Flowers in a garden that evoke fond memories from childhood

My dear Mum always had a large patch of nasturtium Tom Thumbs. I can remember by her side as a very small child collecting seeds from the flowers at the end of the season. They were stored till spring in my Dad’s Gold Flake pipe tobacco tins.

We also had a lovely fuschia bush which grew from a cutting my Mum took from the gable end of the ruins of her family cottage in rural Ireland during one of our summer holidays.

My father always grew wallflowers - we called them Gilly flowers or just Gillies (with a soft G).
They came in range of colours.
He always had a long rack of sweet peas which we picked.

Lily of the Valley was very temperamental - sometimes it would disappear from our garden and appear next door.

My dad had an allotment where he grew fruit & veg and some flowers, too. I loved the eschscholzias he grew, which no one else had back then. He also grew sweet Williams, dahlias, snap dragons, sweet peas & chrysanthemums. The modern sweet Williams you buy as cut flowers in shops today don’t seem to have the beautiful smell my dad’s used to have.

I've been trying to remember the name of the flower and it was fuchsia. When I was about 4 years old someone taught me how to break the end of the little tube and suck the sweet nectar out, so that was quite a novelty. Definitely not good for the bees though, so I won't be passing that skill on.

Dahlias remind me of my dad, as he loved to grow them. I also love to see michaelmas daisies, as he taught me a poem about them which I still remember to this day.
"The michaelmas daisies have grown so tall,
They peep right over the garden wall.
I wonder, I wonder what they can see,
For the michaelmas daisies are taller than me."

I completely agree about wallflowers and sweet williams. I've always been disappointed that the scent seems to have been bred out of sweet williams now.

Roses and sweet williams beautiful my dad grew them by the veg patch to attract pollinators. Wild flowers because they remind me of childhood running wild on surrounding farm land.

Not garden flowers but we lived opposite woods when I was growing up and bluebells remind me of my childhood. We used to pick bunches of them and put them in jam jars for the nature table at school Different times now I wouldn't dream of picking them. I have always had them them in my garden

OP flowers are so evocative, aren't they?

My maternal grandmother's roses , making perfume in jam jars from fallen petals, (never worked but that didn't stop me trying every year)

Whenever I smell freesia or sweetpeas, I am taken straight back to my grandmother's sitting room. In summer her vases were always full of both.

Geraniums I associate with my paternal grandmother, bright red on her balcony.
In her sitting she nurtured a monster of a pink Busy Lizzy plant that just grew and grew. I have never seen one so big since.
It was her pride a joy.

My father In law was a keen gardener and had a beautiful, but regimented garden, think park,
E.g. Marigolds in straight lines with little Dorrit separating each one.
But every spring before summer planting his garden was amass of beautiful forget me nots.
He died in 2000 but 21 years later, but we still have self seeding have forget - me- nots that originally came from his garden.

My father on the other hand was not a keen garden by any stretch of the imagination, but he couldn't abide dandilions!
Strangely at this time of year, when roadsides are covered in dandelions, I think of my father.

My mum died young, but I associate the beautiful white iceberg
Rose with her.

We used to pick wild bluebells, too, May. Back then, it didn’t seem to matter how many you took, it made no impression on the numbers left, they were in such profusion.

Mesembryanthemum - my mums favourite flowers and Ceanothus, my MIL loved the big blue bushes.

Puzzler, snap on Super Star. That was my chosen rose for my wedding bouquet. December so they had to be imported. I have one in my garden but it's getting tired after all these years. Keep going to replace it but sentiment holds me back. Nice to know someone else has heard of it.

Sweet Williams always by the front door. Orange blossom which filled the air every April/May, wisteria whic was trained from front door and then went over a support and made a sort of shelter you could sit under in the summer. Red hot pokers and chrysanthemums and tulips. Bluebells and primroses in the woods behind the house. Marsh marigolds in the pond in the woods where we played. And wall flowers too.

Oh I’m so glad Super Star is a special rose to you too Kim19 ?

I remember trying to make scent from rose petals too. Never worked though.

Dahlias, Zinnias, my father always had a large display of many flowers and these are two in particular I remember as a child. We also had peonies . Irises were either side of the front door.

Oh some lovely stories!
I had forgotten about the nature walks we had at school, when our teacher told us the names of the wild flowers, Lady’s Shamrock, Marsh Marigolds, Wood Anemones, which we picked and put into an album It wouldn’t be allowed now, but I can still identify them.

I remember red peonies my mother grew and tall irises too. This is bringing back many memories.

Chestnut

My uncle in Wales grew sweet peas and my aunt always put a vase of them on the table when we had tea. He also kept bees and would give me a pot of honey when we visited once a year.
In London we had privet hedges in the front gardens and they were always bursting with wiggly little caterpillars every Spring which we loved! I haven't seen caterpillars on privet hedges for about 60 years.

Last year “wiggly little caterpillars” devoured most of our privet hedging. Once I realised what was covering the hedging I thought ah well and just tried to keep an eye on them but one day they were there the next day they were gone along with my healthy hedge!

Fragrant roses and snap dragons evoke wonderful memories of playing in our garden.

I took this photo yesterday walking in the bluebell woods with my grandchildren.

Like the OP, my mother loved wallflowers because of their lovely scent. She’d be very disappointed with modern wallflowers which don’t seem to have a scent. She would also buy bunches of anemones. We didn’t have much of a garden, and neither of my parents were gardeners, but as a fledgling eight year old gardener, the first flowers I grew were Virginian stocks and calendula (still grow them). Then sweet peas. As an army wife for nineteen years, I tried to grow flowers in every place we’ve been posted - with varying degrees of success. Everywhere has the potential for a garden of some kind.

the lilac tree where mum used to sit near.
Every garden seemed to have a lilac in those days, EllanVannin

Cherrytree - I remember those jam jars of rose petals and water we used to make.
They used to smell terrible

We used to love picking primroses from the hedgerows many years ago, and bluebells too.
We'd never do it now, of course!

www.gardenia.net/plant/lysimachia-punctata-yellow-loosestrife#carouselExampleControls

GNW fabulous photo

The scent of the Daphne bush - it heralded whip and top season and the delicate Harebells at the end of my Grandma’s garden.