Red Dirt Ranch, part 4 — The Memorial Garden

The Virginia and Bill Walker Memorial Garden holds the ashes of past pets, and is a kinder, gentler “Pet Sematary.”

UPDATE: The memorial garden is complete — at least for now! See new photos below. Many thanks to Tim, who installed the bench and the paver path.

My husband, Tim, and I moved into a sprawling ranch in East Norman, Oklahoma, in April 2017. We did some renovation right away, before we moved in, and I also worked on making our front entry way more welcoming. But we have lots of outdoor projects, and I’ve been working slowly on the outside.

Our nearly 4-acre lot is mostly wooded, which is beautiful, but comes with lots of challenges: Little to no sun, being grass-challenged — but also lots of benefits: shade, shade and more shade! Our summer air conditioning bill is pretty modest.

Most recently, Tim has been working on a flower and vegetable garden, and I’ve been cleaning up leaves and debris. If you live in a forest, you’re going to have LOTS of leaves and wood debris, and because trees keep dropping all winter long, you might as wait until early spring to try to clean everything up.

Not everyone agrees with that statement, but it hurts my mental health to spend a Saturday cleaning leaves only to see a carpet of leaves the very next day. Trees don’t cooperate on your schedule. The struggle is real.

Last year, I wrote about the death of my cat, Rudy, who lived to the ripe old age of 20. I buried him in what I wanted to become a memorial garden, but it has taken a year to make this happen. I’m not talking about a “Pet Sematery,” ala the Stephen King horror book and movie set to release this year, but a peaceful place to remember all the furballs I’ve loved over the years.

Stage one happened at Christmas, when Tim revealed the massive and extremely heavy stone bench he got me. We put it in place and it waited until last weekend for us to get back to it.

My idea for a memorial garden has been with me for a while now. I love pets, but I tend to outlive them. that means I have the ashes of at least five former pets in boxes and urns. I don’t display them, because that seems a little weird, and I haven’t lived in a place I thought would be my forever home.

Some of the ashes of my beloved pets. From left: Jerry the cat (in the soapstone urn), Jack the cat (in the small brown box), Oso the dog and Norman the dog. Not pictured are the ashes of Luella the pig.

But the Red Dirt Ranch may just be it. So, it’s time to spread the ashes of Norman the black Lab-Rottweiller mix, Luella the pot-bellied pig, Oso, my beloved Shepherd mix, Jacks, my noble kitty, and Jerry, the adopted tomcat. I’ve loved them all, and if you know me, you know that love is strong.

The Virginia and Bill Walker Memorial Garden will be these animal family members’ final resting place, and will contain some of the ashes of my mother and father, too. My family is not one for burials. We tend to cremate and carry loved ones with us. But I wanted to create a space to sit and relax and spend time with all these creatures whom I loved and who loved me.

The plan included a stone paver path leading to a bench, with shade plants all around. I will plant the ashes and mark it with a decorative stone or outdoor sculpture.

From left to right: The Virginia and Bill Walker Memorial Garden is nestled in a grove of cherry and oak trees, which we ‘ve cleared out a bit. Tim dug out where the pavers would go and laid down a paver base.

After tamping down the base, he laid down plastic before setting the pavers in place.

After the pavers came the pea gravel, which will settle in between the pavers nicely. The path isn’t long, but is a nice way to lead up to the bench. I plan to plan shade-tolerant ground cover plants to the left and right of the bench. I’ll add either more pea gravel or mulch around the plants. I mulched a ton of leaves behind the bench.

I put down weed cover and added some mondo grass on either side of the pavers. They will fill out in time.

Leaves mulched, leaving a nice ground cover.

I will have some work to do, and will add more plants from friends. Rudy the cat is buried to the left of the bench, and I’ll add the ashes of his brothers and sisters soon.

UPDATE: I completed the garden last weekend, and my back muscles and sore knees are proof. As promised in an earlier version of this article, I did buy a set of wind chimes. I also moved the bird bath from the front of the house to this garden. I added some cypress mulch to create a nice blanket. And I found some curious ground cover plants that will fill in around the graves.

Tim thinned out a lot of volunteer trees, and I took out a grapevine that was choking some of them. I can now see the Redbud trees, and I’m waiting for some of the other trees to leaf out so I can see what this really will look like. It will be shady, that’s for sure, and may turn into the “Secret Garden” I always wanted, but I might have to add some more shrubs and trees for that.

My overall plan was to make this a cozy place to visit, and a peaceful final resting place filled with beautiful, low-maintenance plants and, and the music of the wind chimes. And I also wanted a friend to protect and look over my beloved pets. It’s the Noble Fox, and I think he is so handsome. He is cast stone and should stand up to the elements.

I think the garden is well on it’s way to my vision.

The Noble Fox looks over the garden and all contained within.

Some views: the little resin markers have the names of all the pets. The Noble Fox stands guard.

These blue crystal stones slices are a keepsake from our wedding, and I decided to add them to the garden.