What do these common geraniums have to do with this blog? ('They're actually pelargoniums', my husband adds.)
I recently transferred these hardy cuttings from the parched pot in which they've sat for close to two years. In that time, spindly storks have become woody and thick as my wrist. I never suspected this was possible. In fact, I never thought they'd even survive. They didn't have the best start. How did I come to have them? The bushfires.
On that day in February 2009, everyone knew it was far too hot and windy, the bush too dry. My mum stayed at home as advised. She looked out her back kitchen window, listening to the sirens and watching the trucks race up and down the mountains a few kilometres away. A not uncommon summer occurrence, but still worrying.
By the afternoon, she was looking anxiously out of her loungeroom. It looked like it was snowing. By evening she could see the hills glowing red. It wasn't until the next day when she, like the rest of us, heard of the full scale of the tragic events: friends without homes, unprecedented and unexpected deaths in the hills, and all that still remained unknown.
I was anxious for her to leave - to come and stay with us. But she needed to take her time. To work out what to bring, to say goodbye to her home; to not feel like she was abandoning her friends and community.
I kept watch on the Country Fire Authority website. I told her when spot fires were streets away from her. We watched and waited, and hoped the wind wouldn't change. Finally, she left and came to stay with us for several weeks, until the urgent threat subsided, even though the uncertainty was to remain much longer.
How did she choose what to bring? I'm still uncertain. She's promised to write about it for me one day. I only know that it took her a long time. Hours, when time seemed critical.
What did she bring, of all her possessions? Very few things. Photos, a picture that was my dad's favourite, and some other small things. I don't know exactly what else she brought along because she left them, all of them, in her car the entire length of her stay. They'd become far less important to her on her journey - less important in the circumstances.
One thing she brought into the house with her surprised me: a bunch of common pink pelargonium stems. These geraniums were hidden down the back of her large garden. My late father had planted them as a marker of sorts, dividing the cultivated garden off from the raw bush. I know they aren't her favourite plants - they aren't the finest examples of pelargonium - and yet, she wanted to make sure I planted them, and gave them a good chance to live.
Why? Well I'll have to speculate as I doubt she truly could explain it. Perhaps because they were simply a little bit of her garden that she could bring with her. She couldn't bring the August daffodils still in bulb below the surface, or the September freesia, or the Lily of the Valley, or the dappled Liquidambar trees. But she could bring these robust stems, in full knowledge that they stood a fighting chance. Even as her daughter, new baby in arms, hastily stuffed them into a pot of baked old dirt, and would then neglect to water through that summer of 40+ degree days (104+ fahrenheit).
The geranium cuttings are now too big for their pot, and have a new home in a ramshackle garden bed that I too generously call a cottage garden. And the original ones are still there out the back of a country house and garden, amidst a valley of new green, even if there is no forgetting.
We might not always be able to put our finger on why certain objects are precious. Their meaning might exist below our psyche's wakefulness. That said, we might not always need to consciously know what we need: we might just choose the objects that best exemplify the quality we need at that time. And that might come in the form of a woody, shaggy, Barbie-pink, common garden pelargonium.
Lovely Ruth. A little piece of life after such a horrific time. Our fire were stopped about 5mins from our house. We were lucky. We just never realised how lucky until later that night when we saw the footage. I'll never forget those days of blood red skies or trying to suppress fear so as not to scare the kids as we evacuated. Thanks so much for sharing such a precious story.
ReplyDeleteYou must've had a horrible time, RH, especially with the kids. Now it's all so very green again - the scars are there on the horizon, but green in a way I haven't seen it for years. Here's hoping for a cooler summer again this year.
ReplyDeleteRuth: Could it be because your father planted them? I have a few bits in my garden from my parents' or relations' old homes, and they become very precious and evocative, even if they are not the most beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI imagine, if you move from your present home, you may well choose to take something of the "geraniums" with you.
I'm sure his planting them is a part of it. Yet of all the things they shared, made, planted and gave as gifts to one another, these flowers seemed an odd choice. Hence, my speculation that there was more to it than that. Perhaps it's the fact that they represented the cultivated, civilized part of the garden, at a time when the bush seemed to represent hostile and uncaring nature.
ReplyDeleteThat's a beautiful story. During the late 1990s the Girl Guides potted up red geraniums for households in western NSW. The idea was that while gardens couldn't be watered because of the drought conditions, the red geraniums were hardy and colourful and would be "something". I remember potting them and often wondered whether they arrived and sat in a spot of someone to be admired or whether it was a frivolous idea.
ReplyDeleteKate: Red geraniums are my favourite! They're so joyfully robust and wonderfully frivolous too. As a kid, I picked them savagely, and they always returned bigger and healthier for the prune. Now my kids do the same. I'm sure your ones brightened a dusty verandah or entertained a bored child when no other greenery could be found.
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