We’re in the season of the year that Janice Powers looks forward to every year: spring.
As an ardent gardener, the lifelong Peoria resident spends hours working on her garden on Moss Avenue in West Peoria.
But Powers doesn’t just tend her garden, she writes about it. As a garden writer and illustrator, her work has appeared in publications such as Midwest Living, Country Sampler and Family Circle. For 10 years, her column on herb gardening appeared in the Peoria Journal Star.
Last year, Powers published “More Than Flowers,” a book about her gardening experiences and philosophy.
Powers credited her grandfather, a self-employed carpenter who lived in Peoria’s Averyville neighborhood, with introducing her to the importance of gardening.
“Grandpa never insisted that I work in any of his gardens, yet somehow he planted a seed for me that eventually germinated. He did it just by keeping me close to him. It’s a lesson I try to follow with the children in my life,” stated Powers, recalling that “Grandpa Les” tricked out a used hearse as a work van where he stored his shovels and rakes.
Living in different neighborhoods across Peoria (which Powers elaborated on in a previous book, “Pieces of Us”), Powers has tended gardens wherever she lived, including the present house she shares with husband Mike, a 100-year-old Victorian home with nearly an acre of gardening space.
That home has been the site of the “Market on Moss” event for the past 10 years, a reflection of her love for the French market scene. This year’s market is set for Saturday, May 28.
The annual market is also a place where Powers can demonstrate her belief that every house needs a garden.
“Unlike my grandfather, who gardened in more places that were away from his home than near it, my gardening life revolves around the close connection of the two. House and garden exist together today as a simple and enduring example of a well-loved place, a world of its own,” she said.
