One of my grandmothers never walked through a garden without a large handbag… She was simply too afraid she might encounter a plant that would entice her to take a piece of it home. Coincidentally, she also believed it is only pinched cuttings that would grow, which I don’t necessarily agree with.
My earliest childhood memories include joining my gran on her walks through her garden, and I’m told I was able to pronounce Bellis perennis before I could even twist my tongue around a lollipop. I still think of my gran whenever I see an English daisy.
She would stop at every plant in her garden and tell me where she had acquired it and, while she was at it, she would describe the family and the place, too. Many of the donors had long since passed away, but they lived on through the plants that grew in her garden.
My other grandmother had an entire nursery of cuttings that still had to start growing, and for this she drew on an array of clever plans and traditional advice. I’ll never forget how the gardenia cuttings were always covered by a large upside-down preserve jar, while these days we simply use plastic bags to create a beneficial microclimate. Cuttings that grew more readily were placed in jars filled with water, which made it easy to notice when they were developing roots, and succulent leaves were laid out on newspaper to develop roots before they were planted out in the garden.
I still choose my grandmother’s glass jar. My parents continued with this tradition, and I would like to teach it to my children and grandchildren. I’m afraid that today I am the
