Plants that you grow with Special Memories

How wonderful to read how many great gardening memories all of you have from your childhood!

My grandparents lived in flats, so no memories from that direction.
When I was in elementary school we lived in a bungalow with garden and I got to know even the tiniest of flowers in the lawn. The forest was right opposite and I loved to stroll through the bushes and forest. My favourites were St. John's Wort and the blossoms of bindweed and hedge bindweed - one with big white flowers and the other with delicate pink flowers! Yes, no joke. They are really charming.

I now tolerate them in my garden because the solitary bees love them. And if you have ever seen a picture of a tree frog (none in my area, alas) in a bindweed flower you must have a heart of stone to kill it!


I remember snapdragons from gardens in my childhood and even if they are somewhat antiquated and non-native I think they are rather cheerful and I have some in my garden.

Positive memories are associated with dill. My aunt had a vegetable garden where I was trusted with picking peas, tomatos and herbs, and having fresh dill with the freshly harvested salad is heaven!

Today I grow loads of native plants that have been out of favour for decades. People around here preferred very bright and exotic flowers from the garden center and there is a slow comeback of native plants.

Oh, wait, memories are coming back!

I have a soft spot in my heart for the plants that I got to know through the so-called "Fleißbildchen" we received in Elementary school.
I have to explain a bit: No gender-awareness back in the 70ties with a conservative teacher who preferred us girls to the loud boys. When we had done our homework exceptionally neatly or when we volunteered to recite a poem we would receive one of the coveted "Fleißbildchen" which was a small card with a painting and a rhyme.

And these paintings were the most charming thing: Not only accurate and true to nature but also very modern by including plants like bindweed, dandelion, thistle and nightshadow. It taught the children about the complexities of nature, the interactions between plants and insects and that every creature had its place. The (Austrian) artist painted them almost 90 years ago, and this was decades before Anne Geddes startd to dress up babies as flowers. The artist Ida Bohatta was both ahead of her time and also in a good tradition to explain nature without bias and without demonizing.
Some call them kitschy but I learned to identify many plants with the help of these Fleißkärtchen.

Here is one on the bindweed:

This was my favourite about Nigella - I love Nigella to this day:

Here is one where the butterfly of the species Small Tortoiseshell is moving into his winter lodging:


Here you can browse through some more:
https://www.pinterest.de/search/pins/?q=ida%20bohatta&rs=typed&term_meta[]=ida%7Ctyped&term_meta[]=bohatta%7Ctyped+

I am lucky that a live in an area that appreciates our native plants.  In fact a large portion of the ornamental plants in nurseries are cultivated varieties of our wildflowers.

Though we have gardened all my life all my sentimental plant memories are from native plants and I have had the opportunity to grow them all in my own garden.  I hunted for Easter eggs in fields of Bluebonnets where you had to push the flowers aside to see the ground.  We were constantly being chased out of a neighborhood mulberry tree when I was very young, and no wildflowers were more exciting to find then the antelope milkweed weed that always seemed to be in a bare patch of gravel and rock all by itself and looked like something you would find on another planet.

Those are my favorites, but I have strong positive associations with sunflowers, goldenrod, texas mountain laurel, Dewberry vines, wild grape... I can keep going.   Just don't ask me about the sand burrs.  If you ever travel through Central Texas in late summer and see a woman crawling around scrubbing her grass with a wash cloth, that's probably me.  It's the best method I've found for catching and then disposing of those spiny seed balls before they can spread.  Zero tolerance.

Steve Thorn wrote:Most people have a special memory tied to something they grow.
Is there a plant that's special to you or brings back fond memories when you grow or see it?

There are many! As a preschooler my family gave me my own little garden spot to care for, and I did.
I remember growing and caring for radishes, lettuce, cucumbers, beans and Tom thumb tomatoes and flowers!
I remember the life lessons learned about how bees help the vegies grow, picking off bugs (saving the hornworms and grubs for bait), the bat house in my garden, picking weeds and waiting, waiting waiting. And how much I enjoyed the fruits of my labors in salad that I had grown.
It brings back beautiful memories of my mom who left her body on October 12, 2012

Mimosa trees... I spent some wonderful time, climbing my grandma's sweet smelling mimosas, in her back yard, tickling my face with the little bright pink pompon blossoms, when my folks let me stay with her. Then, in my 30s, we bought a place, and my daughters and I spent an entire afternoon in a downpour, planting a row of baby ones we'd dug from my neighbors yard(with her laughing blessings). When I left #2, those precious-to-me trees were one of the 2 the hardest parts of leaving my house (the other was that I hadn't been able to find a place, where I could take my 2 dogs, so he ended up with them, too). We have quite a few wild ones to enjoy, just out the window, now...

Tomatoes. My family have always loved them (my apparently violent great grandma even broke a plate over my mom's head, because she came back for a 4th helping of tomatoes!), so growing them brings back great memories of plopping down between the rows, with a sun-warmed tomato and a pilfered salt shaker, to eat them like apples; slicing them thick for tomato sammies on thick, hearty bread; going to farmers markets hunting for new plant varieties and searching for THE perfect tomato...

Lilies of the Valley... They grew abundantly in a shady spot that was mostly hidden, where I'd go to escape, as a kid. Their tiny little white bells, and beautiful, deep green foliage in the cool shade, on a hot summer day was always inviting and soothing to my soul. That's what's missing - in the shade garden, but the first batch didn't take here. Time to try, again!

Lilacs... The bushes grew about 10ft thick, in a row about 50yds long, only interrupted by our driveway, at the edge of our huge yard, protecting us from the sights, sounds, and smells of the busy road. Walking along them, their big bunches of perfect, tiny blooms, then stopping to close my eyes and just breathe them in, on a pretty spring day was often the highlight of my day. I grew to love them so much that when I married John - a month too late to have fresh ones for my bouquet and John's boutenier, I made them of silks, that are still nestled in my craft room, 13yrs later. Last year, the only one we had here was wiped out in an ice storm - we need MORE!!

My mother planted Lillies of the Valley in the garden, as a bouquet of them was the first gift from my late father to her.
Now I have many plants from friends, exchanged for my plants or given to me as gifts - and I often think of them as "their" plants. One friend became especially fond of my three-color currant bush, which reminded me of Kieślowski's triptych "Blue", "White", "Red".
This year I'm growing more sunflowers, thinking of all the refugees who are around here. Seems like they became a symbol of their resistance and hope.

This is a great query!
My grandmother infected me with the bug to grow things. She had come from a farming life, and had her own favorites. She taught me about the cycles of life with nasturtiums. Plant the little seeds, watch them grow tons of flowers, and those flowers turn into seeds to be gathered at the end of the season. One of her favorite plants was night blooming jasmine, a shrub with tiny creamy yellow colored trumpet-shaped flowers that smelled simply divine! For most of my nearly 60 years I've had a night blooming jasmine in the yard.  I have 2 of them at present.  As they aren't suited for zone 6, I will be saying farewell to this one when we move next year.
Grama also loved Johnny Jump-ups, violas. Back then there seemed to only be the one color of purple and yellow. I currently have that one, an all orange, and a purple and orange in my raised hugel bed as I type.  Grama and mom loved lilacs. I don't have any currently, but you can bet I'll put in at least 1 when I get where we are going! Mom loved roses and iris, and I have a few of her purple and white bearded iris that I will dig up and take along. Mom and I had dug up her patch to divide and share about a year before she passed, so these are that much more sentimental. The ones we planted back into her patch are now gone. I went by a week or so ago to see if the new occupants would consider letting me get some more before I leave California, and I was shocked to see they were long gone, replaced by sandwich-sized rocks covering the yard.

Passionflower on the vine in the woods…I grew up ⬆️ n north Alabama and on late summer weekends at our family cabin on the TN River (Wheeler Lake). My mom and I would sometimes find a Passionflower or two. It was always such an exciting find. She would follow me through the wooded lot next door to see one that I had discovered. One time only, we picked one and tried to save it in a saucer of water for the table centerpiece. I don’t think it lasted very long because after that we always just left them on the vine. We saw the “ballerina” in the flower and marveled at its magic.
   So now, of course, I would love to grow a
passionflower vine. Who out there has good luck growing passionflower? (Purple)

When I was young we lived in Iowa and had a backyard with 3 giant  oak trees and completely carpeted with violets. I’ve always had a special love of oaks, though I’ve never yet again managed to live with even one, let alone three.  Happily, I still have many violets.

Bearded Irises, we had them all along the driveway in our house in NJ. The woman who lived next-door was (in hindsight) was the source of our absolutely stuffed bed... her place was terraced with stones and it was all Irises.  When the blooms were full-on the SMELL!!!
I have one enduring memory of playing my tiny guitar singing at the top of my tiny lungs... the current hit song in 1968ish? on every radio "Tip Toe Through the Tulips"  while actually tip toeing through the thickly planted bed... changing the word tulip for iris of course!
This childhood memory brought to you just a month shy of my 60th birthday.. plants are life long friends, just like those friends whose company is free and easy even after years away from each other. Make new friends my friends, and be especially grateful for the first friends you made in this life... be it plant, animal or human.
Love you all for being true plant nerds.
🌷😉

I think people around here either love or hate the native passion flower.  Once you get it going its fairly unstoppable.   There's a good chance it's the same variety you grew up with. It might be the only one that isn't tropical.  I don't like the fruit but I love watching gulf fritillary flock to it.

So many lovely stories on this thread, thanks everyone for taking the time to share.

My first and still favorite flower is daffodil, my grandmother had planted a row of them right beside our garden, and I adored them. They were the only "useless ornamental" that my dad could be bothered to keep around, mostly because he knew how much I loved them. When I arrived to what I thought would be my forever home here in southern Chile I planted a row of them beside my garden in honor of those two people, who are now gone. Then when I was deciding where I would go when I needed to leave that home, I knew the place when I arrived to a driveway lined with flowering daffodils.

When I ran across a dogwood in a local nursery, I had to buy it and plant it despite the price because it reminded me of hiking with my mom through a forest of flowering dogwood as a child, while she explained the symbolic meaning of their four-petaled flowers.

Now in my new life, which has been full of difficult new starts, I find pride and peaceknowing that I am surrounded by the orchard of fruit trees that my dad always dreamed of having.

Others that always make me stop and pause, rich with nostalgia, are tomatoes (never could get over the smell of a crushed tomato leaf), blackberry (even though they're invasive here and I've been forced to start chopping them), plantain (the first medicinal herb I identified and used), and probably a hundred others that I'm forgetting at the moment.

I always swore that the first man who bought me a dozen red roses would be eliminated immediately for his lack of creativity, but I do love growing roses. They tell me that in her younger years my grandmother was an exceptional rose gardener, and it's partly because of that that my first tattoo was a rose. They also remind me of my father-in-law, a sweet old bachelor who loved his roses and would proudly cut me a bouquet when I was around. Can't beat wild rosehip jelly either, no matter how many times you get pricked picking them!

My family has been passing down a Jade plant for at least 3 generations now, and some Concord Grape vines for nearly 5 generations.
With both, I've potted extra cuttings....just in case. I don't want to be the one to break the chain, haha~

When I grow Marigolds I always remember my middle school science experiment. My first introduction to the scientific method
I tried growing marigolds, hydrating them in Water, Milk, and Soy Milk. Child-me's logic was: "Milk makes children grow, so maybe plant milk will make baby plants grow better.'
It uh, got real moldy. I think the soy milk plants actually did decently despite a bit of soil fuzz, but the watered ones did best. Milk-watered marigolds got super moldy and died.
Science!

I can't seem to grow greens - like, spinach, brassica, bok choy, lettuce, arugula. Anything that's 'You eat the leaves' and bolt in warm temps.... they always bolt instantly. I've never gotten a harvest of lettuce in my entire life.  Every year I plant some seeds, and every year I smile at the first few leaves, then frown as they abruptly turn into spindly stems and turn horribly bitter.  Almost a decade of no garden salads. It's not a great memory, but it's certainly a strong one.

Toko Aakster wrote:

I can't seem to grow greens - like, spinach, brassica, bok choy, lettuce, arugula. Anything that's 'You eat the leaves' and bolt in warm temps.... they always bolt instantly. I've never gotten a harvest of lettuce in my entire life.  Every year I plant some seeds, and every year I smile at the first few leaves, then frown as they abruptly turn into spindly stems and turn horribly bitter.  Almost a decade of no garden salads. It's not a great memory, but it's certainly a strong one.

Where are you located? It is hard to believe you are in a zone where no salad greens are possible. I would look at recommendations for your zone. Maybe sowing in winter, maybe using shade cloth, maybe polytunnels, waiting till autumn, trying non-bolt varieties etc. Don't give up hope!

Oh there's so many!  My mom was and still is crazy about lilacs.  Forsythia and several peonies came from my great-grandmother and I still remember my cousins and I making a game out of jumping over the hedge of peonies (when they weren’t in bloom of course).  Red and yellow cowslips, bearded iris, Rose of Sharon all came from my grandma.  I also have great memories of grandma and I going on a rescue mission to save native wildflowers from a logging operation.   I now have an expanse of trilliums and foam flowers from that.  Kohlrabi reminds me of my dad as grandma always grew it for him and now I'm giving them transplants to grow in the garden.  

Wild strawberries are probably my favorite as my cousins and I discovered them on my great grandparent's farm one summer and they were oh so sweet!  When I moved here I discovered it growing on the roadbank and in the woods .  Of course I've helped it naturalize over the entire property over the years and with every sweet berry I think back to that summer.

Michelle Heath wrote:

Wild strawberries are probably my favorite as my cousins and I discovered them on my great grandparent's farm one summer and they were oh so sweet!  When I moved here I discovered it growing on the roadbank and in the woods .  Of course I've helped it naturalize over the entire property over the years and with every sweet berry I think back to that summer.

I will be doing much the same if there are that many wild strawberries where I am landing in WV, above Huntington. My daughter is already discovering what is on their 40 acres.

Toko Aakster - welcome to this crazy wonderful place called permies! I'm still carrying around amaryllis bulbs from 30 years ago that I know as pink ladies. http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/9/2/0/5/8/5/webimg/544516197_o.jpg   I love that you are keeping memories alive in the form of generational plants.

My aunt and uncle had a couple of snowball bush viburnum and they were large enough to stand under and gently shake them and the petals would fall like snow. We would be asked to leave the bushes alone but it was so tempting. A couple of years ago I took one of my kids to the hardware store and saw one for sale. This daughter LOVES to pick for petals and throw them so i bought it for her, telling her all about how fun of a plant it is. Now every year, she waits for the blossoms to get big enough and then invites her siblings to join her for a big "snowball fight"!

Red huckleberries grow in our woods and it always makes me think of hiking with my family as a kid and snacking on them and salmonberries and thimbleberries. It also reminds me of my grandparents. They had an enormous bush growing on a stump right by their front door. It was big enough that you could fill a large bowl just standing there. One time my grandma helped me make a pie from them and it was the best thing I ever tasted. That pie is a thing of legend and my kids know all about it so every year they try to pick enough huckleberries to make a pie but even though we have a dozen bushes, none of them are very big and they are deep in the woods so they don't get tons of fruit. The most we've collected at once is about two cups that we ended up eating on top of ice cream. Come to think of it, those were actually picked at my parents ' house. One year the kids had picked a large container full but someone tripped on a root and the berries fell into the leaf litter of the forest floor- impossible to recover. There may have been tears.

When I used to go on my school holidays to my Granny's in the south of France, the balconies and terrace were awash with geraniums and petunias.  I cannot not plant them and be reminded of sunny lazy days, the sound of cicadas and the stillness in the shimmering heat reflected on the white stone floor, but most of all it reminds me of my grandmother, of love and a happy, carefree childhood.  Some years, it was a bit of a challenge to grow them in the UK when I lived there but I am now back in France and, well, my front yard is awash with geraniums and petunias.  Funny thing is, my daughter now just loves them too!

My grandmother always had hollyhocks growing.  Some were 10' or more.
The last couple places I lived I couldn't get them to grow.
I started some here, (west of Helena MT), a couple years ago.
They have started to grow like crazy!  Some are 8' and still going up!!

When we moved here I planted Four O'Clocks because my mother loved them.  Unfortunately cut worms got them all.

I have 'inherited' my mother's cactus. It's a long thin one, looking like a cat's tail (it looks soft and fluffy, but there are spines hidden between the hairs!
This cactus was with our family for as long as I remember. So it's probably over 70 years old.
During those years it must have been cut back several times. Since I have it (a few years) it has already grown over a meter!

Surinam cherries, they remind me of my old friends. As a kid we would wander around the neighborhood and pick them and eat ‘em up all summer. Guava is another one, reminds me of one of my childhood house when I was 8. Mango season reminds me of my mom,  my she would go around collecting all the fallen fruit from the trees in all the summer homes around that were always empty that time of year. There would always be 100s of fruit around the house that time of year. She would make it into a year worth of jam and freeze a bunch.