THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607180121
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: 79 lines
When I was a child, the flower gardens in my neighborhood were wondrous and exciting.
They were wondrous because they reappeared as if by magic each spring after the snow had melted, the days had lengthened and the rock-filled Maine mud had been replaced by sprigs of grass.
They were exciting because they were not predictable.
There were no designer-dictated arrangements centered on a color or a family of colors. There were no rigid triangles or circles containing just the right mix of short, medium and tall plants, no pricy hothouse specimens meant to impress the neighbors.
The flowers on Maple Street appeared in unexpected places and grew with an abandon rarely seen these days except around old farmhouses or on long-deserted inner city lots.
In that, they most resembled the homes whose lots they shared.
Large homes with twists and turns, turrets and bays, porches and gables, they had been built in the second half of the 19th century when Bangor was a city grown rich on fortunes made in timber and rum.
No two houses were remotely alike. Most appeared to have been designed by an architect filled with joy, drunk with possibilities and marching to the most different of drummers.
By the time I came along a series of recessions, depressions and wars had taken its toll on the houses of Maple Street. Most, once inhabited by single families with staffs of servants, had been renovated to shelter two or three families struggling in an uncertain world.
If the families were struggling and the houses altered, the flowers of the previous generations thrived.
Lilacs burst forth from behind barns and carriage houses, their rich scent filling the air just in time to be plucked and carried to the cemetery in glass jars for Memorial Day.
Later, as a college student, I read Whitman's ``When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd.'' I was reminded not of Abraham Lincoln in whose memory he had penned it, but of those closer to home whose graves were decorated by the sweet purple flowers with the deep green, heart-shaped leaves.
There were heart-shaped flowers in the gardens of Maple Street as well. Bleeding hearts. A favorite with Victorian maidens, they were most apt to appear next to back porches.
On the fronts of the houses bridal wreath bushes offered privacy to the porch swings and rockers on the narrow verandas. On hot days I would crawl under the arching branches and look up at the tiny wreaths, planning in detail the wedding I would someday have.
Was the placement of the different species meant as a discreet Victorian message? Did the bleeding hearts represent secret loves that were kept from public view while the miniature bridal wreaths stood for the public ceremonies that joined those to whom families had given their blessing?
Perhaps I'm looking for a message that was never intended. Then again, given the ability of the Victorians to assign meaning to everything from the movement of a lady's fan to the color of the flower she wore in her hair, perhaps not.
Peonies, on the other hand, carried no special message. They offered only a rare beauty, the most delicate of scents and an ability to survive the harshest of winters and the rockiest of soils.
For many years I forgot the lessons of the gardens on Maple Street. I tried for the ideal, poring over books, magazines and seed catalogs in search of the perfect combination of plants for my landscape.
Somehow, nothing I tried seemed right. Then I realized why. It was for the same reason that I am uncomfortable with designer rooms and designer clothes. I am too much an individual, too interested in too many things to be comfortable with a single style dictated by someone else.
Perhaps it is part of having grown up in a time and place where individuality in all things was prized.
In the past few years I have planted what I like, where I like, where I like with an eye toward those plants that will thrive for generations to come.
I don't have any bridal wreaths for little girls to dream under, but I do have some wonderfully arching hydrangeas. A few weeks ago I found my not quite 2-year-old grandson sitting under one, solemnly contemplating the world around him.
My garden, like those on Maple Street, was doing what a good garden should do. It was offering a place of wonder and beauty in which to learn and grow. by CNB