Memories are Made of This

September – The Strawberry grapes are beginning to ripen

I was asked recently which plants mean the most to me and I realised that it wasn’t a particular genus, but rather it was plants that have memories attached to them: a memorable place where I bought a plant or first saw it, a gift from a friend or another gardener who I hold in high esteem, or a particular taste or fragrance. Walking round my garden brings it all back to me. There’s the Stachyrus praecox I bought after seeing it in Leiden, the olive tree I brought back from Tuscany, the Strawberry Grape that takes me back to the first time I tasted it in Nice, the Cape Gooseberries of my childhood and the intensely fragrant Rose de Rescht which followed my round in a pot for years before, like me, finding its perfect home right here.