Despite the fact that Chickasha resident Jackie Byford is almost constantly tethered to an oxygen tube, nothing keeps her away from her gardening.

In fact, the porch of her white frame house is overflowing with potted plants of an astounding variety, every plant manicured to perfection.

“I can’t just sit inside,” says Byford. “It’d just kill me if I couldn’t go outside, so I work a while then come sit down and get me another wind and then get to it again.”

Other plants fill gardens that wrap around the house, including roses, crepe myrtles, canna lilies, chrysanthemums, rose moss, marigolds and periwinkles - to name a few.

The showpiece, however, is a bright pink-red hibiscus that is covered in flowers as big as dinner plates.

“Oh honey, I’ve loved flowers all my life and Mama was the same way. She could put a stick in the ground and it would grow,” said Byford of her enviable green thumb.

Eager to share whatever she has an abundance of, Byford gives away plants freely being careful to admonish recipients not to thank her.

“That’s a sure way to kill it,” she says, suggesting they say “I appreciate it” instead.

When she finally does have to go inside, Byford is greeted with squawks and whistles from Lucky the parrot and Jo Jo the cockatiel, both of whom are able to speak a few words. When intimidated with a flyswatter, Lucky will even slink down and sit in his food dish like it is a recliner. However, he doesn’t stay long and it is evident he is not as intimidated as it first appears.

Another companion that Byford has had since she was a “little black ball,” is Sugar, a nine-year-old Schnauzer in a pink “diamond” studded collar who stations herself at the front door and keeps an eye on the neighborhood as she gazes through the glass door.

Though Sugar alerts Byford of someone approaching the house, she is becoming hard-of-hearing and has cataracts that limit her vision.

“I don’t think she’d bite a hot biscuit,” Byford laughs. “But she minds better than the kids. She knows when I’m sick and she stays right beside me and lays her head on my leg and every once in a while, she’ll look up at me. I think she senses that I’m sick.”

A long-time smoker who quit a few months ago, Byford suffers from COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“You name it, I’ve got it,” says Byford, who gives little credence to common theories about the effects of cigarette smoking, despite the fact she relies heavily on her oxygen tank.

“Honey, I should have been dead by now if that’s what it (smoking) does to you,” she says.

Byford has one son, Robert “Bobby” Johnson who lives between Chickasha and Cement.

“He’s real good to me, he always comes by to check on me and he always calls me, too,” says Byford, who also has two granddaughters and three great granddaughters. The many photos in her spic-and-span home attest to the closeness of her family.

She also keeps in touch with three sisters who live out of state.

On one visit to her sister in Tennessee, Byford was exhausted from the flight and just wanted to sit and rest - not come into another room as her sister requested. Suddenly, a bedroom door burst open and to Byford’s surprise, out came her other two sisters.

“They came out of there like a drove of horses,” Byford laughed.

Last summer, Byford’s photo appeared in the Express-Star with one of her prize hibiscus flowers and she wasted no time sending each of her sisters a copy. No doubt she will be contacting them all again real soon.