Minnie Hite Moody: A Bouquet of Weeds and Southern Charm

September 24, 1980

Dearest readers,

On this day, we delve into the charming wit and resilient spirit of Minnie Hite Moody, an American garden columnist whose words bloomed with honesty and humor from the Deep South.

In her garden column this very day in 1980, Minnie confessed the trials of a summer thwarted by groundhogs, endless rains, and the modern hazards of mechanical mowers and weed sprays that made the once-familiar wildflowers a rare treasure indeed.

She wrote of her bouquet—less a conventional arrangement of prized blossoms and more a humble gathering of weed flowers, an improvised celebration for her “eating table,” that sturdy white ash table inherited from her grandmother in 1872. It was a tableau of simple beauty, speaking to generations past and the quiet endurance of the natural world amid human toil and change.

September, however, brought solace. Along the fringe of her property near the old Ohio Electric railroad tracks, the soft lavender blooms of soapwort—lovingly called Pretty Betty—began to shyly appear. Known scientifically as Saponaria, soapwort was dismissed in modern times as a common weed, but Minnie recalled its historic charm fondly when it was used to make soap long before commercial detergents. “I tried washing with soapwort myself,” she confessed with a twinkle, “and was pleasantly surprised.”

Minnie knew well the power of a name and wisely chose “Pretty Betty” for her bouquet, knowing that friends favored that gentle moniker far more than her otherwise humble weed. She added splashes of purple ironweed, bright golden Rudbeckia honoring Swedish botanist Olaus Rudbeck, and a few sprigs of Eupatorium perfoliatum, better known to old-timers as boneset—a healer of aches, fevers, and even hangovers.

Her column was not just a note on nature’s resilience but a reminder of the enduring legacy of traditional remedies and wild blooms—quiet champions in garden and folklore alike.

Here's Minnie's column in full:

Somehow or other, I failed to get any flower seeds planted this past summer.

June brought its plague of groundhogs, and what with replanting my beans and other necessities.

July was here before I had caught up with myself, and then came the storms and rain. It was even too wet for me to go seeking Queen Anne's lace and daisies in the fringes of the golf course, though what with mechanical mowers and weed sprays, I would have had to search far and wide for the simple weed-blossoms once so familiar.

So all through July and August I had to skrimish for enough blooms to enliven what in the Deep South is spoken of as the "eating table."

I am used to flowers on the table, and while I receive more than my share of elegant hothouse flowers, they do not suit Grandma's plain white ash table, with which she went to housekeeping in 1872.

September, however, kindly improved my situation.

Along my property frontage, where the Ohio Electric railroad tracks predated the WPA sidewalk, the pale lavender blooms of soapwort, commonly called Pretty Betty, began to peep out.

Now, soapwort, which the books call Saponaria, a genus of hardy annual and perennial Old-World herbs of the Pink Family, is regarded as just an old weed and not very special.

Believe me, it was special in our great-grandmothers' day, for bar soap and detergents were far in the future, unless she made her own soap with grease and lye.

l tried washing with soapwort myself one time, just to see how it worked, and was pleasantly sur prised. But I'm careful to call it Pretty Betty when I have it in a table bouquet.

My friends seem to react to that name better than they do to soapwort.

In some sections of the country, the name seems to be Bouncing Bet, which I mention as an alternate.

The books say that soapwort (alias Pretty Betty or Bouncing Bet) comes in clusters of pink, white or red flowers. The only ones I ever have seen are pale lavender-blues, white, or pinkish.

By themselves they don't make an especially stunning bouquet, so it is fortunate that ironweed blooms at the same time of year.

Ironweed blossoms are purple, and I know Garden Club ladies who would swoon at the sight of the bouquet right now gracing my eating table, for it has purple ironweed, Pretty Betty of a questionable shade, maybe blue, maybe lavender, along with some bright yellow Rudbeckia blossoms and a spray or two of Eupatorim per-foliatum, which is acceptable by that name, but not as plain old good-for-nothing boneset.

As a matter of fact, boneset used to ease aches and pains fully as well as some of the costly arthritis and rheumatism pills of the present.

All the "old wife" of bygone days had to do was gather the herb when the bloom was brightest, tie it into a bunch and hang it from the ceiling beams.

The late Euell Gibbons in his books claimed that he simply laid boneset for drying on newspapers placed on his attic floor.

When the boneset is thoroughly dry. stalks and stems are discarded, and the dried leaves crumbled into airtight jars. If you don't need boneset tea for rheumatic ailments, it is said to be good for fevers, colds, catarrh, dropsy, general debility, dyspepsia, and "trouble arising from intemperance." In other words, hangover.

Rudbeckia is that golden September bloom named in honor, of Swedish botanist Olaus Rud-beck (1830-1702).