BLACKSHEAR — Tucked back from Main Street in Blackshear is a cozy, magical little spot where a Genie makes her home.
She isn’t a magical genie like those in fairy tales, but owner Genie Bennett does find something magical in gardening.
“I plant and nurture it, but it is God that brings about the growth and the transformation,” Bennett said.
Screened from the road by trees and foliage is the two-story home, Bennett shared with her late husband, Wes Bennett, former principal of Blackshear High School and the first principal of the consolidated Pierce County High School, until his passing in 2021.
In and among the brick walkways,covered paths and well-maintained beds there are not just memories, but also towering pine trees, delicate rust-colored Japanese maples,camellias,snowy spireas and colorful oakleaf hydrangeas.
Most of all, there are azaleas. Hot pink and coral, the colorful bushes fairly radiate life and color for about a month, blooming in glory before fading away once more, resting until their inevitable, triumphant return each spring.
Back in 1973, when Wes and Genie had first purchased the land, an older home stood where the Bennetts’ future home would take shape.
A leftover structure from a rural plantation, Wes Bennett preserved what he could of the building, cutting it in half with a saw before moving it further back where it now serves as the pool house.
“We moved it to its new spot to make room for our new home,” Genie Bennett said.
The azaleas and camellias were closer to the road then as well. She remembers well the process of getting them to their new homes. They had to go on a trip of their own before coming home again.
“Daddy rooted them for me in Screven,” said Bennett. “He got sand from the river and when they were ready brought them back.”
That was not the first time her father had helped with plants.
Bennett began nurturing plants and watching the growth and transformation God brings about in them when she was just eight years old. Bennett tended a small 10-foot x 12-foot garden spot her father had set aside for her.
Photo By GREG O’DRISCOLL Genie Bennett’s great-granddaughter, Frances Sports, is the most recent generation to wander among the color of Genie’s garden.
Photo By GREG O’DRISCOLL Gardening since she was eight,Genie Bennett says her gardening secret is some 10-10-10 fertilizer and the transformative power of God.
SPECIAL PHOTO A bend of buttery yellow day lilies soaks up the sun at the Bennett farm in Offerman.
SPECIAL PHOTO For a month or so, Genie Bennett’s beloved azaleas burst forth in a riot of coral and hot pink blooms.
There, she began her green thumb with zinnias, marigolds and sweet peas. To this day, sweet peas remain a favorite vegetable of hers. Bennett also still maintains that early industriousness a good garden requires.
“I do something in it every day,” she said.
Nor does she lack for helpers if she needs them. Bennett’s constant companion is Lottie, a miniature Schnauzer who enjoys ambling among the greenery almost as much as her owner.
Then there is Ash, a black tomcat who showed up one day. Bennett has consented to feed him and Lettie seems to tolerate the new addition.
Finally, there is Bennett’s great-granddaughter, Frances Sports, to whom she is passing on some of those early lessons of care and God’s abundance both in her backyard garden and at a family farm off Scenic Road. That’s where she tends to her day lilies and mock orange plants.
The sounds of vehicles passing on Main Street seem somehow father away when surrounded by the tranquility of Bennett’s garden, a soothing oasis of form and color that briefly blazes brighter with the blooming of her beloved azaleas.
