While many see Memorial Day weekend as a time for tending to the graves of service members, one veteran can be found tending to a different kind of plot.
For more than 20 years, retired Army veteran Jean Smith, 75, has tended the gardens at New Kensington’s Memorial Park — mostly by herself.
Full of fuchsia and light pink peonies and purple irises, Smith has grown 31 gardens across the park’s roughly 25 acres.
“It just thrills me to see people come out and enjoy,” Smith said. “I just want more people to come out.”
In 1971 Smith, originally from Grand Rapids, Mich., joined the Army, working in administration for most of her 16 years of service.
On one of her two tours in Germany, she met her husband Richard.
The couple moved around a lot but settled in Richard’s hometown of New Kensington in the late 1980’s.
At the time, she didn’t have space for a garden at her house, so she asked the city if she could plant them at the park.
Tending the garden for a few hours almost daily has become part of Smith’s routine until it gets too cold in the winter.
“I don’t know what I would do without it,” she said. “I don’t want to sit in the apartment and just do nothing.”
Most of the year, there is something blooming.
She plants mostly perennials, which she sources from Lowe’s or Michael Brothers Nursery in Cheswick, except for potted flora, which she has to replant each year.
Most of the maintenance is keeping weeds and deer at bay.
“It’s hard when you’re by yourself to try to manage all this, but I have a weed whacker,” she said.
Deer she keeps away by putting an egg yolk and water mixture on the ground, which she said tastes bad to them.
Though she loves the work and plans to keep at it, Smith said she’s looking for someone she can train to step into her role, especially after she suffered a stroke last year.
“I don’t want this to all go down the drain when I’m not here,” she said. “I could be here today and gone tomorrow. You never know.”
New Kensington resident Cora Lee LeClair, 32, met Smith by happenstance last year while at the park with her kids.
“I always thought it was a huge team that took care of the garden,” LeClair said.
Once the two got to chatting and when LeClair, who has family military ties, learned about Smith’s story, she decided to help look for some helping hands through Facebook, and has drummed up interest from a few people, but is looking for more.
“I was just so touched by all the work she does,” LeClair said. “It’s methodical, there’s something blooming at all times. Whenever it’s in full bloom in the spring, it’s magical.”
LeClair said she’d love to organize a community event to garner more volunteers from other veterans or any interested residents.
LeClair said anyone interested in volunteering can email her at whimseyandrouge@gmail.com and she will help coordinate with Smith.
Smith said she has sporadic help from a few people, the local Girl Scouts and her son, Brandon, and daughter, Andrea.
She said Brandon often helps her source antique statues, wheels, benches and other trinkets that decorate the gardens.
Before she started tending the park, Smith wasn’t much of a gardener, but she said she feels like she has a natural green thumb and she doesn’t often have plants that die.
Just don’t ask which plant is her favorite.
“Everything’s my favorite,” Smith said. “I always love different color. I always try to find different color things.”
Even if people don’t volunteer, Smith said she hopes they will stop by to look at the gardens.
“I really want a lot more people to know about it,” she said. “I want my sanctuary being full of people.”