Investing in the garden
Stopping to smell the flowers
Arlene Marturano marturanoa@ yahoo.com

After 42 years in banking, Audrey Howell finds investing more time and energy in her garden pays high dividends.

Howell's personal portfolio consists of being a wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and career woman. When she and her husband moved to their Columbia home in 1969, he assumed the task of developing the outdoor property, and she was responsible for indoor homemaking.

Before Howell's husband died, she cut, arranged, and simply enjoyed the roses. Now she feeds, sprays, and prunes them.

Today, Howell rides the mower and uses a small power tiller on all the beds.

She invested in a well and irrigation system over 30 years ago, which keeps the yard a green oasis during drought.

Irrigation is the key to growing food from spring through winter. Howell plants a 30 by 70 foot garden with toma- toes, cucumbers, squash, hot and bell peppers, okra, string and butter beans, and peanuts in the summer.

The winter garden grows turnips, tendergreen, curly mustard greens, cabbage, and collards, which she will cook after the first frost.

Audrey Howell oversees her garden from an observation deck.

The bedding plants come from Phillips at the Farmers Market, Horse and Garden in Horrell Hill, and Millcreek Greenhouses on Leesburg Road.

In the past, Howell canned and froze large batches of produce, but now she gives the fresh reserve to family and friends.

Howell says her garden returns more than flowers, fragrance, and food because it provides exercise for the body and mind. Many everyday problems and concerns get tilled and plowed through while working in the garden.

The arbors covered in Confederate jasmine or roses, the frog statues and planters, bird baths and gurgling fountain are intricate parts of the garden.

By all accounts, Howell's garden enjoys a bull market due to her devotion.

Howell planted this live oak when it was a twig.