The peonies above are some we inherited when we came to live here in Saint-Aignan 22 years ago. They were growing in the back yard next to the garden path. There's another clump of them on the other side of the path, and I think I'm going to dig that one up and re-plant them elsewhere.
As for the plants just above, from left to right, here's where I got them:The dark green sanseveria plants were a gift from one of my first cousins on my father's side of the family. The cousin who gave them to me called me one day in 1983 or '84, when Walt and I were living in Washington DC, and said she and her husband were going to be in DC and asked if they could come see us. Of course, I said. When they arrived, she came with this plant as a gift. She said they had been at our grandmother's bedside when she passed away a few years earlier. I've had them for all that time, and they have lived in DC, San Franciso, Silicon Valley, and now France. I think I gave some of them to Charles-Henry when we left California in 2003, and he brought me a cutting or two a year or two later when he came to visit.
The donkeytail is a sedum plant is that I found, and rescued. I was in North Carolina 20 years ago and my mother and I were browsing around in a garden center. I happened to notice a two- or three-inch branch of the plant lying on the floor. It had (been) broken off. I picked it up, put it in my shirt pocket, and brought to back to Saint-Aignan when I returned to France a few days later. It's easy to grow but hard to handle because branches break off at the slightest touch.
The plant on the right above is a cutting from a big shrub growing in the yard of one of our neighbors here in Saint-Aignan. I pinched it last September, put it in a jar of water, and the planted it in a flowerpot when it started growing roots. I have two more cuttings in a jar of water now. I hope they'll grow roots over the summer.
I like the fact that you've brought some of your plants along with you whenever you both moved. Not an easy thing to do! They seem more like pets, like members of the family.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother had a stroke in 1974 that left her bedridden for three years before she died. I was living in Illinois and in France during those years, and I was sorry not to see her more often than I did.
DeleteIt was really thoughtful of my cousin to give me some of grandmama's snake plants. My grandparents lived two blocks from us when I was growing up.. At an early age, I could walk from our house to theirs. We were on flat ground, and my mother could stand out on the sidewalk in front our our house and watch me to make sure I got there okay.
When W and I moved to France years later, I gave some of grandmama's plants to my now dearly departed mother and some to our late friend Charles-Henry (who liked knowing that I had kept them growing. Both MA and CHM brought me little snake plant sprouts when each of them visited in 2004 so that I could keep grandmama's plants growing. It worked. Now it's 20 years later...
My granddaughters live down the street and are almost old enough to not need watching when they come to visit. It's a wonderful thing to live so near one another.
DeleteI love the story of you visiting your grandmother, and having a part of one of her bedside plants. :)
ReplyDeleteYour plants have been well loved for generations.
ReplyDeleteBettyAnn
Oh those peonies are so great! Love the color!
ReplyDelete