investment in hope and the future.
“It’s something to look at, something to be concerned about,” said Mark Hunsaker, 90, a retired Arizona cotton farmer currently residing at the Brookdale Hearthstone senior living.
“We grew things all our lives,” said Randy Semm, 70, also a retired farmer. “It’s a connection to the past.”
“It’s something to do,” added Doug Cole.
Cole, Semm and Hunsaker, along with his wife of 70 years Francille, are all members of the gardening club at Brookdale. The club received a portion of a $50,000 grant awarded to the Grant County Conservation District as part of the National Association of Conservation Districts’ efforts to support and encourage urban gardening.
The funds, spread out among 11 care facilities and community gardens in Grant and Adams counties, helped pay for planters and compost and helped prepare garden beds as well.
It has helped add some green to the back patio at Brookdale. And the prospect of some freshly grown produce as well.
According to Heather Killinger, the conservation district’s environmental educator for Grant and Adams counties, the district began work on the garden plots last fall, going to senior living centers across the county, looking for interested residents, and then coordinating the volunteers who came in and built and filled the raised garden planters.
“It was a ton of work,” Killinger said.
According to the conservation district, the grant focuses on food crops that can be grown easily, like tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, beans and strawberries. All of the produce belongs to the residents, to share. Or not.
“I’m going to eat mine!” 87-year-old Francille Hunsaker said.
But even with the focus on vegetables, the Brookdale garden club still seems especially enamored of flowers, and many sit in planters across the patio, just outside residents’ windows.
“People love flowers,” Hunsaker said. “I tell them hello every morning.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.