Words from the Catherine Sims Garden Dedication

Kimberly Sharkins shared these remarks at the dedication of the Catherine Sims Garden in Edgewood on Friday, May 4:

Mayor Scott McBrayer thanks Girl Scout Troop 152 for the cookies they made for Catherine Sims EcoScape Dedication. Photo courtesy of Caroline Hubbard.

A hat box, lady’s evening gloves, gardening books and dirt – what do these things have in common?  They are all characteristic mementos of Catherine Sims, better known to many as “The Plant Lady” of Homewood, Alabama.  A long-time resident of Homewood, Ms. Sims was born in Georgia and grew up in Norwood.  As a child she would ride the trolley “over the mountain” to visit an aunt that lived on this side of Birmingham and spent many a summer night sleeping on the front porch and taking advantage of the breezes that were the draw to the area.  When she and her mother moved here in the early 1960s, she brought her love of gardening to the area.  When she was not working as a teacher or later at UAB’s Spies Clinic doing dental research, her time was spent with her children – her plants.  A gentile southern lady with bright blue eyes and a warm smile, she didn’t meet a stranger.  Everywhere she went she offered plants to the people she encountered – from the receptionist, nurse and doctor at the doctor’s office, to the check-out and bag boy people at the grocery store.

Flowers like these pink blooms will grow to line the wooden posts and form a canopy as the Sims Garden continues to mature.

Rebirth of an heirloom gardening legacy

Sims Garden resident caretaker Laura Rogers, Homewood City Council President Allyn Holladay and Southern Environmental Center Director Roald Hazelhoff were all instrumental in bringing the Edgewood community garden back to life. Photos by Madoline Markham.

By RICK WATSON

For decades, heirloom shrubs and flowers with standout roses lined five lots at 908 Highland Road.

Thanks to new efforts, the legacy of Catherine Sims, the “Plant Lady of Homewood,” is living on in her Edgewood home’s garden. The lots are now filled with heirloom plants you might have found in a garden half a century ago.

“Of all the projects I’ve done for the city, this is one that I’m really proud of because it can go on forever,” City Council President Allyn Holladay said. “It’s a quiet place in the neighborhood where people can take their children in the afternoon and show them plants they won’t see just anywhere.”

In her will, Sims offered the property to the City of Homewood, but there was a catch – the city had to utilize the property as a botanical gardens.
City leaders weren’t initially excited about the gift because they weren’t sure how to manage and maintain it, so from 2006 when she passed away until last year, the property fell into disrepair.