Hand-Me-Downs

Hand-Me-Downs

My husband makes fun of me sometimes when we are out looking at plants at a garden center. I'll say something like... "oh look a (fill in the blank with about any flower). That's one of my favorites!" Its true, I have a lot of "favorite" flowers, but I hold several flowers in my garden near and dear to my heart. Those are my hand-me-downs.

I come from a family of gardeners and, as most gardeners do, we share our love of gardening by sharing our flowers with one another. I call these my hand-me-down flowers.

Growing up, hand-me-downs took on a whole different meaning. I am the youngest and got the hand-me-down clothing not only from my older sister, but also from my older twin boy cousins! Talk about an identity crisis!

Now the term hand-me-down, when it comes to gardening, gives me the warm fuzzies. My mom and my sister have contributed several plants to my gardens. The picture below is of a daylily given to my daughter by my sister. When my daughter has a place of her own, she will take a start with her. This particular lily is over 15 years old and has lived is a couple of different states. 

The white iris is the most elegant of the hand-me-down flowers that I have. I haven't had the best of luck with iris in the past. They would get the nasty iris borer and my poor iris rhizomes would turn to mush and die. For the longest time I had given up on the iris, but when my mom offered up some starts, I couldn't resist.

Hand-me-down flowers fill my beds and my heart. When I'm in my gardens, I see the plant markers with their names and the plant's name, and I'm reminded of the people in my life that have filled my heart with love and joy. With my plant markers, the history of my garden is passed on to my family along with the plants. 

 

(Original posting date 5-18-2020)

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