Contemplating violets

Picking violets always reminds me of Mum. In fact, the feelings I have for some of my favourite flowers and plants, e.g., freesias, sweet peas, roses, jonquils, pinks (Dianthus caryophyllus), pansies, pineapple sage, spearmint, fragrant rhododendrons (‘Fragrantissimum’, and luteum), and the flowering cherry, ‘Mount Fuji’ (Prunus serrulata ‘Shirotae’), can be traced back to the flowers, shrubs and trees we had in our home garden in Upper Hutt. It was Mum who would show me the flowers and talk about them, and one of my earliest memories is of sitting beside her on a hot day, on the lawn beneath the kitchen window. She was weeding the pinks that grew in a border along the edge of the house and encouraged me to lean down low and smell the cute bi-colour flowers. Their fragrance–sweet‑smelling and musky, somewhat similar to the taste of smokers, still transports me back to that day, and to the feelings of security associated with being there with Mum. Of all the flowers I love, I don’t remember sweet peas growing at home, but when we visited Grandma and Grandad in Kilbirnie, Wellington, Mum always pointed them out to me, growing in a brilliant and heady tangle along the fence alongside their gravel driveway.

Two of the roses from my childhood were ‘Crimson Glory’ and ‘Peace’ and I liked them because Mum liked them. There was also a pink standard and a couple of floribunda varieties. A few years before she died, Mum gave me her crystal rose bowl, and I treasure it. Roses don’t seem to grow as well up here in South Head–I’m sure that the summers are too hot and humid, but it gives me a great deal of pleasure to use that vase and I always think of Mum when it’s there, displaying my roses.

Anyway, back to the violets. When I was gathering these somewhat scruffy looking violets earlier today, and when I held them to my nose to inhale their sweet scent, I thought of Mum and the way she’d always ask me to pick some for her when I was tiny. I remember it being an important and difficult task, requiring special attention to part the leaves and look for the flowers, taking care to snap the stalks off as close to the base of the plants as possible. Mum would always put my bunches into a small vase, and place them on the kitchen windowsill, just as I’ve done today. You could smell them when you were working at the bench.

The smell of violets is distinctive. Evoking memories of old ladies’ perfume, and also bringing to mind childhood riverside explorations beside the Hutt River. This river has now been given back its original and much more appropriate name, ‘Te Awa-kairangi’, which means, ‘precious river meandering through the valley’, but I grew up only knowing the unoriginal Pākēkā name.

Te Awa-Kairangi runs close to where I lived as a child, the house situated in a group of streets in a brand new 1950s subdivision named after English poets, and therefore known as ‘Poet’s Block’. In the late 60s and early 70s, I came to know the nearby section of river, intimately. I wasn’t allowed to go there alone until after the stop bank was built, but I had a neighbourhood friend, Sue, and she and I could just walk to the end of our street and squeeze between the wires of a fence, then scamper to the river along a well-trodden path running along the edge of  a horse paddock. In winter, the track would be boggy with long wet swathes of grass so we’d have to wear our gumboots, but in summer, the meadow grass would be tall and we’d be surrounded by the sounds of cicadas and crickets, and the grasses would be alive with small blue butterflies (Zizina otis ssp. Labradus).

In the place I especially liked to explore, there were the crumbling foundations of an old stone house with an overgrown garden, and that’s where my memories took me to today. One day I’d discovered a sheltered dell with a huge patch of violets–it was almost completely hidden by a ring of flowering plum trees. After that, I’d always go there from May/June onwards, to find the first violets. I especially liked the way the small flowers lay hidden under the green leaves, and the fact that you had to search for them.

To me, plants with fragrant flowers are the most precious of all, and yet these days I often overlook my shy violets. I may glance down and see a flash of amethyst beneath the leaves, but I don’t always take the time to stop and gather a few.

I’m glad I did this today.

Whakatikei River

Bare toes on wet rocks
Light reflects in amber pools
Dragonflies hover

15/07/2023