For me, it's the whites that point forward to the summertime (an association with lillies, I guess): anemone blanda, spring jasmine, and dicentra alba, with its graceful arch of white hearts. And lily of the valley, scented, each flower perfectly rounded, delicately unfurled; symbolising sweetness and a return to happiness. Scrumptious.
This lily of the valley is from one of the gardens in The Cloisters museum; their blog over here is a lovely blend of gardening and medieval art & culture. A delight to dip into every once in a while, and glimpse a medieval haven on the northern tip of Manhattan.
4 comments:
Wow, Lilly of the Valley takes me back. My Grandmother used to wear it as her scent. My memories of summer evenings definitely include the scent of Lilly of the Valley and 4711 , Echt Kölnisch Wasser, which my Grandfather wore, as we prepared to make the short journey in Grandad's black Morris Minor to Mrs Quinn's, McHugh's or Neddy Flynn's where Gran would sit with us young'uns in the grocery while Grandad partook of a bottle of stout in the bar. And now that I'm looking out on a very rainy Dublin, I'm adding rain on box hedge, laurel and fuschia to the list.....
Wow, you know how to evoke a scene! Funny the way scent can conjure up a memory before you're even aware of it...
The scent of box hedge always transports me back to our next door neighbour's front garden (and we moved from that house when I was four), with me tracing their miniature neat box hedge along, endlessly fascinated by oodles of ladybirds. Something about the teeny dots of vivid red & black against glossy green leaves...
:-)
My box memories all relate to a place I spent much of my childhood which had about seven acres of formal gardens where box was used to mark out the various beds and paths. One of my earliest childhood memories is of a series of circular beds (which I discovered later were several hundred years old) of pink and purple fuschia which looked fantastic after a rain shower. The big treat as a toddler, and hence the memory, was to be lifted up and allowed to "pop" one of the blooms. To this day I can't resist and unopened fuschia!
Oh wow! And I have a just-out-of-the-wrapper memory of a friend pointing out snap-dragons (which had never featured in my life), and demonstrating the snapping thereof. Clever laydee...
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