Page 17 - Spring 2022

Gardener makes the world more beautiful one plant at a time
Story by Cyndee Perdue Moore Photos by Michael Prochaska
Connie Herringdine first started gardening long before she and her family moved to Oconee County. She started small with plants that friends gave her from their own gardens.
In those pre-internet days, she bought some gardening books, subscribed to a few magazines, attended seminars and learned by trial and error.
Herringdine attended the University of Georgia, where she majored in journalism advertising and minored in graphic design. She got married and started a family in Athens. With a newborn and an 18-month-old, she planted her first perennial garden at night under floodlights as the children slept because that’s the only time she could.
She planned that first garden out on paper, something she rarely does now as she has become one of those people that finds the right place for a plant she loves.
When Herringdine, along with her late husband Bill and their
Left, nothing would grow in the side yard, so Connie Herringdine let the moss take over. The ubiquitous orange daylilies in the background come from a bed planted around 1900 near her mother- in-law’s homeplace in Johnson County.The deer fence encloses the yard so she can plant what she wants.
Right, Herringdine takes a rest on the old lichen-covered bench with flanked salmon Impatience in pots that were given to her by a friend. The table is made from a piece of wood topped by a piece of slate.
sCyndee Perdue Moore is the board chair for the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation and a resident of Watkinsville.
SPRING 2022 | OCONEE THE MAGAZINE | PAGE 15