Plants Carry Stories

One recent morning I came to my screened porch to pray and looked outside to discover the first iris had opened in the garden. I gasped at the sight of it. A first fruit, standing tall and proud signaling to the world that it had arrived. Plants carry stories.

Not far beyond it, the primrose had started to wither, giving up its spot in the limelight to the neighboring, spreading lavender—a gift I had purchased for my dad shortly before he died. I brought it back home and planted it in his memory.

With the changing of the red bud from purple to green, the peonies make their appearance known in a big way. There is nothing shy about a peony, particularly that of the dinner plate variety.

I spend time contemplating how many of the flowers were given to me by my friend, Cathy. When I would visit, she’d grab a big shovel and dig up whatever I wanted. When she visited, it was often with a bag containing plants and soil. The wild geraniums are subtle and had been growing on her property for years and each spring I ask her to remind me of their name. The irises were given to her by her mother-in-law and now spread across states from Cathy’s home to mine.

The variegated hosta were from my Uncle Sal. He gave me several from his garden in Yorktown Heights, NY and I planted them around my house in northwestern NJ. We moved out of state and left the hosta to adorn the garden we had nurtured. Some time later we heard that the people who bought our home had moved away, leaving it abandoned like Joyce Kilmer’s The House With Nobody In It.

My daughter and I were visiting in the area and drove by our former home. We were sad to see the garden in shambles, the plants we had nourished hidden in weeds. We pulled over, and under a mound of dried leaves I spotted some hosta. Uncle Sal’s hosta. I don’t remember what we used for a shovel—maybe a plastic spoon, but I dug up several of those plants and brought them back to our new home a hundred miles south. They now share the ground here in Delaware and I think of my Uncle Sal when I see them.

Plants have stories to tell.