flowers
Dear Ciara,
Mondays are often quite uneventful for me. I go to work, teach a couple of classes, and then attend a PT session at the gym in the afternoon. So instead, let me fill today’s letter with something else: flowers. Originally, I had planned to list some of my favourites for you, but it was surprisingly hard to whittle them down into a succinct list. Plus, I’ll be honest, I’m known for being quite fickle with my favourites—I would likely have changed my mind by the time I finished writing. Instead, I am going to share some flowers that are important to me. Flowers that remind me of other things in my life. I hope they bring you some joy.
Freesias
Of course, I have to start with freesias. They’re your flower, after all. Every time I think of them, I am reminded of you. Particularly a younger you, when your hair was longer, and you were still figuring out who you were as a person. I have all these memories of you sitting in that random person’s front yard amongst the multicoloured freesias, scribbling poems into your notebook. All those different colours! You waited for me there every morning so we could walk to school together.
Growing up in Australia, our seasons weren’t always super distinct, but the bursting blooms of freesias always signified the arrival of spring. I still sometimes find myself looking for them now, even though they don’t grow here in the scorching heat of Tropical Queensland. I also recently learnt they grow from corms. I wonder who planted those first corms in that front garden? It wasn’t you, was it?
Coreopsis
Just like freesias were your flower, coreopsis were mine. And just like freesias signified spring, coreopsis signified the arrival of summer. Do you remember them? They are those small, weedy shrubs that throw gorgeous yellow flowers at the end of long stems. They grow mainly in sandy soils, like those of the fire trail behind my childhood home, and I often see them today growing on the side of the road. Apparently, Americans call them tickweed, but I can’t remember what we called them. All I know is that despite being beautiful, they are quite a noxious weed.
Kate Llewellyn writes about them in one of her diaries. She says, “I am in love with a weed. Its name is calliopsis (another name for some coreopsis species).” Same, Kate. Same.
Sunflowers
Keeping in the vein of summer flowers, I have a love for sunflowers. I thoroughly enjoy growing them. I’d say my love for sunflowers emerged during my childhood. When I was young, we had a large birdfeeder that hung from the balcony. Many birds would frequent it, but the largest visitors were a particular flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos. They came exclusively for the sunflower seeds, but were big and clumsy, often knocking half the seeds to the ground. These would end up spouting, which resulted in an endless supply of sunflowers in my childhood garden.
Here are some sunflowers I am growing right now. They have a deep red centre that then spills out along the petals and transitions into that standard golden-colour sunflowers are known for.
Wax Begonias
I was enamoured with my Pop’s garden growing up. He seemed to always be doing something new: mounting bush orchids to the trunks of tree ferns; repotting his enormous grass tree; or planting pumpkins every autumn that would vine along the fence. But the real star of his garden was his greenhouse.
It was in this greenhouse that I first discovered wax begonias. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are a shade-loving begonia with waxy leaves and delicate pink and white flowers. While my Pop originally grew them in pots, they ended up spreading like wildfire throughout his garden. They first escapees rooted in cracks in the greenhouse floor. They then began to pop up in the rock ledge next to the greenhouse. Finally, they spread down the rock ledge to the dusty area around the base of the hills-hoist. How they managed to spread so successfully, I don’t know.
Carruthers’ Falseface
I only recently discovered these flowers, but they have come to represent this tropical phase in my life. Originally from the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, they are a common shrub grown in my area, including quite a tall one in my backyard. The one in my garden recently flowered after a heavy prune—these delicate white flowers freckled with pink polka dots. I arranged some of them for my table, as I was absolutely obsessed with the colour. I’ve heard there are other varieties that I will have to keep an eye out for.
Other honourable mentions include literally anything in the Proteaceae family. They always take me back to my childhood in temperate NSW, walking with my Dad through the nature reserve behind our house. And, of course, daffodils! They always remind me of visiting my Nan’s house in the south of Wales. Tell me, Ciara, what are some flowers that mean something to you?
The song for the day is:
allting vil rinna ut i sand — ionnalee
This song, and the rest of her BLUND album, kept me company during my breaks today.
Love,
The Gardener