Gardening with My Grandmother

After my grandma passed away, her North Dakota garden disappeared beneath years of weeds. Many years later when my grandfather passed and I had a garden to call my own, my mother and I returned to dig up what remained. I didn't know what we were bringing home. We dug unknown roots and bulbs from the overgrown earth that still remembered my grandmother’s garden. We drove them eight hours to Minnesota over several trips, planted them, and waited. During that time, I discovered photographs my grandmother had made documenting the garden she loved in sometimes blurry and out of focus images, lovingly archived in a photo album kept in her nightstand. Pairing her photographs with the flowers that continue to bloom today in my garden, this series explores legacy, memory, connection through time and place and the things we choose to tend.