Gardening in the UK & the US

Cute 'faced pansies We grew up with gardens and a great love for plants. Infact my earliest memories are of myself as a three year old, laughing heartily while my Dad shook the face of a flowering Pansy in Delhi saying look, its laughing at you! Three and you can remember you might ask? But I do and I was three on our first posting to New Delhi and we lived in King George’s Mess. a service officers residential complex.And check out a pansy. It does have a very cute face.

Delicious long hybrid mulberries from Grandpas garden in Baroda Obviously a child learns from its parents through it’s growing years.My Grandfather in Baroda had a huge garden along the side of the bungalow and we could open the gate and go in there to eat as many mulberries as we wanted, provided we did pick some for my Grandmum to make jam. They were three inches long, a special variety said Grandpa Mick and he had got the plant from a nursery which only sold graft fruit trees.

The stunning Indian Laburnum in Grandpa's garden in Baroda He also had an absolutely stunning Golden Labrnum right near the front gate of the garden. When it flowered in the blistering heat of summer, it was the most beautiful sight to behold. Then what made it evilly beautiful was I read Georgette Heyers, “ My Cousin Rachel” from off his revolving book shelf, where I learned that Rachel poisoned her husband with the crushed seeds of the Laburnum. The long pods that hung from the tree rattled when shaken by us as children, but Grandpa was strict about us touching the pods or even going near the tree.

The spectacular Blue Wanda which Dad got from Bhutan In Bangalore my Paternal Grandpa was old by the time we were around, so did not come out much into the garden, but the memories of my father teaching us to repot the ferns or his immense love for orchids with a collection under the Mango tree, has always remained etched in memory. There were no maalis, we worked the garden ourselves. And when the Blue Vanda flowered Dad would phone us excitedly to come, visit and eat dosas as a celebration.

Picture of my Jacob's Coat flowering in Tennessee, sent by son! Now for me, gardening in the UK and the US is really pleasurable and we all feel sad that my father is no more to enjoy those gardens. The landscaped one in the UK especially would have brought out his enjoyment and excitement to the fore. My sons have imbibed his love for plants and trees and so I am given a free reign when I visit. There is nothing they will not indulge me with. Infact for my birthday which I spent in the US, my gift was a floribunda multicoloured rose called Jacobs Coat and it truly is a rose of many colours, which changes as it ages. As for the rose we bought and put down three years ago in my UK sons garden, gives us the most outstanding display of scented roses when I visit for the spring.

" Plate sized" rose in my sons garden in the UK! Fed quietly by me with all the waste milk and porridge of the grand babies! I get a roll of eyes and a quiet chuckle from my huge eldest or the athletic second son, when they hear of my shennanigans. The red fox will come at night and dig up the garden warns the UK son while the US one says Cayotes will arrive to do the same. No such thing happens.

The Golden yellow British Iris What thrills me is taking little plants to each of the gardens and seeing them thrive in a foreign environment. The British Iris grows enormous in Tennessee and flowers when its cold making the neighbours ask my son where he got it from! The Ginger Lilly which my mother loved grows well in Tennessee too and flowers now in the Autumn before dying back for the winter. The Curry Patta plants thrive in both places, growing happily in pots and take refuge indoors in the winter. But both sons don’t take too kindly when I pinch a few leaves for my cooking!

The scarlet Thunder lilly thrills This time the UK son was thrilled with a gift of Thunder lillies by his MIL when she was stripping her old home before selling it. We wonder if it will grow in the UK’s punishing winters, most likely it will thrive in balmy Tennessee. Thats my next project since the boys have grown seeing the thunder lillies bloom and grow year after year in the Hayes Road garden. That first clap of thunder and the first shower of rain broke the soil in that onebed, in the Hayes Road garden and out popped the bright scarlet flowers, which lasted for a month, bringing much joy to the house. We sadly don’t have any of those flowers any more in Hayes Road. All that is left are memories and the simple joys we had in a home, which was meant for enjoyment and not for cold cash.