24June2010
What Does Each Plant Represent And What Do I Love?
The next time you are in doubt about a gift for a friend, don’t dally over costume jewelry or some candles from a party you went to. Your friend probably has enough already and has some set aside to “re-gift” to someone else.
Go, instead, to the nearest reliable nursery and buy a plant for his or her garden. It doesn’t need to be large, or even momentarily in bloom, though if it is so much the better; but see to it that it is rare enough to bring a real thrill and also that it will last for many years.
The first time I became aware of the wisdom of such a gift was when my friend, May, presented me with a small plant of the lovely white camellia. “For you,” she said, “as well as your garden.” She might easily have spent the same amount on some ordinary gadget to pin on my lapel wear a year or so and then discard. Instead she supplied me with a perfect boutonniere for six successive springs and the bush is only now beginning to hit its stride.
Priscilla gave me a single white azalea, and from that start my two boys, my mother, my in-laws and my husband have added azaleas and rhododendrons as birthday presents each year. I was lucky enough to be born on the first day of May, so I have my own private celebration each year when my birthday plants open their wrappings and exhibit their glory all over again.
Each plant represents someone I love the peach azalea, Katherine; the pink, Dorothy; the yellow deciduous, Mother; the lovely single fragrantissima, my sons; and the deep red Lord Roberts, my husband.
Besides buying plants, you can often divide bulbs or chrysanthemums, or make slips of unusually nice pelargoniums or fuchsias. Whatever you have that is flue, and which is especially yours, can make a much desired gift for some friend.
Christmas, 2008, brought me my long planned for rose garden. Mary Beth was responsible for 4 or 5 plants and my husband supplied the rest, some of which are Mine. Twenty plants in all, with promise of joy for years to come.
This year as I walk round my garden, I pause often to remember, too, that I got my start for the fragrant border of yellow daffodils from my father’s garden, the chrysanthemums from Anne, the dahlias from Kathleen, the dwarf cherry from Alice and the daphne from Katherine. Friendship is close about me and the beauty of each flower is thus increased.
This subject and hundreds more can be found at plant-care.com: