GARDEN MEMORIES
Actress Caroline Quentin finds sweetness and solace in her garden, and her new book shares both her plant stories and personal journey in her own words and illustrations
One of my earliest memories of a garden is from when I was about three years old. Iwas just under 3ft tall when Icame face-to-face with ayellow flowerhead the size of atambourine –Iwas very aware of the size of atambourine because Ihad played on one at nursery (rather well, I like to think) only the week before.
This first encounter with amassive chrysanthemum bloom clearly made an impression on me. Iwas in Avril’s grandparents’ garden. Avril was our lodger, agirl of about 18 who rented aroom at the top of our tall semi-detached house in Surrey. Avril’s grandad grew chrysanthemums in the long thin garden at the back of his caravan. The yellow of this (ball) chrysanthemum is seared into my memory, as though my personality was branded in that moment and that forever Iwould be in love with big bright flowers.
Chrysanths and dahlias have come in and out of fashion during my lifetime. Imay have tried to move with the times as far as garden planting goes but truthfully, I think when Iwas planting pale, delicate penstemons in the 1980s and an all-white border in the 90s, Iwas denying my true, gaudy, shouty, show-off inner plantswoman.
In one of my favourite DH Lawrence short stories, TheOdourofChrysanthemums, Lawrence perfectly describes their unique smell: not pretty but stale, nostalgic and beautiful in asubtle, secretive way. Perhaps that’s why I love them. They are abit like me. Iappear abit brash and uber-confident, but like lots of us who seem to be extroverts, we are in fact doing avery good job of covering up aquieter, more reticent side of ourselves.
Future memories
Tomorrow my friend’s daughter is getting married in our village church. Eleanor, the bride, has asked if Icould provide some tiny flowers to add abit of colour to the celebratory fizz. I don’t know much about edible flowers so I’m keeping it simple and only using flowers that I’m certain are edible and that Iknow will look beautiful. Ihave collected some stems of flowering sage, borage and some tiny rose petals, put them onto some damp kitchen paper and popped them in the fridge until tomorrow morning. I’m also going to use petals from my very prolific nasturtiums –they will certainly provide fantastic flashes of colour to liven up the wedding party drinks.
Breaking news…
I’ve just had arather worried phone call from the mother of the bride. The dried rose petals ordered to be thrown as confetti have been delivered to the wrong address. My roses have done very well this year so I’ve said Ican provide fresh rose petals as asort of living confetti.
