Verna takes a break in her backyard to enjoy the fruits of her labor. The pump is from her home farm, west of Fingal. Using her artistic skills, she has filled a pail full of flowers and hung it on the pump. (Jean Schlegel/VCTR) 

Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part series about local gardeners. The series concludes Thursday.

By Jean Schlegel
Valley City Times-Record

Verna Anderson of Valley City, who has been gardening for about 15 years, is quite modest about her gardening expertise.
“I get what I like (flowers), throw them in the ground and let them grow,” she says with a laugh.
But as visitors go into Verna and Buddy Anderson’s back yard, “They are quite amazed when they see all the flowers,” Buddy says. It is almost like a storybook setting with the many varieties of perennials and annuals.
Verna says she has flowers that bloom all season long. It isn’t that she planned it that way, but that’s what’s happened, she says. When asked the names of different blooms, she replies, “Oh, I don’t know, I just like them.”
The Andersons still live in the same house that Buddy built for them in 1955, shortly after they got married. But Verna didn’t start gardening in earnest until the last 15 years.
She says some people wonder why she wants to go through so much work, and sometimes in the spring, after a long, cold winter, she wonders that too when she looks at the mess she has to start on.
But once she gets going on it, she considers it fun, not work. Ultimately, the results of her hobby are worth so much in the beauty of their back yard.
The Andersons have spruced up the flower gardens with a bench that their son, Rick, made from some old lumber from the home farm west of Fingal. He gave it to them as a 50th wedding anniversary gift. They also brought back an old pump that was also on the farm. Verna has hung a pail filled with flowers hanging on the pump.
Verna doesn’t belong to the Sheyenne Valley Garden Club in Valley City, but she enjoys going to their annual flower show, which is Monday, July 21, at the Valley City Eagles.

For full story, see Tuesday's edition of the Valley City Times-Record.