Cheryl WeeksRosten (second from right) joins a few of the other 27 members of the Evergreen Garden Club as they pause for a photograph during a day of work.
Weeks-Rosten’s gardening passion has bloomed after retirement DAVE SHANE for the Daily News Cheryl Weeks-Rosten of Midland is proof that an interest in gardening can bloom after retirement. The 78-year-old retiree is an active gardener and a member of several local gardening clubs. While she did some gardening as an adult, it was not nearly as much as she has done after completing her career as a high school English teacher. “I never really started gardening until I was in my 40s and the kids had left home,” she said. “And then I really got into it after retirement.” 8
While Weeks-Rosten may spend her winters thinking about gardening, she spends most of the rest of the year doing work in one of several gardens. Besides tending to a garden at her home that she and her husband, John Rosten, a Dow Corning Corp. retiree, share on the city’s north side, she also helps beautify the community through the Evergreen Garden Club, the gardens at Midland Reformed Church on North Saginaw Road, and as a member of Midland’s Dahlia Hill Society. “I’m somewhere every day during the summer,” she said.
Weeks-Rosten recommends gardening to seniors, who “can give as much or as little time to it as you have." “I would definitely recommend it. There’s a feeling of satisfaction when you are creating something useful out of nothing,” she said. While Weeks-Rosten grows tomatoes at her home garden, her main joy comes from planting and caring for flowers. Besides dahlias, her flowering favorites are hydrangea, hibiscus, hellebores, iris and day lillies.
“I have a favorite flower for every part of the summer.” She said she thinks growing flowers tends to be more common in more urban areas, while vegetables probably are favored in country gardens. She said she has friends who concentrate almost exclusively on the latter. During the winter, she gardens at a club that she visits in Bradenton, Florida, and she enjoys reading about gardening, classics and mysteries. Senior Scope | March 2022
