It's curious how plants - particularly scented ones - can trigger memories.
I recently visited the community orchard at Haggerston Park. It makes a lovely little wildlife sanctuary amidst the concrete of built-up Hackney: all fruit trees, wildflowers and long grass. It's also home to a few ornamental plants, including pot marigolds, cosmos and agastache.
Planted in one of the tree pits was some monarda, (commonly known as bee balm or bergamot). My partner hadn't seen these flowers before and the name was on the tip of my tongue. I smelled them to jog my memory and, instead of coming up with the name of the plant, I was instantly transported back to the kitchen of the house I grew up in. On red floor tiles just inside the pantry, next to bottles of squash and my mum's wine-making kit, was a brown ceramic vase containing dried flowers. Some of those flowers must have been monarda.
It's curious how plants – particularly scented ones – can trigger memories. I have an almost encyclopedic memory of everything that grew in the garden of my early years, even if I can't name it all. I can identify the smell of plants not known for their scent, such as broom (which grew next to the swing) and hypericum (planted next to the tree I used to climb).
Sometimes I come across a plant I previously didn't know the name of, and, like the lost piece of a jigsaw puzzle, it fits into place, adding to the memory of the old garden. A few years ago I discovered pheasant's eye daffodil, Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus (pictured, left), which I'd last seen growing in a pot, aged four. Its scent would tell me when I'd found it, I told my colleague Kevin, as we walked round a daffodil display at a trade show. "Daffodils don't smell", he replied. But, as I found it and took in its scent, I was four again, on the damp, north-facing patio with these flowers that resemble dogs poking their heads out of car windows. (I've since tried to grow them and they annoy me – who wants a daffodil that flowers in May and only lasts a week?)
As well as spontaneously triggering memories, plants are often used to remind us of people or places. We plant them for those we have lost (red geraniums for my granny), or to remind us of a holiday or special place. Somehow plants surpass photos and souvenirs for triggering memories, perhaps because they don't fade or attract dust, but come back with renewed vigour each year. They serve as a living reminder of something, or someone, we have loved.
Which plants trigger your memories, and why?
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