Sunday, June 20, 2010

calendula on father's day

This is my dad's hoe. He always called it a "chankoh," but I can find no references to such a tool online. He told me it was something they used when he was growing up in Singapore.

Dad loved to garden, so when he died unexpectedly in the spring of 2008, we gave out seed packets at his service. It was a hard year for all of us, but the kids and I did manage to empty a few packets into some dirt. Sometimes we remembered to water.

Fortunately, one of the seed packets contained calendula. When the kids were small, I kept calendula spray in the fridge for cuts and scrapes. It is reputed to have antiseptic properties, and it doesn't sting. Calendula, it also turns out, is a determined flower; growing is what-it-does.

Here is calendula in March:


And in April:


Last week the petals had dropped off, so I pulled the plants.


A close-up of the seed heads:


And finally, after a few sessions of clipping and sifting...


...we can start all over again.Yes, these flowers and seeds are descendants of the original seed packet handed out at Dad's memorial service over two years ago. The calendula plants have lived with us all this time.

With any luck, we will always have them.


9 comments:

  1. *sob* that is beautiful! a little bit of your dad, always with you in your garden. So lovely that you take the time to keep the cycle going.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a wonderful memorial of your father!

    ReplyDelete
  3. A charming, and very touching, blog post Suzie!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You made me smile :) I think we need calendula in our yard too.....

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a heart warming blog...brought me to tears. I am glad that you had those calendulas. Of course, your pictures are beautiful and bring you into the moment.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you, all, for the encouragement. And Robyn--I have as many calendula seeds as you could ever want! :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, how great! Would you part with a few seeds for us? And teach us how to make them grow?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Of course! And they really do practically grow on their own--no lessons necessary. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. I want to plant some now. I'll never see one and not think of your story now!

    ReplyDelete

Responses from cool people—please be sure to visit their blogs as well!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...