‘They Make People Smile’ – Panola couple brings joy with flowers

By Ian Sparks

Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, weddings and even funerals are all adorned with flowers. They are there in the best of times and the worst of times.

For Lenny and Sandra Baronowski, flowers are there all the time.

The Baronowskis are natives of Sardis, but their journey is anything but linear.

“We’ve known each other since first grade,” Sandra said. “We never dated then. It took 63 years before we finally made our way to each other.”

The house they reside in on Highway 51 halfway between Batesville and Sardis has been in Sandra’s family since 1975.

Her father built it and laid the original sod. But if you were to drive past the Baronowski’s land, you’d find a different view than the original Bermuda grass.

Sandra had been at her father’s house since 2007. She has been planting wildflowers in place of a traditional front yard since she moved back 17 years ago.

“I had been saving articles for years on wildflowers. I started with cosmos at first. They were pretty, but more pastel-colored. That was before I started planting zinnias,” she said.

Zinnias are, as Sandra describes, “much brighter and more vibrant” than the cosmos she started with. The array of colors across the Baronowski’s front yard is something you’d typically see at a flower shop rather than someone’s house.

“I had one lady tell me that it shows the glory of God and how beautiful his creation is,” she said.

The benefits that stem from her yard go beyond the aesthetic, though.

“They are pretty to look at, but what’s really important to me is how they make people feel,” she said. We’ll get people that drive up on the side of the road and stop just to take pictures. They bring their kids and grandkids and we have them pick however many flowers they want.

“They make people smile and that is what is really special to me.”

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