Margaret Rainwater Moseley developed a love for gardening during childhood that bloomed in midlife.
Once her children were grown and gone, she had more time on her hands. At 52, she discovered a passion for planting that led her to create one of the best-known private gardens in the Southeast.
For more than 40 years, it was a must-see on garden tours. Her stunning plants, hospitality and sense of humor inspired the hordes of visitors to her backyard paradise. She served guests almond tea, told them stories and made sure they left with a plant and growing tips.
“She’s the reason I have taken on this gigantic garden. She inspired me to learn about new plants,” said landscape designer Sandra Jonas, whose 3-acre garden in Hogansville, Ga., is filled with plants from Moseley’s garden. “Her garden was so big, and she tended it herself. I thought that if she could do it, I could do it.”
Moseley died April 28 at her Decatur home at the age of 98. Her funeral was to be at 1 p.m. Saturday at A.S. Turner & Sons Chapel in Decatur.
She was born on May 28, 1916, in Veazey, Ga., a farming community near Greensboro. Her family later moved to Atlanta, where she graduated from Commercial High School in 1936 and got a job as a model at J.P. Allen department store. While grocery shopping, she met Lamar Moseley. They married in 1937 and had four daughters. She quit modeling to focus on family.
Her husband, a retired Atlanta police officer who died in 2004, always tended a vegetable garden. But she preferred flowers, trees and shrubs. Once the twins left for college, Moseley turned her attention to her south DeKalb County backyard and started digging.
What began with a few plants blossomed into a three-quarter-acre garden showplace that attracted buzz in Atlanta’s gardening community. She was known for her collections of viburnums, hydrangeas, camellias, gardenias and Japanese maples.
“It was like I had fallen down into a wonderland. There was a very magical quality to this garden,” said former AJC gardening columnist Martha Tate, who first visited Moseley’s garden in 1994 and wrote a newspaper article about it.
More media attention would follow. In 1996, her garden was featured on the first two episodes of HGTV’s “A Gardener’s Diary.” It also made the covers of the May 2000 issue of Southern Living magazine and the Southern Living 2001 Garden Annual book.
“It was a like a series of secret gardens. She had so many beautiful plant combinations. You would leave and want to go plant something in your garden,” said Tate, author of “Margaret Moseley’s A Garden to Remember,” which was released last year.
The origin of three plants in her garden still have experts befuddled: a rose she rooted from her grandmother’s Greene County yard, a gardenia from a cutting she snipped at a Henry County cemetery and Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Margaret Moseley,’ a white-flowering shrub that’s been in her garden more than 50 years.
“She would call me up in the dead of winter and say, ‘Come out to see my garden today. It’s the prettiest it’s ever been,’ ” Tate said. “She felt everyone should have a garden and have the joy she felt.”
Gardening enthusiasts visited from around the nation. To her delight, many brought her plants, and she ensured that they didn’t leave her garden empty-handed. Fan letters also showed up from as far away as Australia, and she wrote back to every one.
“Margaret was a pistol,” said former AJC garden writer Danny Flanders. “Not to have discovered the thrill and excitement of gardening until her 50s and then to become this amazing gardener – so passionate about every plant, every bloom – is a story about life for all of us.”
Her year-round gardening skills impressed guests who could find something in bloom in every season. If she felt a plant was languishing in one area, she’d dig it up and find it a better home.
Moseley read constantly to keep up with the latest garden trends and new plants. “I’d get so excited about a plant, I’d just have to have it,” she would tell friends. “Then I’d have to go to bed to think about where to plant it.”
In the fall, Moseley would sit for hours to watch her beloved gingko tree shed all its leaves. She also appreciated the animals that enjoyed her garden, and made cornbread for the bluebirds.
Moseley was a charter member of the American Hydrangea Society, founded by her close friend Penny McHenry, “The Hydrangea Lady.” The two often conducted workshops at retail garden centers, offering advice and recommending plants that grow well in Atlanta.
Even though she got too weak to dig, prune or plant, “her mind remained sharp until the end,” said her daughter Carol Harris, who moved in to take care of her mother five months ago. She still could recall the botanical and common names of every plant in her garden and recall whether it arrived as a cutting, purchase or a present.
Harris now tends her mother’s garden with the help of friends. “She taught me a lot about gardening. I plan to keep it as long as I can,” Harris said. “Our family is so proud of her little garden that became famous.”
In addition to Harris, Moseley is survived by daughter Betty Luce of Macon, twin daughters Jane Byrd of Alpharetta and Joan Carter of Atlanta; eight grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
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