My Flower Wednesday post is a curious mix of family history and fuchsias. Great Gran's fuchsia to be precise. I am of course joining Riitta for her Flower Wednesday link so do click to find other flower posts.
How many of you have flowers in your garden that come from friends, or other family members? Lots I bet. We do too. Walking around I can say, oh that's 'so and so's' geranium etc.
Fuchsias are a particular love and one of the many specimens in our garden came from my husband's grandmother. She has been dead for over twenty years now. She lived in a Victorian house in St Helier with a small walled garden at the back. There was very little grass. Enough to cut with nail scissors, she used to joke. But she had the biggest fuchsia you have ever seen. We were convinced that its roots must have found their way into the water cistern, below ground.
She had lived in the house since the early fifties. Before that she had been evacuated to England during the Second World War. Originally from Guernsey, her husband went off to build Spitfire planes at Vickers factory in Southampton at the start of the war. She joined him in 1940 when the Germans arrived in Guernsey. She travelled with many others on a very small boat to Weymouth. Once there, she and her two children made their way to Southampton.
After a few months the danger of air raids made the Vickers factory move to near Newbury and so she and her family moved again, for the remainder of the war.
When she returned to the islands it was to Jersey, not Guernsey. Her husband had a job at Jersey airport, so she and the family had to follow.
I remember being taken to meet her for the first time. I had to stay in the car while my husband went ahead, to prepare her! I was allowed into the front room with the best furniture and an aspidistra. Fortunately I must have made a reasonable impression, because I was soon allowed in the more humble back room.
Before she left her house for sheltered housing we took lots of cuttings of the fuchsia. These first went into our own small town house garden and then yet another cutting found its way to our present home.
The plant we have now is about twenty years old. As you can see it's very woody. Each year we expect the frost to finish it off, but it is a sturdy old thing. We have recently taken more cuttings. Just in case.
We have many other fuchsias, as they are so tolerant of shade. But Great Gran's is definitely the favourite.
Do you have a special plant in your garden with a history. I would love to hear about them.
Barbara xxx
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