In a patio spotted with sun and shadows at Marian Extended Care Center in Santa Maria, Pam Petro picks off an orange, bell-shaped flower and holds it out.

“It smells kind of like licorice,” she says.

Petro has been nurturing her plants at the center since she made it her home in 2004, after being diagnosed with severe neuromuscular diseases that left her unable to walk or live on her own at 57 years old.

The petals from the hyssop plant give off a deep, sophisticated fragrance that lasts for weeks.

Hyssop is known for its healing properties, and a stalk of hyssop was offered to Jesus with a vinegar-soaked sponge during his crucifixion, according to the Gospel of John.

In bloom

Petro moves around in her electric wheelchair, explaining which flowers will grow into giants. The wooden boxes near the patio entrance are filled with lush, pale yellow dahlias, sunny bright-eyed susans and delicate blue forget-me-nots. The daisies and dahlias in the garden bed will grow to be several feet tall.

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“It's been such a joy,” Petro says of her garden. “I can't wait for the days I can get out here.”

Petro waters the plants, hoes and prunes three days a week, with telescoping tools that extend so she doesn't have to bend down. Her friends Lisa Baldwin, Ethel Donati and Jackie Graham help with transplanting, planting bulbs, weeding, pruning and treating plants for insect damage. Annie's Annuals, an online nursery based in Richmond, has donated boxes of seed-bearing native plants so Petro could fill out the garden.

Dormancy

After dinner on the evening of Sept. 6, 2004, Petro started feeling sick. She had been having trouble swallowing, had lost weight and had fallen several times in the previous few months, but she had attributed her symptoms to viral infections.

The next morning, Petro couldn't walk without supporting herself on the night stand. Her husband, Greg, took her to the emergency room.

A few weeks later, after being transferred to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, she was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune neuromuscular disease that causes severe muscle weakness and fatigue. A year later, she was also diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, a neuromuscular disease that causes muscle spasms and rigidity. The combination of the two has left her unable to walk.

Nurturing roots

Petro is grateful for the help of her friends, and for the support of her husband, who visits her before work and on weekends to help her with the garden. It's one of the few activities they can still do together, since Petro can go only to places she can reach by riding in her electric wheelchair.

The couple built their home in Alaska in the 1970s, and before her illness, Petro and her husband would work on the garden in their backyard in Orcutt.

They have been married for 33 years and have two sons, Tim, 29, who works as an oceanographer for the Navy near Ventura, and Chris, 26, who works in the permits office for the city of Santa Maria.

Greg Petro said he's proud of his wife for her perseverance and her contribution to the care center.

“Her attitude on life is just so good,” Greg Petro said. “She's an example for other people in that situation. And she provides all this beauty there at the facility. Everyone comments about it.”

Times and seasons

Taking care of the garden gives Petro a sense of purpose and increases her physical endurance, she says. She grows animated as she talks about different gardening methods, such as spraying milk on plants to deter aphids, and how she likes to shop online for new plants.

She grows more sober as she talks about the future. Petro believes the myasthenia gravis is in remission, but the Stiff Person Syndrome seems to be getting worse.

The flowers in the beds should flourish without much maintenance once she is no longer able to take care of the garden, she says, but she doesn't know what will happen to the flowers in the pots and boxes. She hopes someone will take over and water them when she's gone. For now, gardening gives her a purpose she can live for today.

“This is just pure joy to me, to be able to come out and work on the garden,” Petro says. “I don't look towards the future that much.”

She is also grateful to the staff at Marian for letting her create the garden, and considers herself lucky to be able to maintain it.

“I kind of feel it's God's gift to me,” Petro said. “He knew I needed something to give me peace on earth, and I really felt he gave (it to) me ... Everything has gone so smoothly ... so I can have this little piece of heaven, as you might call it, working with flowers on earth.”

Bettina Adragna can be reached at 739-2220 or at badragna@santamariatimes.com.

September 10, 2008