2 hours ago
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Ooo-oooh that smell
More and more I find myself looking for plants and flowers that I grew up with south India to fill my northern california garden - I've convinced myself that the mild clime of this area will surely nurture them. Their names and smells are so evocative of how and where I grew up....I love their tamil names - some quite descriptive of the bloom or plant and the others still quite mysteriously named - i suspect that their names have been colloquialized so much that the original has been long lost....At about 5pm every evening without fail, the flower lady Selvi-amma would come to my grandmother's house carrying her small basket of strung gundu-malligai poo (arabian jasmine ), pitchee-poo (maybe pink jasmine - far as I can translate this seems to mean plucking flower - can't be right, can it?), mullai (a close relative of pink jasmine I think - never was sure what the difference between mullai and pitchee was) ), kadambam (marigold) and kanakambaram( don't have any idea what the common english name is - in latin it'sRuellia Tuberosa ).
In summer in madurai, the heat still shimmers over the ground at 5pm though you can just begin to feel the edge of relief. Selvi calls out her characteristic "Yemmmmaaaoooo pooooo" to summon the residents. The neatly coiled strands of malligai nestled in the dampened banana leaves seems to be bursting with perfume which wafts cooly around. Looking back it was such a neat little self-contained eco-system. The flowers are often strung using fibers from the spine of a banana leaf - the basket is liked with fresh banana leaves sprinkled with water -the strands sold by elbow lengths - 1 muzham - are ocoiled and placed in here and covered with more leaves. When a transaction is completed, the requsite length of flowers are placed in a handy sized portion of the banana leaf and tied neatly with the banana fiber. So if she had a good evening, the product , refrigeration system as well as the packaging materials would all be gone.
Pavazha malli (coral jasmine) was a delicate tree that had masses of sweet smelling white petalled, gently spiralling flower with a coral stem. They would drop en masse under the tree it was the prettiest sight. Arali poo (california highway flower or ) was a bush with many magical offerings. The milky white sap (which we were warned early and often was poisonous - I learnt only quite recently this sap is often used in suicides) often doubled for blood (yeah yeah we imagined it was red too) or sauce to pretend-cook the sand and flowerpetal mixtures in ; but more exciting than this - we'd often find crysalises hanging on the undersides of the leaves. The leaves are both strong and flexible. The myriad of colors on the shell of a crysalis are magical....
Nandiya-vattai is a common bush in south India - the closest I've seen here are the white vinca vines -though the nandiya-vattai flowers have delicately serrated edges on the flower petals. No smell though...their buds are nice and fat and make a satisfying pop! if you smash them against your palm.
Idli-poo (ixora) przed by the adults and landscapers for their globular, spiked orange and sometimes white flowers, were hot favourites amongst the kids because of the sweet nectar you could suck out of them and then turn each floweret into a whistle too (until poor thing just split open)...
Lantana - smelly and poky as ever grew easily there. While learning to ride a bike - I did so on a man's full sized bike - the kind that has a bar running from the seat to the handle bar - I remember losing control and unable to get off landed into this huge bush of pink and purple lantana. aargh - haven't had much time for that plant since then. even the shiny black berries, though squishy are noxious! Of course, it's my luck these are abudundant in California
There is this greenish flower - the petals are thick and kind of snake like that has a great smell - the story was that snakes often lived in and around this plant. I only remember that when my mother would buy these flowers she'd only get a couple - but they sure did smell wonderful - quite unlike any other fragrance I've experienced. Can't even recall the tamil name....
A thrilling plant for kids was the common Balsam - much favoured in borders and pots. The flowers were certainly beautiful but it was the seed pods that were the best. they were fat little pods each with about 10 ball-bearing like seeds. Once the seed pod was mature it would start drying up and finally it would pop explosively open flinging the seeds afar. Ingeneous - rocket propelled (someone once likened it to projectile vomiting - unwarranted if you ask me - it's just fabulous). So the trick was to pick the pods that were juuuuuuuuust ready and gently press them - POP! My brother and I spent hours doing this - no doubt helping the plant propogate as well! In England I think these are called Policeman's helmets.
Jevanthi (chrysanthemum) - usually only white and yellow would show up in November or so - they do need the cooler weather. But the star of winter was definitely the December poo (no idea what the english name is -barleria cristata ) - this came in magenta, purple and white. women and girls wore it often in long strands. The magical thing about these flowers is that they did not dry out and brown quickly - so you could wear them for a couple of days by storing them in the fridge. Their more common fate was to be crushed and scattered all over your pillow the next morning after you forgot to unpin them from your hair!
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Watching grass grow
The joy of gardening is a bit about enjoying the process, a lot about anticipating the first glimpse of a seedling or flower bud and all that jazz but is really is all about accepting that good things take time - a lot of time. Yeah yeah yeah - but the real reason that it takes so dang long to make progress in your garden has less to do Nature's speed and more to do with all the time you spend going back and forth fetching and carrying - doing things that don't really count.
Picture this - I'm all set to plant a 100 bulbs - I have 2 full free hours while the kids are napping - more than enough time to do this and more! I grab the bag of bulbs and efficiently head to the target flowerbed, eye the planting area and kneel down to get down to business. But wait! first need to get the spade and gloves. Oops go back for the clippers and a trashcan lid so that you can trim that overflowing bush; collect the clipped branches as well as pesky privet seedlings that are just everywhere - hmm maybe you need a hat - back you go. Now that you're ready to dig holes for the bulbs, it's time to check on the insert how deep these need to be planted - but the insert is back on the porch....one more trip. You return and gaze upon the flower bed - trying to visualize where to put the bulbs in a seemingly random but artful manner. You place the bulbs (this could classify as the first actual bit of gardening you've done now in the 30mins you've been outside). Stand up to inspect it. Ok even dig a few holes for the bulbs. Phone rings and the dog wants to play - your back is killing you by now anyway so it's a good thing to stop. Take a tea-break - but this part counts on the credit side since enjoying just being in the garden definitely qualifies! And while you're scurrying back and forth on the endless trips you notice all sorts of things that need fixing or weeding or feeding - each of these has it's own list of fetch-n-carries. So how can you ever finish any one thing?
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Annie's art
Annie's Annuals seed packets are quite quite beautiful. They are usually watercolor or pastels I believe. The plants/flowers are drawn with care and are so pleasing to the eye. They exude a kind of old-fashioned air -reminiscent of gardens that thrived before OSH or Home Depot or Osmocote. They never fail to make me pause and enjoy the little art gallery they present. I'm not sure how well seed-packet art pays but it's nice to see the artists acknowledged on the covers. They bear the common (or once common) names of the flower - often more evocative of the bloom than the latin version - lovely names that roll of the tongue - ladybells, Love-lies-a-bleeding, Venus' navelwort, Owl's clover. Strangely, Annie's website did not carry any of this artwork...I tried to find the closest thing in style as I could but I don't think it does it justice.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Fall planting
Seems like the right season to start musings about gardens and gardening.... Running through the neighbourhood I saw a bunch of freshly turned beds filled with rich choclatey earth pleases me immensely. It looks so alive with possibility - the future site of the perfect border - fragrant, floral and a wonderful reason to smile. Of course the moment of placing all the seedlings/plants in the exact places and stepping back to look at the time-lapse movie in your head - where the bed is all filled in, perfectly textured and beautifully colored - some 2 years hence is qute sweet too! Every gardner has quite an imagination - just take a look at all the gardening catalogs - they shamelessly trade in on the gullibilty of gardners to believe phrases like "carefree perennial" or "guaranteed success for even the casual gardner" next to luscious blooms that privately employeed at least three immigrant families! And yet I happily give my money to them and dream on - one day to photograph such luciousness in my own garden.
Garden design is such a treacherous term - there are zillions of books and magazines all purporting to have solved the problem and waiting to hand hold you through the steps. But while they can shwo you the beginning and the end pictures (both quite glorious in their own ways) no one tells you about the in between when your plants are not quite tall enough in the back or full enough on the sides and the whole thing does not look anything like what you wanted! Beware - this is a vulnerable time for the impatient gardner, You are so desparate to fill in that gaping hole in the mddle of your bed (the buddlea is not looking quite as arching or leafy as it's supposed to and the butterflies are giving it the cold shoulder) you impulsively buy something like achllea and stick in in the ground. This then grows all out of proportion - leggy and attracting snails like the dickens! aaargh. On one such trip to my favourite nursery, my haggard state must have shown on my face. Daphne who works there is both knowledgeable and wise. She listened to my increasingly unintelligible need and finally said " If you can be patient and allow the plants to settle in and feel at home, they wil reward you sooner than you think" It was how she said it - i often recall her words when the retail-urge is upon me! I'm convinced Daphne feels the plants deep in her mind's eye. But I digress....back to garden design...
There must be a better way to teach someone to grow a garden and help lead them through the intermediate joys and sorrows of watching this painting (you hope!) come slooowly to life. Mixing and matching textures seems so easy to say and so hard to do !!
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