Every Pot Tells A Story

Spring is a time for looking forward, so I have decided to look back.  As I wandered round my little garden today I found every pot I looked at was telling me a story: a story of times past.

This little piece of Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) has grown from a cutting taken from a cutting taken from a Rosemary plant that my late wife Sue bought back in the year 2000 from Fairley's Garden Centre in Cairneyhill Fife.

It started off growing in a pot at our front door in Townhill, then became part of our award winning garden in Dunnikier Road, went with us to the hell that was Sauchenbush, and its genetic clone is just coming into flower in my haven of a back garden now.

The other cutting is a luxuriant cubic metre shrub in the ground and two more cuttings from it have recently rooted and have just been potted up on the kitchen window sill.

A sprig accompanied me to my mum's funeral in 2014.  Yes, this Rosemary is full of memories for me.

Not quite as old this Sedum spurium was growing on the edge of a raised bed at Dunnikier Road back in 2004.  Cuttings from it have been sold at car boot sales and church sales and some went to a good friend in Glasgow.  It has suffered from neglect in the ground and in pots yet has kept on living.

It needs some care now I think, but I am frightened that if I molly cuddle it I might kill it!

This Sedum throws up dilemmas for me.

Trust me, this is the Plantain Lily: Hosta 'Sharmon'.  This was one of three small plants that came to us in our first ever mail order purchase back in 2005.  It was very exciting to get a living plant in the post! One didn't make it, one got left in Sauchenbush and one came with me here in 2012.  I divided it last year and so I have three plants once again.  This is the largest section - honestly.

Hostas like a bit of shade but I think I better remove the Sycamore seeds from the surface of this pot before they germinate.

The Bay Tree (Laurus nobilis) I bought in Spring 2004, and in my diary I wrote that I planned to train it over the next ten years into a beautiful standard specimen.

Ha!  Well it is more of a fan than a lollipop these days.  It has had a varied life in various pots, has sometimes flowered, has sometimes been turning yellow, has sometimes had little beasties curling up the leaves to make nests.  In its early years we would bring it into the kitchen if a storm was forecast as we were told it does not like wind.  This winter, partly because of the narrow bottomed pot and the fan, it has spent a lot of time lying on the ground - seemed safer than continually standing it up just to get blown down again.

One summer when my uncle became obsessed with cauliflower its leaves were quite successful in reducing the stench of boiled brassica around his house.

This year the Bay Tree deserves some love and affection too - and a new pot that won't blow over.

The trough has been around since Townhill too and used to be an alpine gem.  Just now it consists of three plants: grape hyacinth; alpine lady's mantle and a red campion that seems to have decided to take up residence here.

The blue flowered Grape Hyacinth is Muscari azureum.  This is a paler less invasive species than the one commonly found in gardens and was bought by us at the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society Spring Show at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in 2007.  Does that make it Royal Blue?

The little lady's mantle looking very brown at the moment is Alchemilla alpina bought from the Strathkinnes Herbs stall at Kirkcaldy Farmer's Market in April 2008.

It is a gem of a little plant and it was a joy to see it growing wild in Glen Nevis in spring last year - a true alpine.

I know, I know - I need to do something with this trough, but it still doesn't feel like it is really my trough to mess around with - even after over seven years.

Meanwhile, Foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea) and I go back a long way.  My first memory is as a child and dad stopping the car to warn a man who was picking them at the edge of a wood that they were poisonous.  Maybe that should have frightened me but I was just in awe of those majestic plants that towered over me.

Dad still sees them as weeds, while for me they are still one of my favourite flowers.  Amongst the first plants I bought there hasn't been a year since when I haven't raised a good many from seed or delighted in letting them sow themselves around where they will.

And if I am lucky, they can still sometimes be plants that I have to look up to.

I could go on but I won't, for these are my own memories and are probably of very little interest to anyone else.  But just to prove I have not completely given up on the present here are some pictures of the Crocuses in flower in my garden today:

Crocus chrysanthus 'Flower Record'

Then under the Cherry Tree:

Crocus x cultorum 'Pickwick'

Under the Sycamore:

Crocus tommasinianus 'Barr's Purple'

Beside the Yew, Spiraea and Elder:

Crocus chrysanthus - assorted species.

And in a container in a picture determined to stay on its side is a load of yellow Crocus which were given to me a couple of years ago by a rather quirky work colleague and friend:

I haven't posted anything this year until now - mostly because life has been getting in the way of the back garden, which is rather odd as, for me, my back garden is where life is.  Maybe one day I'll get back there, but in the meantime its memories will have to do.