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Mostly sunny skies. High 99F. Winds NW at 10 to 15 mph.
A mostly clear sky. Low 57F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.
Sunny skies. High 96F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Patricia Martin stands in front of her portion of the Kentucky Gardens Tuesday, July 26, 2022. Martin and a small group of neighbors have taken it upon themselves to beautify a one block section of Kentucky Avenue located behind there homes for the benefit of people visiting the Sheridan County Fairgrounds.
Kentucky Gardens is a small strip along Kentucky Avenue that features a wide variety of flowers and decorative grasses.
One of the plots at Kentucky Gardens has every type of flower and plant labeled so viewers can easily identify the flowers.
Patricia Martin stands in front of her portion of the Kentucky Gardens Tuesday, July 26, 2022. Martin and a small group of neighbors have taken it upon themselves to beautify a one block section of Kentucky Avenue located behind there homes for the benefit of people visiting the Sheridan County Fairgrounds.
Kentucky Gardens is a small strip along Kentucky Avenue that features a wide variety of flowers and decorative grasses.
One of the plots at Kentucky Gardens has every type of flower and plant labeled so viewers can easily identify the flowers.
SHERIDAN — “If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden,” Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote over 100 years ago in “The Secret Garden.”
Sheridan’s Patty Martin is one of those people who sees a garden — or a potential one — everywhere she goes. Maybe she owes it to her lifelong love of Burnett’s book or her childhood helping her grandparents in their garden. But whatever the reason, Martin sees the potential for beautiful gardens everywhere.
A decade ago, Martin saw the potential for a garden on the city curb along Kentucky Avenue behind her house. Over the last 10 years, she has created a block-long garden along that curb stretching from Avon to Burton streets across from the Sheridan County Fairgrounds. And what started with a single day lily has turned into something rather beautiful and special.
“I decided there needed to be some beauty on this street,” Martin said. “People have come by and said some very nice things about it. The first year I started it, people were afraid to park against it because it was so beautiful.”
“Kentucky Gardens” — as a newly-installed carved walnut-wood sign calls the area — has largely been Martin’s labor of love for the last decade. She’s lived in her house in the Highland Senior Town Homes for 22 years now, and the house belonged to her mother for the 20 years before that. As such, Martin has a passion for making the neighborhood as beautiful as it can be.
“It was just so barren up there,” Martin said of the Kentucky Gardens site. “Especially with people coming into the neighborhood during rodeo, I wanted to create something beautiful for them.”
Back when the project started, Martin would be in the garden daily watering, weeding and planting. While her involvement in the garden has reduced a bit in recent years — “It’s pretty much finished now,” she said — she did use a backhoe this year to extend the garden to the south.
While Kentucky Gardens is largely Martin’s project, she has received help along the way. When her neighbor Kathy McGough expressed interest in helping in the garden, Martin let her plant her own section. And two years ago, the Highland Townhouses Residential District homeowners association agreed to install a drip irrigation system in the garden so Martin and McGough wouldn’t have to handle the watering themselves.
“My wife and I moved here in 2019, and one of the first things we noticed was how everybody in the neighborhood keeps up their yards and everything,” homeowners association President Pat Hayworth said. “A lot of that work is done at pretty good expense to the residents, many of whom are on fixed incomes. So I think Patty is really a great reflection of this entire neighborhood, and our desire to keep it beautiful.”
Even during the chaos of Rodeo Week, many competitors took a moment to pause and enjoy the fruits of Martin’s labor, Hayworth said.
“When people come across this garden, they take a pause and admire it,” Hayworth said. “People respect it, and the work Patty has put into it.”
Martin said she’s had at least one neighbor wonder what will happen to the garden when she is no longer there to take care of it. She said her hope is it will continue year after year, just like the perennial plants that call the garden home.
“I hope somebody will step up and take it over,” Martin said. “I think the world deserves a little beauty, even after I’m gone.”
Stephen Dow is a reporter at The Sheridan Press.
Stephen Dow is a reporter at The Sheridan Press.
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