The bank sign clock reads 104 degrees as I drive to Ginny and Bob Turvey’s house to view their garden. My hair is uncontrollably frizzy from the humidity, the grass out the car window is tan, and looks like it would crackle underfoot.

It was a relief when Ginny opened the door of her Georgian-style home perched on the crest of a hill just a stone’s throw away from an Alvamar fairway. Her powder-blue eyes are inviting as she welcomes me to view her garden. Ginny kindly serves iced tea with mint straight from the garden before we start exploring through her outdoor sanctuary.

She is humble and self-effacing when we first step outside, doubting that the garden she has been tending for 22 years is anything special. Ginny teaches fourth grade at Broken Arrow School, and while most of her summers are fairly laid-back, this one has been action-packed.

“Our son, Paul, was just married this summer,” Ginny says. “So we had a lot of goals for the outdoors, to finish the deck and get the garden in order. Now that the deck is here, we eat many of our meals outside.”

The deck is under a gnarled red bud tree with limbs that twist and turn like something out of a Harry Potter novel. The deck is cocooned by beds of overflowing plants, ferns, Easter lilies in white and deep-purple colored impatiens.

Ginny Turvey tends flowers at her house, 1561 La Quinta Court, to protect the blossoms from the scorching summer heat. For more than 20 years, she has developed elaborate flower and vegetable gardens at her home with husband Bob Turvey.

There’s also a pot of blooming bromeliad, which Ginny’s husband gave her as an anniversary present a decade ago, and it has not bloomed since that year until now.

“I brought it outside for the summer and look at it. Many of my favorite plants were gifts – this hydrangea was a Mother’s Day gift from Paul, and it has these gorgeous blooms of blue,” Ginny says. “These miniature roses were an end-of-the-year teacher’s gift – same with these chrysanthemums. I enjoy those plants the most because they bring memories of people and experiences. The amaryllis I bought for me and my dad when he had cancer. They were blooming at the same time. He died later, but I’ve divided my amaryllis and given some to my sister. They remind me of him.”

The Turvey’s yard is large and of a peculiar shape, with four backyards butting up to a cul-de-sac garden. Australian pines help screen out some of the neighbors and partition the area. As we stroll past a petite water feature, it gives off just the right amount of sound to diffuse any traffic noises, and it’s a hot spot for the birds to bathe.

Stepping stones in Bob and Ginny Turvey's garden bear the names of their three grown sons.

Stepping stones in Bob and Ginny Turvey's garden bear the names of their three grown sons.

Stepping stones in Bob and Ginny Turvey's garden bear the names of their three grown sons.

Down the winding path out into the strong afternoon sun, we make our way to the “vegetable room.” Elevated beds of plump, red tomatoes crowd and weigh down the plants, cucumbers, blackberries, basil, peppers and a slew of other edibles. The Turveys even installed a spigot near the back of the yard to facilitate maneuverable watering.

“When you are a teacher, this is therapy,” Ginny says of her love for gardening. “I can pull weeds and water and actually see an improvement. When you are working with kids sometimes, you’re not sure you are making a difference because it can be challenging to see the results.”

I would imagine her pupils regale their parents with a different story when they come home as Ginny introduces various plant life into her curriculum of science and math, stressing the importance of children actually seeing things grow.

“We talk about the prairie tundra, the Arctic tundra – we will gather seeds and plant them in pots. There is a study we practice called a ‘Slice of Agriculture’ where we plant wheat and soybeans. But one of my favorite lessons is when we introduce the butterfly into the garden and create a habitat just for them.”

Ginny Turvey, a teacher at Broken Arrow School, has spent more than 20 years cultivating flowers and vegetables in her garden.

We enter Ginny’s sunny garden spot where the cleome has volunteers standing like frayed Q-tips peppered among the pink knockout roses, the bushy coreopsis, tiger lilies, coneflowers and black-eyed Susans. There is an old red and green railroad wagon in the center of the bed under one of the majestic Australian Pines. Ginny points out a rock that has eroded into a natural bowl that used to belong to her mother and now is an unofficial bird bath. The pink-and-white striped amaryllis have blooms the size of softballs, and I find it a refreshing change to see this incredibly showy flower not associated with the winter holidays but actually existing in the environment it prefers, hot and sunny.

Our tour is over, and soon the school year will be in full force for this busy mother of three grown boys, although I get the feeling her “fourth child” is underfoot and all-encompassing in her thoughts.

“I’m already thinking and planning for next year’s garden,” Ginny says. “I like to keep trying new experiments out here.”