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Weeks-Rosten’s gardening passion has bloomed after retirement

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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.

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.” 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.

Weeks-Rosten still puts her education background to work as well. She volunteers with other American teachers who visit and instruct elementary teachers at a school in Guatemala.

“It’s a very rewarding piece of my retirement as well,” she said.

Retirees should not be shy about trying gardening, Weeks-Rosten says.

“I got into it late in the game,” she said. “I was interested in plants, even though I’m not really a science person. But I am interested in the beauty of gardening.”

Weeks-Rosten said she would recommend one of the many Midland gardening clubs for seniors who want to meet other like-minded seniors. But if that is not their choice, they can start small – even with just a few potted plants.

“I’d recommend gardening. … Whatever scale they can take on, I think they’d enjoy gardening.”

If you don’t have a lot of room to garden, you can try cultivating the land at Phoenix Community Garden, which is not far from the city limits. Weeks-Rosten said the community garden, which is a charitable endeavor, is always looking for volunteers.

“We’re a lucky community,” she said of the public gardening opportunities in the Midland area.

Weeks-Rosten is the president of the Midland Garden Council. If you would like her help to get involved in a local community garden club, contact her at cwrosten@gmail.com

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Cheryl Weeks-Rosten shows some tubers she removed at the end of the season from Dahlia Hill in Midland.

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