Childhood garden
Though born in Oklahoma City, where the eastern U.S. mingles with the West, I grew up in the Deep South of upstate South Carolina. Alternately romanticized or gothicized, this region evokes images of live oaks draped in Spanish moss, fragrant camellias, colorful azaleas, and sandy, piney woods. Many of the romantic, quintessentially Southern plants are imports from Japan or China, but nevertheless they rekindle childhood memories whenever I see or smell them.
Summer was white Queen Anne’s lace along rural highways; orange tiger lilies growing wild in the Smoky Mountains; pine trees with blocks of bark you could pick off and chew, and sticky sap that got all over your hands and feet when you climbed high for a view; yellow-and-white honeysuckle flowers you pulled apart, your tongue stuck out for the drop of nectar; and the low, spreading branches of Southern magnolias, good for hiding under, the broad, glossy leaves concealing your hiding spot, the huge, creamy-white, fragrant flowers making it time well spent.
Fall was reddening pyracantha berries, good for throwing at one’s sister but watch out for those thorns; blazing orange and red leaves accumulating in drifts, begging to be kicked in the air or jumped into; and pine and fir cones that pricked your bare feet if you didn’t watch your step, but also were fun to collect in piles, I can’t remember what for.
Winter was sasanqua camellias, a towering, evergreen row along the back fence, with dark-pink and white blossoms we’d pick, place on magnolia leaves, and set sail in the shallow water on the swimming-pool cover; green pine needles above and slippery, brown needles underfoot; and the bare branches of oaks and maples.
Spring was pink cherry blossoms on weeping branches outside my bedroom window, sometimes covered with snow from a surprise, early-spring snowfall; fuchsia, freckled, azalea blossoms shaped like bells; blazing yellow forsythia; fresh green leaves budding on trees; and worm-like oak pollen catkins littering the ground.
Now that I have children of my own, I wonder what plants will trigger their strongest childhood memories when they are grown, living perhaps far away and gardening with plants unfamiliar to them from their youth, as I do now. Perhaps coral honeysuckle, which they pull apart for nectar as I once did. Immature green plums plucked from the Mexican plum tree, good for tempting fairies with. Grassy stems of bamboo muhly with which to tickle someone’s toes. Silvery, feathery artemesia, crushed between small fingers for the wonderful smell. Sharp spines of agaves that’ll puncture an inflatable ball if you’re not careful.
I’ve been gardening here in Austin for 13 years, time enough to adjust my idea of when spring arrives and what it looks like. Hot spring colors and spiny “leaves” are normal to me now. My garden, like Austin, mixes west with east, leaning perhaps more heavily on the West. Old roses nod over spiny prickly pear pads. Irises mingle with native perennials like zexmenia and damianita. Old South star jasmine (aka Confederate jasmine) twines up my vine gate next to Mexican gallinita. It works for me.
Spring color in my Texas garden: gold zexmenia, purple iris, and red Texas betony
More of the same
New pads budding on spineless prickly pear, with agarita leaves in the foreground
Red pomegranate flower buds
The vine gate with star jasmine blooming on the right, gallinita growing on the left side. Texas betony sprawls in the foreground, ‘Blue Elf’ aloe in the blue pot has just finished flowering, and ‘Valentine’ rose blooms in front of a huge African iris.
Spring twilight
Oh my, did that take me back to another place and time! What a way of writing you possess! june
The colours in your garden are exotic and beautiful! As I read your post and gazed at your pictures, I thought to myself that I would be overwhelmed with the selection of available plants, vines and shrubs. It would be most enjoyable however.
I loved the tour – beautiful photographs and wonderful memories. It is interesting to think about what our children will take away from our gardens and surroundings. I remember picking raspberries and shelling endless peas and loving that my mum was busy in the garden and wasn’t paying attention to my lack of piano practice because I was too engrossed in a book.
Thanks for commenting, Kate, and sharing a little of your own childhood garden memories. —Pam
Beautiful photos and writting Pam Good luck
Thank you, June! How nice to have a visit from my earliest employer. I appreciate your stopping by. —Pam
Oh mama June.
They just love it when we kids have fond memories. It makes up for the teenage years when we tortured them, at least in my case.
That is the same landscape I grew up in in North Florida. I swear I miss the tall trees so much. I look forward to living underneath trees again.
Christopher, you’ve got her pegged. 😉
I’m a little envious that you will soon be living in that southeastern landscape again, which is so beautiful. Of course, so is Hawaii, but one’s childhood landscape does exert a certain pull on one’s imagination, doesn’t it? —Pam
Pam… thanks for sharing your memories of your childhood garden. All of us garden bloggers should do the same. My childhood garden is just 15 minutes away, so I haven’t gone far. My youngest sister actually now owns it. It is interesting to see what she has done with it, compared to what my Dad planted.
Carol at May Dreams Gardens
Carol, do certain plants still trigger strong childhood memories when you garden with them every day? —Pam
What a beautiful post, Pam – and it’s fun to see the differences between the place you grew up and where your children grow up. I knew South Carolina as a young adult, not a child, but never got over wanting Magnolias.
Here in Austin you’ve created a world where your children can make wonderful memories, a place there you have woven flowers, fruit, bird plants, butterfly & hummingbird plants, lawn, grasses, trees, shrubs, vines, nooks, paths, pools of water and more them into a garden that’s a place to ‘be’. What a contrast to kids growing up with a mowed, perfect lawn, clipped shrubs and a tree or two.
Annie
Thanks, Annie. I do hope that the garden will help them grow up with a love of plants and the earth. More than anything I wish kids today had the freedom to explore woods and fields on their own, as I did, spending hours not just in their neighborhood but even a mile or more afield in rural spaces. That kind of freedom is almost unheard of today, as we move into cities and “protect” our kids by scheduling playdates and soccer games, but it provided the formative experiences of my youth.
Pam, you asked an interesting question…”Do certain plants still trigger strong childhood memories when you garden with them every day?” I’ll have to think about that and write a post about it when I have some more time.
I find it fascinating that we live only a few miles away from each other and yet the colors in our gardens are so different. I grew up on Air Force bases. We never had a house we stayed in more than two years and the yards weren’t ours to plant or maintain. Most of my childhood memories of the outdoors are of shorn grass and white-painted rocks. Well, I do remember the poinsetta trees in our front yard in the Philippines, and terraced vegetable gardens in Okinawa.
My son grew up in apartments and has remained a very indoors person. But AJM’s son always visits us for spring break when the bluebonnets and larkspur are blooming. One of those early years he planted a Confederate jasmine. Even though he’s a video-gaming teenager now, one of the first thing he did this week when he arrived was wander all over the garden among the larkspur, visit his jasmine, and say, “Wow!”
That’s the mark of a future gardener!
If your childhood garden memories are of shorn grass and painted rocks, you must have just been itching for a little dirt of your own. You’ve come a long way, baby. —Pam
That was a beautiful post – like visiting someone else’s dream. We traveled a lot when I was a child, and my family garden memories are from much later, when as a young adult i went to live with my parents in a country house they had purchased. Some of my father’s favorite flowers were morning glories, four o’clocks, nicotiana, plumbago and petunias, so those plants always make me nostalgic.
Thanks for sharing your “memory” plants too. —Pam
I love this post. The first photo actually tookme back to MY childhood-as it reminded me of the new dawn roses that grew on the front fence.