Grandma’s petunias
By Tom Poland – A Southern Writer
TomPoland.net
Vintage petunias, those flowers my grandma loved, I saw them in youth. As I sort through my memory album they reappear. Soft and delicate . . . pastel petals of white and pink, lavender, like watercolors. In the flowers’ throats, subtle veins converge, a case of floral perspective.
For a long time I had forgotten old timey petunias. Too much time. Then one day a reader spotted them in my photograph of a country store along old US 1. Sometimes I go blind.
I had overlooked them.
“Did you notice the old timey petunias by the store’s steps?”
I brought up the photo and there they were, a timeless cluster frozen by the shutter. All faced away from the sun, gazing at their shadows. And then I discovered vintage petunias a week later at an old homeplace. Discovered them in person in a large field adjacent to the ruins of an old tenant home.
Once upon a time I worked on a trainman’s story about a woman who loved trains. She always waved at the trains and one day the trainman paid her a visit to thank her.
“I walked through Miss Johnnies’ fragrant purple old timey petunias; the perennial kind our southern grandmothers grew in their yards.”
Yes, Ronnie Myers, conductor/brakeman, that would be correct.
Old fashioned petunias—Grandma’s petunias—are still out there. This hardy, aromatic heirloom flower hints of old home places, and that’s where I stumble upon them. Another time I saw old petunias and recognized them for what they are, vintage flowers. I recall Mom’s talking about old-fashioned petunias and a flower that has a beautiful name, delphinium, oh, and plumbago too.
That hot afternoon in the big field I leaned over and breathed in their scent. I best describe it as green spicy and peppery. It didn’t overpower me and I liked that. I had to work to gather in its incense. Modern hybrids, alas, seem odorless.
So, what happens to these hardy, old flowers when the people who planted them are no more? They keep on keeping on. Perched upon long stalks, they reseed themselves. And reseed themselves.
Time’s relentless. Homes burn. Homes suffer abandonment and decay. People die, but the flowers keep on keeping on, and so old homeplaces and forgotten cemeteries give them safe harbor. Deprived of someone to water them, fertilize them, and keep harmful insects away, they get by on their own.
Grandmother Walker grew them on her columned porch. Shouldn’t we? If we do, we plant a heritage. They’ll be here when you and I will not. Someone you’ll never meet will see them and pass along the memory.
