The bright colors and floral scent of petunias brighten the yard of Andy May of Halfway, with a view of the Wallowa Mountains in the distance.

HALFWAY — Andy May will always miss his wife.

Carol May passed away Sept. 23, 2022. They were married 52 years, and dated three years before that.

Carol loved flowers, and every year she grew petunias from seed to plant in their yard, as well as give away to friends in Halfway and beyond.

“She always planted a lot more than we ever needed,” Andy said.

When spring rolled around this year, a mere six months after she passed away, Andy gathered soil and tiny petunia seeds.

“This year was really hard,” he said.

He didn’t really want to plant flowers.

“Not really, but I did it.”

And as those flowers grew, he had an idea.

“I wanted to do something special as a memorial to her,” he said.

He decided to plant a red heart right in the middle of the biggest flowerbed, and surround that with all colors of petunias.

He enlisted help from his three daughters, Barbie Morgan, Jaime May and Michelle May. They figured out a pattern, and then all four worked to create fields of color in his yard.

The biggest bed featured a giant deep red heart, outlined with two rows of white petunias. The rest was filled with flowers of all colors — pink, striped, purple, and nearly black.

They planted the narrow flowerbed along the fence with pink and blue hues.

“Pink and blue are her favorite colors,” he said of Carol.

The corner bed is planted like an American flag — purple flowers in the corner, then stripes of red and white.

A (somewhat) reluctant helper

Andy didn’t always flock to flower projects.

He cut trees in the woods, and tended to the couple’s farm in Silverton.

Their home in Western Oregon was surrounded with rhododendrons — a plant not well suited to the colder climate of Halfway, where they moved in 2003.

“We moved here and she wanted to grow flowers,” he said.

He put up a temporary greenhouse, but after about four years of putting it up and taking it down, he built a permanent one.

And he joined Carol there, devising ways to plant the minuscule petunia seeds in tiny pods of soil.

“After seven or eight years, I said, ‘Hon, I don’t really mind this,’” he said.

Now his yard is a riot of color and sweet scent with more than 1,000 petunias, even in the waning days of summer.

The two smaller flowerbeds took three to four hours to plant.

“This one took us a big, big day,” he said of the larger bed, with the heart.

He has soil stacked in the greenhouse, but he’s not sure if he’ll grow flowers again next year.

“I did it this year because of Carol,” he said.

“I wanted to do something special as a memorial to her.”

— Andy May of Halfway, talking about the flower beds he planted as a tribute to his wife, Carol, who died Sept. 23, 2022