Meet The Master Gardener: Melanie Landrum
By Marci Moore, Special to Winters Media & Publications Inc.
Values instilled in a child that continue to grow throughout a child’s life indicate wonderful parenting. Such are the values of loving nature, gardening, animals and the outdoors that this month’s featured Master Gardener Melanie Landrum’s parents nurtured in her.
Melanie’s parents came to Coweta County from Cedartown in 1964 with her father’s new job as golf professional at the soon to open Canongate Golf Course. In 1972, her parents built a golf course home in Canongate and a little over ten years ago it became Melanie’s and her husband, Ron’s, home.
As fellow MGEV, Kim Magyar, once shared, “When the family home became hers, she took the landscape to a whole different level. She has raised bed gardens, flowing and curving flower beds, and a lush green ‘golf course worthy backyard.’”
Her father had a love for gardening and had always strived to have beautiful homegrown tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner, which we all know is a challenge with Georgia sun and heat. He often met that goal with his green thumb that Melanie inherited. Her long-term goal is to have golfers stop their game to marvel at her vibrant gardens, flower beds and adorable statuaries.
Melanie was three when her parents moved to Coweta County. As a true Newnanite, Melanie graduated from Newnan High School. She grew up loving horses and raised and showed them for more than twenty years. She met Ron at Delta Airlines, and they have been married 31 years with many four-legged furry babies to smother with love. Melanie worked in operations at Delta for more than 33 years!
She stays very active and loves to hike, ride bikes, and kayak. She also belongs to Ladies on Spokes, and seven years ago she participated in the Sunrise Century Bike ride in Clarksville, Tenn. The 62-mile ride is not for the faint of heart.
Melanie has long loved touring nurseries and gardens traveling with her many friends on day and weekend trips to visit them in their prime seasons. Melanie recently traveled to Philadelphia to see Chanticleer and Longwood Gardens and along the way, she visited Day Lily Gardens in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, N.C., as well as Gibbs Botanical Gardens in Ball Ground.
This love for plants, flowers, gardens and all that can be grown to perfection inspired Melanie to become a Master Gardener in 2014. In the past five years, she has made and retained many wonderful friendships with people of like interests. She helps with training new master gardeners, assists with continuing education classes, works with the greenhouse team, helps coordinate the Backyard Association meetings that are popular with Coweta residents, and volunteers at the spring and fall plant sales.
