Helen and Jerry Unruh live in Odessa, Delaware, where they have created a garden oasis. If you ever find yourself there in the spring—April, maybe into May—and you happen to drive past this one property with a kind of low, effortless explosion of color bleeding out onto the edges of the road, odds are you’ve just passed their yard. There’s nothing showy about it, not exactly, but you can’t miss it. The whole place is just full—like, physically stuffed—with azaleas. Not a few dozen or even a few hundred. They’ve got over 1,700 of them. And it wasn’t some overnight landscaping binge. This is the slow, wandering kind of project that took more than 40 years and probably at least that many planting sprees Jerry didn’t tell Helen about right away.
It started before the flowers. Well, before all the flowers. Back in the early days, when Jerry and Helen were doing the long-distance thing, he used to send her roses. One a day. For two years. That’s… a lot of roses. At some point, probably when it started to feel less like flirtation and more like a kind of rhythm, he slipped in a card asking her to marry him. That was in 1975. And if you’re the type who wonders whether grand gestures ever lead to real longevity—here you go. Forty-plus years later, they’re still there, still tending that same yard together, still trying to keep the weeds at bay.
The azaleas, though. That’s the real centerpiece. And yeah, it sounds like something out of a gardening magazine, but the thing is, neither of them set out to make a tourist attraction or anything. It just sort of… grew. Jerry, who had already been bitten by the azalea bug before they even got married (he had about 85 bushes already at that point), found in Helen someone who didn’t just tolerate the obsession but genuinely leaned into it. When she moved in, she looked around and asked—kind of casually, she says—if maybe they could get more. Jerry, apparently, didn’t need much convincing. That question turned into years of planting. They lined them along the foundation of the house, tucked them under trees they planted themselves, ran them down the hedgerow, even traced the fence line. Anywhere the sun hit just right.
Digging In, Literally and Otherwise
Now, Jerry owned a well-drilling business, so he was always going from one property to another. And it turns out, that’s actually a weirdly good way to hunt down azaleas. He’d notice a bush in someone’s yard, make a comment, sometimes strike a little deal. A few bucks here, ten dollars there. Some of the bushes were already massive when he got them—he remembers one in particular that stood six feet wide. They weren’t high-end nursery specimens or anything. Just what he came across. And then, in his off-hours, he’d drive out to local nurseries, sometimes just to look, but usually not leaving empty-handed.
Every time he came home with another azalea, Helen would light up. And she didn’t just watch from the porch either. She helped him dig, water, prune. Neither of them was aiming for a number back then. But at some point, they must’ve looked around and realized the scale of what they’d done. 1,700 azaleas. That’s not just a yard anymore. That’s a living memory bank with roots. Literally.
Spring Turns the Volume Up
So, come spring—late April into early May—the whole place just… wakes up. All at once. It’s like someone flipped on the lights. Reds, purples, whites, pinks, and all those in-between shades that probably have names but don’t need them. Jerry’s a sucker for the red ones. Helen says she loves them all and doesn’t even try to pick a favorite. Which is fair. After a certain point, the beauty becomes more about the mass of it—the way the colors layer over each other like a half-forgotten painting.
And people notice. Like, a lot of people. Over the years, the garden sort of quietly became a local thing. During peak bloom, it’s not unusual for lines of cars to form on U.S. 13, slowing down to get a look. Some folks stop in. Jerry says he kind of regrets never putting out a guestbook because some of the same people return every year, like it’s part of their spring circuit or something. It’s hard not to smile at the thought—this unassuming garden out in Delaware becoming a tiny seasonal tradition for total strangers.
Slower Days, But Still Showing Up
Now, Jerry’s 97. Helen’s 86. You’d think they’d have eased off, right? But no, not really. I mean, yeah, the pace is different. They’re not exactly out there digging holes in 90-degree heat anymore. But the thing is, the garden kind of takes care of itself now. Or at least that’s how they talk about it. The older azaleas are so established they barely need anything. Some of them have grown tall enough to peek over the rooftop. They’ve gotten sturdy, like the people who planted them. Less needy. More about presence than fuss.
Helen says something about how the flowers take care of her now, not the other way around. She watches them bloom every spring and feels… what? Gratitude, maybe. Or continuity. Or just a kind of quiet awe that something so soft and temporary could also be this steady. The way the garden lives now—it’s not about tending. It’s about witnessing. You show up and let it wash over you. That’s enough.
And honestly, that might be the point of all of this. Or not. Who knows. Maybe it was never about the flowers. Maybe it was about having something to share that kept changing but also kept coming back. Or maybe it really was just about the flowers.
Still, It’s Not Just About the Garden
You can’t really tie a bow on a story like this. It doesn’t land neatly. It just keeps going in the background, like the slow work of roots. And while the flowers bloom and fade and bloom again, Jerry and Helen are still there—maybe not planting quite as many, but still walking the yard, still checking the corners, still looking for color.
And hey, if you liked that, there’s this other couple who built a little house beside their kids to stay close to the grandkids. Different shape of love, same kind of echo.
