When Sherrie Grindy was diagnosed with cancer last fall, she made a special request of her friends in the New London-Spicer Garden Club. She asked them to split up her perennials and sell them at the club’s annual plant sale. Her friends wouldn’t think of it… her gardens were beautiful, her pride and joy… and no one wanted to even consider it. But, when Sherrie asked again this spring, her friends knew she was serious. They put the word out and requested volunteers.
On May 21, about 15 of Sherrie’s garden club friends worked for almost eight hours digging and splitting Sherrie’s perennials… and that was just from ONE of her gardens. They potted the plants and labeled the ones they could recognize. For those they couldn’t, they just called them “Sherrie plants.”
The garden club sale has built a reputation for having wonderful plants, and even in driving rain it is successful. May 23, 2015 was blessed with fabulous weather, but the number of people was record breaking. People showed up in droves to purchase “Sherrie plants,” beautiful statuary and other adornments from Sherrie’s garden.
“It was a mad house,” said fellow garden club member and friend, Becky West. “Everyone came asking for ‘Sherrie plants.’” At the end of the day, the club had raised $1,500 from the sale of Sherrie’s homegrown perennials. She asked that the proceeds be split and donated equally to Willmar Regional Cancer Center and Rice Hospice.
“Sherrie is an amazing woman who had a foresight to ‘share the love,’” said Becky. “Gardening has connected so many of us, and now we’ll always be able to remember Sherrie and her beautiful gifts whenever we see our ‘Sherrie plants’ bloom each spring.”
Becky added that one of her favorite quotes is, “Friends are the flowers in the garden of life.” She’s seen examples of this over and over in her lifetime, and she explains it like this: “Just like flowers, we are all different, but when we all come together, we make an amazing arrangement.”
Sherrie passed away on Thursday, July 30th, 2015. She will be missed, but never forgotten.
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