A childhood through plants

My creative writing class today began with the following prompt: list fifteen plants from your childhood; why are they memorable?

Call me crazy, but I enjoyed this exercise.

1. Elephant ear hosta. I'm not sure if that's the technical name for them, but they're big and leafy and Momma used to plant a zillion of them in her "river garden" i.e. the garden I so christened as we spent a weekend one spring many suns ago adjusting the landscaping in our front yard and the result was a winding sort of garden that resembles a river.

2. Black eyed susan. In the back corner of my Godmother's backyard, which happens to border my own, there is a huge chunk of garden devoted solely to these cheerful yellow flowers with their black eyes. To be fair, there's brown ones too. Those are called brown eyed susans.

3. Marigolds. When I was a little tyke in Girl Scouts, my troop decorated terra-cotta pots for Mother's Day and planted marigolds in them. Mine died within a week. I was interested to learn not many years later in Spanish class that marigolds are associated with death in the Mexican culture, they make wreaths of the pungent orange things and decorate ofrendas for dia de los muertos i.e. altars to deceased family members for their holiday the Day of the Dead, which is around the same time as Halloween but an entirely different concept.

4. Mums. These are my Mum's (pun intended) favorite flowering bush and another candidate in the river garden. She buys them by the cartload in the late Summer/early Fall. The whites, yellows, and ruddy orange-reds remind me of harvest time.

5. Blackberry bush. These used to grow in abundance in the woods behind my old house outside Seattle. There was a little path we'd take through those woods to get to the shore. Along the way there and back, we'd collect stains on our hands and faces from eating the blackberries. Momma always said she'd make a pie with those berries, but they never made it home to occupy a pie in the first place.

6. Raspberry bush. My maternal grandfather, Grandpa L, loves his gardening. He especially loves his raspberry bushes, which grow in huge clumps behind his garage. I used to take great care in sneaking out there to munch on the berries when we'd come around for a visit (shh, don't tell him that).

7. Bradford pear tree. This flowering beauty used to stand in our front yard, right in front of my bedroom window. Every spring, the dainty pink and white blossoms would almost completely obscure my view of the street. They also added a light perfume to the air in late spring. I was standing in my room during a particularly strong thunderstorm one late afternoon. There was a massive crack, like a gunshot, and nearly half the tree fell over into the yard. We weren't able to salvage the old thing and it was subsequently cut down. The new cherry tree we replaced it with still looks scrawny in comparison all these years later.

8. Easter lily. My church sponsors Easter lilies each year. We always purchased two of them- one in memory of Aunt D and the other in memory of Grandma P.

9. Poinsettia. I'm not sure if this one counts because my memory is actually of an obviously fake-looking poinsettia bush we drag out every year at Christmas to add that "touch" to the house without poisoning our plant munching cats. Goofballs.

10. Peonies. These were my first plant, if you can have one, and they grew outside my window for many years. The pair have since been relegated to a plot in the backyard, which they've taken to nicely.

11. Frasier fir tree. Every year, my folks and Tapeworm and me sell Christmas trees. These puppies are my favorite to sell because A) they're beautiful and B) they have nice soft needles which are kind on the hands of tree lot workers.

12. Black hills spruce tree. And this one is my least favorite tree to sell at the lot. While these bad boys are a lovely deep shade of green, much darker than Frasiers, BHPs have unforgiving spiky needles that scratch, scrape, prod, and poke whoever is unfortunate enough to have need to move one. Snarl.

13. Fuzzy lamb's ear. Another plant I'm in serious doubt regarding the technical name for. No matter, these little plants have a misty grey-green color and are silky smooth. True to the name, they're fuzzy and I like cuddling these little guys. Don't judge me. They also grow like fertilized kudzu and as such there's quite a population of this plant in Momma's corner garden.

14. Azalea. I helped pick one of these dark red plants out once when Momma was in a landscaping kick. The thing died within six months. I always felt like this was my fault. RIP Azalea bush.

15. Catnip. A.k.a. kitty crack. My feisty felines love this stuff. I grow it in excess, which isn't difficult because it spreads like crazy.