Lily of the Valley

In the house I grew up in there was a horse chestnut tree in the front yard. I loved that tree - it was big enough to climb into but not so tall that you ever had to worry about hurting yourself by falling out of it. My sister and I would pull the large compound leaves off of the branches and make fans out of them. That tree was the bane of my father - it produced hundreds of spiny horse chestnuts, which aren't really good for anything except being a hazard to barefoot humans. To make matters worse, the main branch I would use to climb up into the tree was the perfect height to clothesline a person on a riding lawnmower going about his business trying to defend the yard against the dual scourge of crab grass and dandelions.

Anyway.

Beneath that tree grew the most beautiful Lily-of-the-Valley, real Lily-of-the-Valley, not the wild variety (I think they are called "False" Lily-of-the-Valley) that grow in the New England woods. They had delicate white flowers strung in a single file along nodding stems, and the most wonderful fragrance wafted from their little bells. I don't know how they got there - Lily-of-the-Valley are bulbs, so someone must have planted them, but who? My great-grandmother? Surely it was not my great-grandfather or great-uncle, who lived in the house together after my great-grandmother had died. These were people who made their own pickles in a big brining barrel in the basement and who kept pheasants in a fenced off area in the woods behind our house. Who knows?

We moved away from that little cape cod when I was in high school. Our family had outgrown the house, and the one we moved to was bigger, newer, nicer. Still, I missed the Lily-of-the-Valleys, and I even tried growing some at the new place. (They didn't thrive.)





Meet the newest addition to my little family:

posted by Carrie @ 10:41 PM