IT WAS THE MORNING AFTER, WHEN THE CONVERSATION finally turned to confessions about our first times—the morning after my longtime garden mentor and I attended a garden lecture and dinner together, I mean. Back at my place the next morning, over toast and coffee, we made our confessions one by one: plants we’ve lusted over, and the first time we’d laid eyes on each seductive creature. Sigh.
We’d been to hear another old friend, Dan Hinkley, speak at nearby Berkshire Botanical Garden’s annual lecture with several hundred other winter-weary types, and afterward gone off with Dan and friends to eat.
We didn’t really talk plants at the meal; nine crazy gardeners traded pet stories. I know—insane. Either we are getting old and soft, or have spent too much time on Cute Overload. But the next morning my breakfast guest and I shifted from zoology to botany, stirred up by a few of Dan’s slides, including one of Mukdenia rossii ‘Crimson Fans,’ a shade plant Dan’s helped bring to market as part of his relationship with wholesaler Monrovia nursery.
My breakfast companion remembered his first Mukdenia…but he knew it by another name.
It was 1967ish, and the plant was then Aceriphyllum rossii. “I remember sitting by a stream in the New York Botanical Garden rock garden and seeing it for the first time,” said Marco Polo Stufano. “A good plant.”
At that moment I was feeling preoccupied with the one-trick genus Sciadopitys, and just finishing up a post on the umbrella pine.
“When was your first umbrella pine?” I asked, suspecting Marco’s “first” had been the same individual plant as mine. Yes, indeed, he’d been taken in by the same specimen at Planting Fields Arboretum as I, though we would have been strangers and seen it separately, years apart.
And off we went from there: first sightings of really good silver-leaved things like Stachys and Ballota, first fill-in-the-blank…plants that touched our hearts (or made them bleed). Of course many of my first were at Wave Hill, where Marco made a career and an entire landscape of his pioneering plantsmanship.
“The first time you see a plant makes an impression,” said Marco, who always kept a little notebook with him on his travels to England and elsewhere, with a heading called “GET” for the ones. “You never really change your mind about the plant.”
So tell me, what were some of your memorable first times that rated a “GET” on your list? Was caused that instant and irresistible chemistry, and has the feeling lingered on?
Oldest love-at-first sight: My grandmother’s deep purple crocus at age 4. I had to have one of my own. She potted one up in a stout, clear glass vase and l took it for sharing time in Kindergarten. I remember every detail.
Most recent: With a slack jaw, I marveled at deeply variegated ‘lion’ forms of Rohdea japonica from a Japanese convention in 2007. Love was intense and instant, and so, so sweet.
I remember it well. I hadn’t really gotten “into” gardening just yet. My mom had invited me to go with her to the Cleveland Flower Show in May 2005. I saw a Passion Flower (Passiflora caerulea ‘Clear Sky’) for sale and I knew I had to have it. I didn’t even ask if it was hardy to my zone (5b), nor did I even care at that point. That thing was going home with me. The Flower Show and that Passion Flower were the beginning of my gardening obsession. Apropos, don’t you think? Oh, and I still have it. Right now, it’s residing in its winter home, in the living room south window.
A friend of mine and I began gardening at the same time. We were on a quest for heavenly scented roses and over the years bought many lovely rose bushes. My favorite of all my roses is still Jude the Obscure. The scent is beyond description. Each spring when the roses bloom I am thrilled when Jude blooms. The color of the bloom matches the scent.
Welcome, Linda, and thanks Keith and Kylee for your “firsts,” too.
I do not know the rose ‘Jude the Obscure,’ Linda, and now you are sending me off looking for it and more news of its heavenly scent…hope to see you soon again (all of you!).
I had just dipped my toes into my first garden when I first realized that people could get obsessed with plants reading Ken Druse’s book The Collector’s Garden, and his loving description of jack in the pulpit. I poured over that book hundreds of times, finding something new to love every time. It’s what stirred up the plant hunter in me, that makes me fall in love with any plant I come across that I’ve never seen before. It has led me to countless “firsts,” and it’s a feeling that never gets old.
Really the very first time was when my mom let me order Madame Backhouse(spelling?) for the hill of daffodils behind our house. But I didn’t garden again for twenty years. And then one day I saw an iris blooming at Smith Botanical Gardens; it was dusk and pale pink and tailored not ruffled. I suspect now that it was Vanity (I’ve been through a number of not quite the same thing orders since then). But once I get something, then the next thing becomes vitally important, life won’t be same with out it …. First it was perennials and then when I bought a house it became trees and shrubs. Right now it’s centaurea dealbata seeds but next winter it’ll be something else. Is there a cure for this?
Gazanias and strawflowers. Found both of them at local nurseries in the past two years, *still* wonder where they’ve been all my life.
Well, dear Stacy, welcome. I am sitting at my kitchen table laughing about the “*still* wonder where they’ve been all my life” part. Perfect. So true. So you are a lover of those flashy daisy-type flowers, aren’t you? Hope to see you soon again, and hear more about your Composite Family love. :)
I will NEVER forget the first time that I saw a Robinia Pseudoacacia at the former Heronswood Nursery. It was breathtaking! I have since planted them at every home I have owned.
That was also the same time that the Heronswood Hybrid Hellebores were just coming out for the first time too.
Ah, those were the days!
Welcome, Christina. I assume you mean the gold-leaf form of Robinia, ‘Frisia.’ Was a gem. I tried 4 times to grow the tree here…and failed. We have a borer that loves a good black locust when he or she can get one. Death. I hope you will be around in a few weeks when we start the hellebore show at A Way to Garden. We have some real goodies. :)
I remember visiting the old family farm in northern Idaho at about age 12 in late April/early May one year. The piny woods were full of showy ladyslipper orchids! (and morels…which was entirely the reason for visiting)
Pure Magic! The woods that I loved and knew so well had been hiding something all those years. My first distinct memory of ephemerals. I’d heard stories from my mother about picking a bouquet of orchids for mothers’ day, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight of those tiny fuchsia beauties scattered over the forest floor.
I think I’ve been infatuated with ephemerals ever since. The sight of a bloodroot in the woods still feeds my soul.
Count me as odd but mine was for edible plants. Lettuces of every kind. When I was little my parents had a large garden in the wide open spaces of Montana.
I would spoon a little sugar into my hand and run outside to the garden and tear off some red frilly lettuce leaves. They would still have morning dew on them which held the sugar crystals magnificently for a few seconds til I devoured them. It was loose leafed bronze lettuce.
It seems a little mundane after all the beautiful and exotic plants I’ve since seen, but as a young girl who grew up in an apartment in the city there wasn’t much nature around. So my first love – the simple lilac…..I distinctly remember at about age 12 going to an old abandoned school house whose yard was rimmed with mature lilac bushes. My friend and I cut down a whole bunch, brought them home and put them in a vase. The sight and smell of lilacs still bring me back to Zion Public School in North York, Ontario. There’s been one in every garden I’ve had.
There have been so many-but unlike, say, animal lovers, we can fall for a plant and not worry about how many we have at home. Here in my usually temperate/sometimes extreme Jersey Shore garden, the debate over whether we are 7A or 7B gives me just enough wiggle room to search north or south. Dangerous but fun!
Pansies, I was addicted to them the first time I saw them. They seemed to smile endlessly at you. For years I would plant them by the hundreds, very sad when the heat set in and would wait again for the fall. Their rainbow of colors are endless, I plant them all, but purple is my favorite. My obsession got so bad I collected everything vintage with a Pansy on it, even named one of my dogs, Pansy. My obsession has lessened over the years, but not that much.
They are my passion, yes. So much variety…yarrow, cosmos, coreopsis, ZINNIAS!! They love the stupid hot we get down here, too. I do miss hostas, and painted ferns, but all this lovely color somewhat makes up for it.
Heather, your memory is lovely. As much as lust for and cultivate with exotics, the memories of my grandmother’s farm and the simple horticultural pleasures there are unmatched. Nothing can compare to the wonder and amazement I experienced when she taught me the essentials as we worked with her roses, peonies, spring bulbs, apple trees, vegetables, etc.
Welcome Caldylei, Heather and Trish.
Candylei, when the first Cook’s Garden catalog of Shep and Ellen Ogden’s came out decades ago, and the first years of Johnny’s Selected Seeds, and I got my first look at the potential diversity of salads, I felt the same way. Wow.
Heather: Yes, the lilacs still overwhelm me with their beauty every May here, even though they are the most familiar of old-house shrubs that in the dooryard bloom, as the poem said. Preposterously beautiful, and the fragrance…
And Trish: an omnivore! I think there are many among us here at A Way to Garden whose lust transcends genus and is just plain plantlust.
Thanks to you all for visiting, and come again soon.
First, I have to say that your photos for this post are just lovely! I got interested in gardening via Elizabethan embroidery, not the normal approach. Loved the fact that the flowers that were in those textiles were real and I could grow them.
On my blog I was just writing about what we wear in the garden and posted a snapshot of Marco’s garden clothes from a 1998 exhibit at Wave Hill of what the staff wore to work in!
Chamaecyparis Nootkatensis Pendula…it reminded me of the character ‘Goofy’ and still does.
and then the second was just that Sciadopitys/Umbrella Pine…
but then Peonies. They are something.
…then orchids.
then green tropical things.
I guess I have had a few more ‘first times’than maybe I should admit?
MR -
Hope you can come out and play w/me sometime.
Excellent post and question!
Kalmia latifolia and Illicium floridanum, both growing wild and in close proximity — which seems improbable now that I know both plants, but there you have it.
Welcome, Andrew. I have never managed to make Kalmia happy in the garden, but on the slopes behind my house, in the woods, it seems perfectly happy in the toughest spots. The Illicium isn’t hardy here for me, but it does have the most exotic red flowers. Great choices; can see why you “fell” for them, especially if they double-teamed you. See you soon again, I hope.
I’m with Heather. I remember feeling almost drunk from the scent of the lilacs in my grandmother’s garden.
That’s two votes for lilacs (plus mine), Meg, and welcome. Drunk is a good word. Now I am getting anxious, not sure I can wait till May. Did you two HAVE to bring up lilacs? :)
Roses are the most beautiful flower to me especially the red rose. They are so lovely that is why my garden is full of different color of roses.
Welcome, Plant & Gardening Tips. A real rose-lover joins us! I have almost no roses: one or two R. glauca (with blue foliage and single, small hot pink flowers, but good hips) and maybe a rugosa type or two. But yes, roses have bitten many a gardener. Hope we see you again soon.
I remember sitting in the (Woodie)stroller, at age 4, being pushed to my grandfather’s house several blocks away. We would pass an empty lot where hollyhocks were growing in great abundance. I would dream about them at night, I loved them so much. To this day I think they are the most romantic flowers- my first loves.
Similar to Joyce, hollyhocks were my first love. They grew in the flower beds on the edge on the red one-room school house I attended. I planted them in the tiny yard of my first home, a cottage in town. I carefully chilled and then germinated the seeds and was rewarded with those uniquely shaped flowers and impossibly tall stocks.
oh, the saucer magnolia. I saw a very old one in bloom in Marietta, Georgia. It was as big as a house, with the most beautiful pale pink blossoms all over it. Ever since, I have planted one in every garden (we move often) though it took quite some time before I found a pale pink variety(whose name escapes me), that wasn’t the fuschia/purple of the newer ones. And even though most years the blossoms get burned by a late frost here in TN, just a few days of those huge, pale pinks flowers on my current 9-foot specimen make the winter worth the wait.
Welcome, Sharon, and welcome, Angie.
Yes, Sharon, a big old saucer magnolia is a sight indeed. So are hollyhocks, Angie–the texture of the flowers and the happy colors. Thanks to both of you, and please visit with us soon again.
Delphiniums. Without a doubt. I was instantly enchanted by the brilliant blues and the spiky shape and still am. Had to have them in my wedding bouquet. Can’t grow them to save my life, but I keep trying.
@Christine: I bet that for every thousand delphinium sold in America, only 11 are still alive the next year. I just made that up, and it might be too optimistic, even. :)
Growing up on a ‘true’ family farm – aka kids equal labor force. The sheep where our lawn mowers for many years and it never failed that someone would forget to shut the gate – no more flowers….. But I can remember going to visit my Grandma K. with her yard outlined with peonies. Oh, the smell of fresh cut grass and peonies. Why isn’t that scent in candle form??? So, everywhere I have lived with soil attached has to have a peony… Thanks Grandma K.
That article title made me laugh. I guess I am different. I get more fired up over corn and tomatoes than any other plants or flowers. I guess it has to do with how I was raised. You grow it, pick it, eat it, and then can the rest.
Welcome, Marcus. I have written, “I never met a pumpkin I didn’t like,” and if there is one kind of botanical thing I never tire of it is the ones in the wild world of winter squash/pumpkins. So I hear you. Glad to provoke a laugh, and also to entice you to share your observation: “You grow it, pick it, eat it, and then can the rest.” Yup.
Absolutely Foxglove. I love the bells. The romantic colors are beauties! In a mass planting these biennials are worth it even if you get no volunteers and have to replant. Bonus for me is that the critters don’t snatch them out of the ground or eat them due to their toxicity. No wonder the medicinal purpose is for heart conditions. They won my heart from first sight. i
My passion started with peonies, a flower seen in “old aunt” gardens of my childhood. My x was from the UK and when seeing gardens there, and the collections of herbacious and tree types that were planted in masses, it just clicked. I proceeded with about three hundred varieties as my historic property had some that had been planted for about fifty or so years. it felt right with the style of house and type of garden.
This happened with roses, hellbores, euphorbias, lillies, and about anything else i grab onto. I love them all. I’m an antique collector and dealer so the collecting habit runs deep and now that there is dirt and trowel to dig deep, there is really no end in sight!
The feeling I get when I see a plant that gets me going is strong and makes me happy each and every time!
Welcome, Linda P. I am also a collector, a habit I inherited from my grandmother, and it has definitely influenced my behavior with plants as well. Uh-oh. When I bought epimediums I bought 10 kinds; euphorbias, ditto. Viburnums, ilex verticillata varieties…and on and on. That must be some spectacle at peony time. See you again soon, I hope.
I’ve lusted in my heart after a lot of plants. Among other things, I am a sucker for glaucus plants. One I can’t live without is Rosa glauca. I’ve given up on roses in general, but I still grow this one; the purple glaucus leaves , the violet stems, the pink single flowers followed by red hips. It’s a beauty in every season.
I first began gardening when my elementary school offered vegetable gardening to 4th graders. That summer I grew typical tomatoes, carrots and radishes. My favorite, however was Swiss Chard. I had never seen this veggie before, but the red leaves with bright green veins was so beautiful. And bonus, my mom knew how to cook it and it was delicious.
Welcome, Susan. ‘Ruby’ chard is a fantastic plant, isn’t it? Chard, along with kale, are the greens I always grow…so prolific and so delicious. And every year, even at this age, I look at those chard leaves in the sunshine and can’t believe the color is real. Thanks for visiting, and come again soon.
Count me in on lilac. But I also loved milkweed, as a kid. And my most vivid vegetable growing memory is turnips. We’d rinse them off with the hose and eat them right there.
Trish’s comment is so true. We can fall for any plants we want, bring them home without having any idea where we will plant them, and still find room to cram them into the garden somewhere. One of the joys of gardening, for sure.
The first plant I ever loved was a bleeding heart. I don’t even know where I would have seen it because my parents never planted it, but for as long as I can remember it’s been my top choice. As for vegetables, I love tomatoes. Way back in my elementary school days if I forgot my house key I’d take a tomato from the garden and eat it like an apple until someone came home to let me in. I never complained and I especially liked the hint of earthy/dirt flavor on the tomato.
Welcome, Meghan. I love bleeding hearts, too; every year they really surprise me, pushing through the ground so colorful and so early. Just about to bloom here… See you soon again.
I’ve had many loves through the years, but my first was the bearded iris. The scent simply transports me back to my early childhood. All the kids in the neighborhood used to play hide-and-seek as soon as the weather warmed up. I can remember hiding behind old Mrs. Wilson’s spiraea bushes which were fronted by a bed of purple iris. To this day a deep whiff of iris takes me there and I am once again crouching against the house with the smell of wet dirt and iris. This primitive olfactory sense seems to directly connect me to that time.
This is a lovely site and I’m so glad I found it. My current obsession is with lilies. Used to be they were the one cut flower I actually disliked — the stargazer type you see most at the florist was always just too much for me. In the garden, I was firmly for foliage over flowers. But then I saw my first martagon lily — and online, in a picture, not even in person. Ever since, I’ve put marts and other species type lilies wherever I can squeeze them in, which is pretty much everywhere. Love the bulbs in the fall; get far too much pleasure looking at photos of them all winter; and in the spring I literally watch their stalks grow. That’s all pleasure enough. The actual blooms are almost too exquisite.
Welcome, Wickerparker. Did you say Martagon lilies? Oh, my. Love them here as well. They should be happening mid-June or thereabouts. Thanks for your visit, and do come again soon.
Every year the have to have list gets bigger… When I bought my first home about six years ago, the first thing I just had to have was a hydrangia. Now I have about six of them all different varieties – love those giant globes of color. A couple of years ago it was the Forest Pansy – Don Egolf. I HAD to have one. Standing only about a foot tall today, I visited him each moring untill it was in full bloom. Now I have to wait a full year to see its lovely,vivid blooms again :)
Welcome, Linda. Ah, yes, the list gets bigger, does it? Never happens to me. :) See you and your growing family of plants soon again, I hope.