SEMINOLE – Bette Smith loves to talk about plants and flowers.
A prolific gardener and accomplished journalist, she shared her green thumb skills in a column – The Neighborly Garden – for The St. Petersburg Times from 1984 to 1996. She also contributed to the Florida Gardening Magazine and as early as the 1970s wrote the Waterfront Line column for the Seminole Courier.
At 81, Smith is still sharing her love of flowers and trees. Now it’s her neighbors at Freedom Square in Seminole who benefit.
“My husband passed away a few years ago and so I decided to move here,” she said. “One of the first things I did was ask if I could bring some of my plants from my Treasure Island home. Next thing I know, I’m the official resident gardener.”
As she tours Freedom Square’s extensive landscaping, Smith highlights special plants.
“These came from my yard or were gifts. I had a housewarming when I moved here and asked people to bring plants,” she said.
She points out her favorites. “This is a carpobrotus edulis (ice plant) from South Africa,” she said. “I brought this from home. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Smith is known as “the butterfly lady” because of her love for Freedom Square’s butterfly garden. The section, tucked next to a duck pond, boasts beach sunflowers and blue porterweed.
“I don’t fertilize anything. Just stick it in the ground,” she said.
Smith lovingly tends both the plants and the creatures who live among them.
“I released a beautiful butterfly yesterday,” she said as she pointed to the plant where it lived.
Asked about her writing career, Smith said, “I started to write because I was lonely. My husband and I came down here from Troy, N.Y. and we started a business called Camper Gear in St. Petersburg. We were living in Treasure Island and I was looking for something extra to fill my time. I took a creative writing course through Pinellas County Adult Education and decided to try to sell what I wrote. Gary Gorman of the City Plus section hired me as a correspondent.”
Staying true to the adage about writing what you know, Smith began the gardening column.
“I had gardened up North, but I found that tending plants and flowers down here is a special challenge,” she said. “Very little of what I knew about Northern gardening applies here. I figured other transplants were having the same problems.”
Smith’s love of plants and trees continues even though her column writing days are over.
“Now, I just write e-mails,” she said. “Besides, I’m too busy. I enjoy trivia, the friends I’ve made and dancing with a special friend.”
