After an absence of three years, lilies finally make a return to the garden.
The last time we saw these sumptuous and deliciously scented flowers was in the old garden. They were in pots on the patio and here in the new garden, they are in pots on the patio. We have Lilium Regale and Lilium Stargazer and their fragrance wafts across the patio and into the garden and it can be smelled in the air. Their pollen continues to stain clothes and noses just as the old ones did.
It’s wonderful not just because of the sweet heady fragrance, but because of the memories it stirs and sense of familiarity it brings. It’s like seeing old friends again after a long time apart.
This goes for many plants in the garden, lupins, delphiniums, ceanothus, roses, alliums, astrantia and so on. Each one has an associated set of happy memories and feelings from discovering them for the first time and growing them successfully in the previous garden.
I’m not trying to copy the old garden into the new, it’s more a case of having my old friends and favourites back, the ones I used to have, miss and want to see again, the ones I had all the fun and excitement of planting and tending to in the previous garden.
There are a whole host of other plants that have sentimental value too, hostas, nerines, crocosmia, currant shrubs and many more are all donations from friends and family.
Subconsciously or otherwise, I will most likely end up with nearly all the plants I had in the previous garden in the current one. They’ll be new plants in a different setting in different borders in different places, but they will still mean the same and still give me that sense of familiarity and comfort that comes from being surrounded by a garden of happy flowering memories.
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