Flowers Our Grandmothers Grew
Old Fashioned, Antique, Historic, Heritage or Heirloom Gardens
Are you growing these lovely old time nostalgic flowers? Many terrific old roses, perennials, annuals, bulbs, and flowering vines have stood the test of time!
Remember the heirloom flowers, the roses, annuals, perennials and bulbs your grandmother grew in her flower bed? There are so many lovely old fashioned flowers and antique varieties we still grow and love today. Back then, special “passalong” flowers were passed from generation to generation, neighbor to neighbor, gardener to gardener as part of our heritage. Today, gardeners wishing to design a romantic garden or a cottage garden or a country style garden or a traditional flower garden, or wanting to restore or recreate a historic garden, or seeking sentimental favorites are likely to plant some of these. Maybe your grandma (or grandfather!) enjoyed these flowers, too.
Antique Roses, Old Roses
Some might classify roses as shrubs along with the beloved antique flowering shrubs such as fragrant purple lilac, the white flowered bridal wreath spirea, or the enchanting flowering quince. All of these have been treasured in gardens, with many individual plants surviving for generations. But roses have a special place in the flower garden.
Depending on what date one considers a rose to be an antique as opposed to simply old fashioned, there is room for discussion. However, these named roses have been widely loved and grown in our gardens for a very long time. Climbers: New Dawn, Blaze, Zephirine Drouhin and the irrepressible Lady Banks’ Rose. Smaller shrub roses: The Fairy, Gruss an Aachen, Cecile Brunner, Rosa Mundi. Larger roses: Old Blush, Reine des Violettes, and the many old time hybrid rugosas such as Blanc Double de Coubert, Roseraie de l’Hay, or Hansa. Roses offer a vast selection for gardeners interested in old garden favorites.
Old Fashioned Perennial Flowers
Many popular perennials have been grown in gardens seemingly forever, partly due to their beauty and, historically, often for their value as medicinal plants or herbs. Foxgloves, which contain digitalis, are a perfect example of this. In more recent times these flowers would seem to have captured every gardener’s heart: iris, border phlox, Shasta daisy, oriental poppy, old-fashioned bleeding heart, lavender, the perfumed sweet violets (Viola odorata), strongly scented carnations and pinks (Dianthus) and fragrant lily-of-the-valley, Maltese cross (Lychnis chalcedonica), the many bellflowers (Campanula), and the tawny daylily (Hemerocallis fulva.). Consider lilies, hostas and ferns, too.
Old Time Annual and Biennial Flowers
Before modern mass production, many gardeners raised their own annual and biennial flowers from seed. These flowers might self seed in the garden or the gardener faithfully saved the seed from year to year. Among the many, many choices: zinnia, balsam (Impatiens balsamina), larkspur, calendula, snapdragon, love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), hollyhock, the sweet faced Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor), rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) and the many different seed-grown poppies.
Historically Popular Flowering Vines
Gardeners have always made good use of flowering vines whether for covering an arbor or shading a porch or hiding a fence. Top choices include clematis, wisteria, Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia), morning glories, nasturtium, fragrant sweet peas and of course the sweetly scented jasmines.
Favorite Heirloom Bulbs
Old fashioned bulbs traditionally welcomed spring: daffodil or narcissus, tulip, crocus, Scilla, and hyacinth. Where naturalized or perennialized, some bulbs may prosper and bloom for decades without tending.
During the summer months, many gardeners still cultivate cannas and caladiums, Peruvian daffodils, dahlias, gladiolus and Lycoris -- although some of these might be more accurately classed as tubers, rhizomes, or corms.
Grandmother's Flower Garden Today
These heirloom flowers have all withstood the test of time to become classic garden flowers treasured today. You might already grow some of these old time flowers or their modern hybrids without realizing their history. Nowadays, we can locate these through specialty nurseries, catalogs, web sites and from gardening friends. Whether or not your grandma grew these in her flower garden, these old fashioned flowers from “grandmother’s garden” are sure to delight you now!
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Copyright December 7 2007 Barbara Martin All Rights Reserved
