'Very occasional' I reflect, as I re-read the blurb about this blog, and see the date of my last post. But if you refer to some of my other blogs, you can see I have been active on other themes too - though some overlap and inter-relate, as any good living should.
In any case, this blog fits clearly in this space, stemming from my latest foray into 'my space' - the 600 square metres (or thereabouts) around our railway cottage in Moera.
My theme of remembering through plants began consciously at first: three trees for each of our daughters planted on our property, then other plants would acquire a significance or start reminding me of people, places or events.
The oldest tree is a Japanese maple, given to us in Taranaki where our youngest daughter spent the first 2½ years of her life. In its first home in a plant pot, we buried our daughter's umbilical cord stump with it - the maple tree was 'her tree' as we carried it round eight other houses before making a home in Moera - and finally planting the tree in a permanent place.
In any case, this blog fits clearly in this space, stemming from my latest foray into 'my space' - the 600 square metres (or thereabouts) around our railway cottage in Moera.
My theme of remembering through plants began consciously at first: three trees for each of our daughters planted on our property, then other plants would acquire a significance or start reminding me of people, places or events.
The oldest tree is a Japanese maple, given to us in Taranaki where our youngest daughter spent the first 2½ years of her life. In its first home in a plant pot, we buried our daughter's umbilical cord stump with it - the maple tree was 'her tree' as we carried it round eight other houses before making a home in Moera - and finally planting the tree in a permanent place.
The second tree is a kowhai, rescued as a seedling from the retreat centre (our home and workplace) where my wife carried our second daughter for the first six months of her life. It is a solid tree now, standing in the middle of the fenceline along the roadside.
The third tree is a ngaio, simply transplanted from elsewhere on the property, where our youngest child was born. It is the only one to have our daughter's full placenta buried with it - a Maori practice which we have made our own, for reasons I can't quite specify: it just seemed a good idea.
So each of these trees, in more ways than one, has a connection with the place of 'early origins' of each of our children - and each of them is special.
In a secluded corner of our front garden, we have also planted a fern for each of our daughters. They come from Karaveer - a 5-hectare Northland property that was home to my parents for 35 years, and where we always went to as family each Christmas/New Year holidays. It has since passed out of family hands, but the one hectare or so of bush still bears my father's name as land under QEII covenant. The ferns came from that bush, along with a few other plants, so that part of Karaveer would always grow with us.
Many years earlier, two young macadamia nut trees also came from Karaveer. Each about a foot high then, they now stand about two metres high. They're not producing nuts - I wonder if they ever will. I thought at the time, 'Perhaps with global warming ...', not that I wanted to see that.
At the back, where the more productive garden is, I have an apple tree bought with a garden voucher that friends gave me in honour of my father, who died four years ago. I had always wanted an apple tree here, yet took me 12 years before I got one. The first year, it produced seven apples, and this year 20. Promising. We plan to espalier it against the fence as it grows.
About a year ago, I bought a mandarin tree that grow further down the back, near the compost bin and the gateway to the riverbank. The mandarin reminds me of my mother's father - in his backyard, we as children would always pick off mandarins and toss the peels into the compost. Even now, eating a mandarin reminds me of him - and mown grass on the compost.
There are other plants around that now serve as reminders - cape gooseberry reminds my wife of her grandmother, the scent of alyssum conjures up sweet fragrances of my grandmother's garden, and Jerusalem artichokes bring back the taste of her winter meals.
