There are Places I Remember

As gardeners,  there are people and places that help to form us, make us who we are.

My earliest green memories include my dad planting pumpkin seeds in a mound of horse manure, my mom's rock garden and her picking lilacs to take to the cemetary, our neighbor, Edna Kluting, who shared a division of Shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia) with me and where I first tasted a sweet carrot pulled fresh from the ground. Percy Colton's vegetable garden where I watched with wonder as potatoes magically appeared as the gardener dug. Wanda Warner's rosa rugosa bush that always smelled soo good. Wonders all for a 5- 10 year old!  In my teens,  Eddie Lee's Garden with its north facing bed of towering delphiniums skirted with tuberous begoinas and  fragrant stock.  Riding with my sister, Dirce, back from Skagway's nearest nursery, (110 miles north in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory) car overloaded with plants.   Filling buckets with  seaweed that had been washed onto the beach by storms with Barbara Kalen and Betsy Albecker, who introduced me to organic gardening.

When I came to Washington from Alaska, the astounding vairety of plants here was overwhelming!  Broad leafed evergreens?  Oh so exotic rhododendrons screaming in a riot of color while it was still winter at home?  Was this the tropics or what?   As my exploration of this awesome plant pallet expanded and Anne Lovejoy's books were read and re-read I found a magical place called Jungle Fever   where I got my first musa basjoo. You mean you can grow bananas here? And palms?  Wow!  Then came my discovery, through Stephanie Feeney's Book The Northwest Gardener's Resource Directory, of Heronswood (Shade gardening is way cool and there are more plants that can thrive here than I ever imagined.)  Just a couple of years ago, I found a blog called Danger Garden and last fall, as a surprise for a milestone birthday, I got to meet its creator and see her outstanding garden.  I've always loved succulents but cacti and agaves; too prickly, too sharp, too dangerous.  Viewing Loree's creative use of these plants and watching her gift to me of an opuntia paddle and some agave pups thrive began a new chapter of appreciation.

Yes, I'm a plantaholic and revel in the latest introduction but in my garden and in my heart there will always be places for more common treasures.   My little clumps of shooting stars, so small and sweet bloom unnoticed by most everyone but me and, I'd like to think, Edna Kluting. When I smell fragrant stock or admire a tuberous begonia's voluptuous blooms, Eddie Lee's voice whispers to me. The fragrance of rose or lilac brings Mom and Wanda back to life. My father's hand guides mine as I push the seed of something as common as a pumpkin into soil.  I brush the foliage of tagetes 'lemon gem' and I'm twenty again, riding in a plant-filled car with Dirce.  When I spray fish emulsion or shovel manure onto my living soil, Betsy and Barbara work invisibly by my side.  Musa Basjoo unfurls a new leaf and my heart sings with the joy of discovery.  Podophyllum pokes a spring umbrella up from the floor of my shade garden and, for just a moment, I'm in the cathedral of Douglas firs that was Heronswood.  Out on a sunny path  I've a large group of pots filled with various succulents, agaves, and cacti which I call the danger gardenette.

Our gardens are ever evolving, looking forward but deeply rooted in memory. 

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

 -Shelley

There are places I remember all my life,
though some have changed;
Some forever not for better.
Some have gone and some remain.

All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living.
In my life I've loved them all.

- Lennon & McCartney