Gifts of Gardens

December 24th, 2009

   This time of year, gifts of clothes, electronics, and cash are on most people’s radar.

   But two compassionate midstate women are focused on the gift of two new public gardens they’re spearheading to honor loved ones.

   Laura Lukunich of Hampden Twp. plans to launch a Passion for Mother’s Flowers Memorial Garden in Hampden Twp.’s Conodoguinet Youth Park to honor lives lost to cancer.

   Meanwhile, Cherriney Kondor of Hellam Twp., York County, is the driving force behind a Veterans Memorial Gold Star Healing and Peace Garden in York’s Veterans Memorial Park to honor those who gave their lives in military service.

   Designs for both are done, and both are slated to be built and planted next spring and summer.

   Lukunich got her inspiration earlier this year while helping her mother, Sandy Reece of Mechanicsburg, weather a bout of cancer and chemotherapy.

   Reece is a gardener, and one of her worries during a 2-week hospital stay was what would become of her beloved flower beds.

   Lukunich – who admits to enjoying weeding – sprang to the rescue.

   While weeding one day, a thought sprouted.

   “I wondered how many other people there must be who love their flowers and need help tending them while they focus on surviving cancer,” says Lukunich.

   Later that day, she told her mom that she was thinking about starting a service to weed and water gardens for people going through cancer treatments.

   “Mother grew a smile and gave me the thumbs up,” Lukunich says. “She said to keep the price low and the passion high. On that day, Passion for Mother’s Flowers was born.”

   For $10 an hour, Lukunich cares for the flower beds of those battling cancer. Five percent of the bill goes to the American Cancer Society. For now, the service is limited to the Camp Hill and Mechanicsburg areas.

   Soon after, “another seed was planted,” Lukunich says. “We envisioned creating a memorial garden in memory of loved ones who have passed from cancer.”

   Besides giving families a peaceful place to sit and remember their loved ones, the garden will serve as a place for an annual flower-planting day to memorialize those individuals.

   Hampden Twp. donated a section of unused park land along the banks of the Conodoguinet next to the Conodoguinet Youth Park. Access is down a hill off of Orr’s Bridge Road.

   I donated the garden design, Ruell Landscaping of Lower Allen Twp. is donating the planting and path materials, and local artist David Hutton is donating a custom-designed sculpture that will be the centerpiece of the main garden.

   Lukunich plans to have it all ready for the debut “Plant-a-Seed-and-Remember Ceremony” on Sat., May 8, beginning at 9 a.m. Appropriately, that’s Mother’s Day weekend.

   People will be invited to come and plant either seeds or annuals in the gardens and record their loved one’s name into a Passion for Mother’s Flowers Keepsake Album. All of the names will be read during the ceremony that day.

   The main garden will have three benches backed by vine-covered trellises – all pointing toward the central floral-themed sculpture. Besides the annuals, this garden will feature old-fashioned staples of mom and grandma gardens (roses, hydrangeas, butterfly bush) as well as rosemary for remembrance.

   A second garden along the tree-canopied bank of the Conodoguinet will have two more benches with seeded annuals and plantings of oakleaf hydrangea, viburnum and fothergilla. Memorial bricks will pave the seating area there.

   Anyone interested in helping the cause can buy plants, memorial bricks, benches and trellises by calling Lukunich at 761-3380 or emailing passionformothersflowers@comcast.net. That’s the same contact information for lining up garden-care help for those battling cancer.

   More information is at Lukunich’s web site at www.passionformothersflowers.com.

   The Gold Star Healing and Peace Garden is a larger, half-million-dollar garden being built to honor all U.S. servicemen and woman – living and deceased – and in particular, those who have given their lives in the war against terror.

The Gold Star Peace Garden's logo.

   Kondor, who ran York’s Mid-Atlantic Garden Show for several years, proposed the garden after losing a son, Army Spc. Martin Kondor, in Iraq. Kondor was killed in April 2004 when a bomb exploded near his armored vehicle.

   Kondor says the garden will be a way to remember and show appreciation to those serving in the military as well as give families a peaceful setting to reflect and remember.

   Ground was broken last month in York’s Veterans Memorial Park at 741 S. Vander Ave.

   Also being funded privately and through donated work, this garden is being designed by a team including Mahan Rykiel Landscape Architects of Baltimore, Murphy Dittenhafer Architects of York, and C.S. Davidson Engineering of York.

   It’ll be shaped in a circle for unity with a bubbling fountain in the center plaza. Then the circle will be divided into spokes with each section being planted in a different color.

   Each color represents a virtue in the heart of service personnel. For instance, red represents courage, purple represents valor, white represents honor and blue represents fidelity.

   A black granite wall dividing the color gardens and central plaza will be inscribed with the names of those who have fallen in the war on terror.

   The outside perimeter of the circle will have 47 pleached hornbeam trees – similar to ones at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.

   The name “Gold Star” comes from the group American Gold Star Mothers Inc., which was founded by a mother who lost a son in World War I. That organization now encompasses all family members who have lost a loved one in military service.

   Kondor is hoping the Gold Star Healing and Peace Garden will be up and open by next summer.

   Updates on this garden and opportunities to donate can be accessed at www.goldstargarden.com.

   Information also is available by emailing Kondor at cher@goldstargarden.com or calling 846-3339.