Old School: Budding Genius

By Carol McEwen,

Even though I have a thumb black as midnight, I have fond memories of the role flowers have played in my life. My earliest flower memories center on a ragtag group of Iris which grew at the side of my childhood home, neither planted nor encouraged by anyone who lived there. I loved their pretty violet color, (still a favorite,) with each stalk holding more than one blossom.  

I also had a “hands on” relationship with clover each spring and summer. My buddy, Susie, and I picked them and turned them into fabulous chains which we wore as bracelets and necklaces. (I’ll mention this in more detail in one of my summer posts.) 

Other favorites were the hedges of Spirea bushes flanking our front door. They bloomed every spring and made a white waterfall out front. Sometimes we’d pick branches and put them in vases inside. When a storm blew up, those blossoms looked like white confetti, flying in the wind.

But Honeysuckle was number one on my list. Remember walking past a bank of them in the spring? The smell was heavenly. Then, for a second pay-off, we’d pick an eye-lashed blossom, pinch off the end, and pull the little stamen out. It delivered a perfect pearl of honey, sweet as anything you could buy at the store. The bees loved it too. 

At the end of my First Grade year, our teacher, Mrs. Ray, took us on a field trip to her house in the country. Then she toured us through a field full of wildflowers: Dutchman Britches, Jack in the Pulpit, Ladies Purse and Bleeding Heart. I fell in love and can recognize them all to this day. An added bonus: clumsy gardeners like me don’t have to cultivate them. THEY do all the work. 

Our first Arlington home had an overgrown yard with clumps of Daffodils which wouldn’t bloom due to “crowded working conditions,” as OSHA would say. My husband spent a hot, sweaty day digging them up to replant in the fall — all 33 pounds of them. But I accidentally committed bulb-icide by storing them wrong. 

From that experience, I learned to leave the bank of volunteer Day Lilies alone. Opening their pretty orange heads in June, they were the Lucille Balls of the yard. My “hands-off” policy worked, since they survived our ownership. I wonder if they all heaved a sigh of relief when we moved: “Thank heaven she’s gone.”

OK, even if my Old School upbringing didn’t include gardening lessons, I can still enjoy flowers without growing them. 

Carol McEwen is a reporter for Sandestin Living, Mirimar Beach, Florida, and wrote the weekly Old School column for the Arlington Sun Gazette/Gazette Leader.