Fw: Childhood plant memories

> >>Oh, and we had naked ladies in our garden, too. Who didn't?!
>
> Not in Chicago.
> I don't have the kinds of garden memories you folks do.  We didn't garden
> and there were only 3 people on the street that I can recall did.  Except,
> of course, my grandmother did have a small garden of mint and moss rose.
If
> I came near it she'd yell at me to get away from it.  As a toddler I
picked
> all the tulips that came up in Mrs. Critchett's border one day and gave
them
> to my mom.  Then down the street there was a bad-humoured woman who fenced
> in her front yard. It may have been filled with roses, I don't know, you
> couldn't get near enough to it without her yelling at you and spraying you
> hard with the hose.
>
> Further down the block was what I believe was the first house in the area.
> All our houses were old, even then in the 50s, but this house looked like
it
> may have been a farmhouse a long time back and they kept an area about 3
or
> 4 lots wide before selling the rest off to be developed.  Sweetie the Goat
> Lady lived there.  You never saw her except one Saturday in summer when
the
> huge old cherry trees were ripe.  Then the whole neighborhood went over
> there.  The men with their ladders and the kids bagging up everything
their
> dad's dropped.  You picked a bag for Sweetie and one for yourself.  This
was
> always a Saturday and invariably Mom would call me home for my bath just
> when the pickin was gettin good.
>
> We did have a border of Bridle Wreath which we thought meant Bridal
Wreath,
> so we made wreaths for our hair and had weddings, w/out grooms of course
cuz
> the boys weren't into that.  The only edible thing I can remember besides
> those cherries were alley berries - mulberries.  These were weeds that
came
> up along the alley.  Really tasty.
>
> We never had a houseplant.  My dad or sister mowed.  When we moved to
> Indiana, for awhile my job was trimming the hedges.  But that made my arms
> shake afterwards and my mom insisted I couldn't do it any more.  I thought
> the tremors were kinda cool.  I did ask my dad once if I could try some
> seeds I got at school.  He removed a one sq ft patch of grass and said
have
> at it.  Nothing happened.  I began gardening when I was 38 and have
> continued extensively ever since.  My sisters think I am out of my mind.
>
> A note: I originally accidentally sent this just to Cheryl.  She commented
that Spiraea x vanhouttei is indeed BRIDAL Wreath.  I checked RHS and they
agree.  But when I first started gardening, since it was one of the few
items I was familiar with, I looked it up.  Whatever reference I used
explained that, in the horse and buggy age, driver's decorated the horses'
bridles with the flexible stems of this shrub, thus BRIDLE Wreath.  Works
either way, except that I am sure no bride wants to wear the same wreath of
flowers as the horse in whose carriage she is riding.

> Kitty
> neIN Z5
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <cheryl@wr-architect.com>
> To: "'Medit-Plants'" <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 9:46 PM
> Subject: RE: Childhood plant memories
>
>
> Heh...a friend of mine did that once with our olives! She was Chief
> Grape-In-The-Face for days.
>
> This is a great thread! I remember running around the yard arguing with my
> Iowan cousins about the correct pronunciation of apricot (while said juice
> ran down our chins). The smooth climbable limbs of the giant fig tree and
> the much less climbable pepper tree (Schinus molle) with its rough bark
and
> sticky sap. The hideout under the weeping limbs of a bottlebrush
> (Callistemon). The artichoke that never produced tasty artichokes, but had
> lovely flowers. In kindergarten, we made wreaths covered in deodar cedar
> cone rosettes.
>
> Oh, and we had naked ladies in our garden, too. Who didn't?! We also had
oak
> root fungus that killed the apricot trees and seedlings and sprouts from
the
> neighbor's Ailanthus trees (ugh!!!).
>
> Thanks for stirring up the memories!
> Cheryl
> (born and raised and still living in the San Francisco bay area)
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
> > [o*@ucdavis.edu] On Behalf Of N Sterman
> > Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2005 8:24 PM
> > To: medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
> > Subject: Re: Childhood plant memories
> >
> >
> > Hi Jan,
> >
> > I remember being a very small child - four or younger - and painting
> > my face and my brothers' face with squished berries of the Eugenia.
> > They made a really great raspberry colored "paint" that
> > stayed for days.
> >
> > We also piled the berries into pie tins and pretended they were pie.
> >
> > Hadn't thought about that in years...
> >
> > N
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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