RE: Plant Memories

My mother was a gardener so my earliest memories come from her garden and the ones we planted as children. The smell(s) of bearded iris and tulips are big on the list, as well as the concord grapes, black raspberries, gooseberries and red currants my father's aunt grew in her huge garden in Iowa. later on, my all time favorite flower became "heavenly blue" morning glories. It's still up there; I was so disappointed when I found it wouldn't grow in Seattle. Now that I am in hot humid Istanbul, I can't have a garden, but I can grow the morning glories on my balcony here, and that makes up for it. What makes the memories even nicer are the "reunions" with those plants years later.

Many of my memories come from travels. We traveled to the northwest a lot, where we ate Oregon grapes (hey, we weren't so picky) and thimbleberries; it's also where I smelled sagebrush for the first time. Later I returned there as an adult after not being there for at least 20 years, and the aroma and taste of those fruits were like a flashback. Even moreso was the time my friend and I drove over the Cascade crest and I picked a sprig of sagebrush -- I was instantly transported back to Idaho in the mid 60s!

A big turning point in my life was when I went to Greece for the first time, as a high school student in 1975. One of the things that made a big impression on me there was Eryngium creticum, stands of which which seemed to glow blue among the dry grass of summer. It was mysterious, unearthly to me, something out of a science-fiction novel. Who ever heard of a plant that was entirely steel blue? The fact that brilliant red poppies grew wild there was amazing to me; and the first easter I spent there in 1976, I couldn't take my eyes off of them.

Many years later, in the early 90s, I got seed for that poppy, an intensely red variety of P. rhoeas, and grew it in my garden. I'll never forget the day the first blood-red flower opened. It was as if I was on the side of Lykavitos hill. Don't know if I'll wax quite so emotional about the smell of Biarum tenuifolium if I smell it again...:)...but I'll be glad to see it nontheless.

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