Meet Wynona - The Gardener of This Month's "Great Outdoors" Feature

I write about the gardens of Wynona Lurie in this month's Home & Garden column entitled "The Great Outdoors," but the real story is Wynona herself.  She's the brightest flower in her garden, with a life journey full of twists and turns that show she can truly bloom wherever she's planted.

To know her now, it's hard to fathom Wynona's jagged and challenged early path.  She's lived through the travails of being a depression-era orphan, working hard for her adopted family in rural Tennessee and being widowed as a very young woman with two small boys in tow.  Eventually Wynona married again, settled in Nashville and rounded out the family with two more boys.

At her home in Nashville, Wynona began creating the gardens that have now long been her trademark.  For someone whose childhood and youth were tarnished by heartache, Wynona either never lost her sense of girlish whimsy or has spent her adult life reclaiming it.  Her gardens and home brim with colorful, playful creations and wonderful collections.  And from all those years living lean, Wynona learned to make good use of everything; she's a true folk artist, clever and resourceful with a keen eye to transform the mundane into something meaningful.

She's been a one-woman brigade to battle water issues in her neighborhood.  For years she took on Metro and state governments until she won justice regarding a draining issue that threatened the very gardens she's known for.  With an ink pen and a pad of paper, Wynona wrote hundreds of letters and became well known amongst lawmakers and officials.  When she wrote or spoke, they learned to pay attention, and her relentless pursuits paid off.  Like a flower in the garden, she kept a smile on her face and some thorns on stem 'til she got the job done.

Now the gardens are long established, the family's grown and gone, the draining issue is history, but Wynona keeps growing.  She's cultivated friendships that continue to bloom.  She's got a root system that gives her perspective and peace.  Good things come wherever Wynona's planted.