My friend Adrian once arrived at my door with pots of bluebells, a gift of bulbs dug from his garden. “I’m afraid there might be a few ‘strays’ in there too; I couldn’t separate them,” he said, handing me three rammed pots of Hyacinthoides non-scripta, the native English variety, with sky-blue bells hanging elegantly to one side of the stem.
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Adrian was the person who rescued me when I arrived in London in my early twenties, something of a lost soul. I stayed in his spare room until I could find a place of my own, and he remained one of my dearest friends.
I cherish the plants that remind me of much-loved people or places. It adds another layer to the deep pleasure they bring to the garden.
I became rather fond of his old-fashioned garden with its rose arbour, pots of agapanthus and tubs of houseleeks. In spring, the bluebells ran amok at the bottom of his garden and reminded me of my childhood home with its hazel coppice and bluebell wood.
In the 25 years since they were planted, his generous gift of blue flowers has slowly vanished, but the ‘strays’ that arrived among the bulbs have thrived to the point of frustration. Tucked away in his pots, I would later discover, were seedlings of bright-yellow Welsh poppies, Papaver cambricum, whose delicate, paper-thin petals are charming in the right place – but my garden is not that place. Their fragile canary-yellow flowers come up in profusion each spring, looking oddly out of place among the green-and-white woodland- style planting. They spread like wildfire.
Now here’s the rub: I cannot get rid of them. Not that I am beyond a bit of robust weeding – it’s because of the memories those pesky yellow poppies hold. Unbeknown to me at the time, Adrian was at the start of a long illness from which he would never recover. When he died, those bluebells, and their unwanted yellow stowaways, came to mean more me to than almost any other plant in the garden. To pull them up and throw them on the compost heap is, even now, unthinkable. Those little flowers are completely entwined with memories of our friendship, and his kindness.
I cherish the plants that remind me of much-loved people or places. It adds another layer to the deep pleasure they bring to the garden. They include the little Malus domestica ‘Discovery’ apple tree that will forever be linked to the happiest years of my childhood, with the blossom I waited for each spring as eagerly as its early, pink-flushed fruits. The deep-purple violets whose scent takes me instantly back to the walk to school. The dancing heads of the pale aquilegias so adored by my mother.
There are many reasons we choose to grow certain plants, and I see no reason why pure nostalgia or an association with a loved one shouldn’t be one of them, but sometimes the decision is made for us.
I could walk around the garden ticking off the plants that hold good memories, planted especially because their perfume takes me elsewhere, like the jasmine that carries me so effortlessly back to sultry evenings spent in Kerala.
The azaleas on my roof terrace remind me of spring trips to Japan, and large-trumpeted daffodils of a long illuminating spring spent in the Lake District, deeply in love. These plants are admired for themselves, but, if I am honest, are grown as much for their associations with places I would rather be than north London.
I grow plants that bring only good vibes to the garden. Anything negative gets short shrift. (My stepmother’s cacti collecting habit is the main reason you’ll will never find a spiky Pilosocereus pachycladus ‘Azureus’ in my house.)
The upside of filling your garden with plants that evoke memories is that they return each year, which is especially delightful when the person whose memory they evoke cannot.
I suspect I probably grew runner beans as much for the happiest of memories, of hiding among their scarlet flowers on a sunny summer’s day, as for their delicious green pods. Likewise, the pots of paperwhites I grow each winter remind me of a dearly loved friend, and cosmos bring back the boundless joy of the first packet of seeds I ever planted. These additions to the garden go way beyond their beauty or usefulness.
There are many reasons we choose to grow certain plants, and I see no reason why pure nostalgia or an association with a loved one shouldn’t be one of them, but sometimes the decision is made for us.
Kind or well-meaning friends bringing plants as gifts is one reason why we may end up nurturing something we had no plan for. How many times have I heard “I can’t get rid of this, because so-and-so gave it to me”. Well, yes, you can, but in most cases you are stuck with it. Perhaps the only good thing about slugs is that we can blame them for chomping up an unwanted present.
The upside of filling your garden with plants that evoke memories is that they return each year, which is especially delightful when the person whose memory they evoke cannot.
The downside is that when that plant fails, as they sometimes do, it feels like a stab to the heart. But when they do bloom, they do so with a reminder of good times and wonderful friends, or much-missed family and loved ones. They give us a moment to stop and remember, to celebrate a friendship, a place or memory. Even, I can assure you, Adrian’s yellow bloody poppies.
