'Thank you for being a friend
Traveled down the road and back again
your heart is true you're a pal and a confidant.' -- Andrew Gold
I wondered what kind of garden Dorothy, Blanche, Rose and Sophia would keep.
Blanche we know has a lanai with tropical plants. Would she also have an Orchid Collection? Blanche of course would have a gardener.
Would Rose be trying to grow some of the plants she knew back in St. Olaf in a little lath house where the Miami sun can't reach them?
Dorothy! I can imagine Dorothy growing projects in the classroom for her students. Dorothy may have been a rose fancier. I can imagine Dorothy adoring Roses sent by a gentleman friend, maybe from Stan. I saw him once at the Improv in San Francisco doing standup comedy.
Sophia would have at least an herb garden, growing Oregano, Rosemary and other delights for making her old country dishes from Sicily. Perhaps she would gather some wild mushrooms and greens in a park somewhere. The mild climate of Sicily is not unlike Miami, I believe.
If you don't know the Golden Girls, you're missing some wonderful reruns from the 1980s. There's a tinge of sadness watching now, since Bea Arthur died in 2009 of cancer and Estelle Getty died earlier, at age 84. Rue McClanahan had heart bypass surgery last November. Betty White was incorrectly named on the Today Show last July as one who was already buried at Forest Lawn, quickly corrected by Meredith Vieira.
As late as May, 2009, Betty White and Bob Barker were feuding over the relocation of an elephant from the Los Angeles Zoo. Sandra Bullock is set to present the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award to 87-year-old Betty White at the SAG awards show January, 2010. There is a Hybrid Tea Rose, 'Betty White' that is said to be very fragrant.
Senesence come to us all, including celebrities. It's a time of reflection in the garden.
What are your thoughts on the kind of gardens the characters on the Golden Girls might have had?
