Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 255

It was mother who planted the verbenas.

I think that my grandmother was not an impassioned gardener: she was too indulgent a lover of dogs and grandchildren.

My great-grandmother, I have been told, made her garden her great pride ; ;

she cherished rare and delicate plants like oleanders in tubs and wall-flowers and lemon verbenas in pots that had to be wintered in the cellar ; ;

she filled the waste spots of the yard with common things like the garden heliotrope in a corner by the woodshed, and the plantain lilies along the west side of the house.

These my grandmother left in their places ( they are still there, more persistent and longer-lived than the generations of man ) and planted others like them, that flourished without careful tending.

Three of these only were protected from us by stern commandment: the roses, whose petals might not be collected until they had fallen, to be made into perfume or rose-tea to drink ; ;

the peonies, whose tight sticky buds would be blighted by the laying on of a finger, although they were not apparently harmed by the ants that crawled over them ; ;

and the poppies.

I have more than once sat cross-legged in the grass through a long summer morning and watched without touching while a poppy bud higher than my head slowly but visibly pushed off its cap, unfolded, and shook out like a banner in the sun its flaming vermilion petals.

Other flowers we might gather as we pleased: myrtle and white violets from beneath the lilacs ; ;

the lilacs themselves, that bloomed so prodigally but for the most part beyond our reach ; ;

snowballs ; ;

hollyhock blossoms that, turned upside down, make pink-petticoated ladies ; ;

and the little, dark blue larkspur that scattered its seed everywhere.