Sharon's blog: I didn't have no ribbons

"Remember your roots, chile, don't forget your roots."

"Peel back the dirt, it's what's underneath that matters."

Words from my Ninna.  The year was 1964.

I'd graduated from college, had been offered a teaching job in Louisville, about 250 miles from my home up in the holler between the mountains.  Ninna knew I wouldn't be spending my summers back home ever again. I'd been given going away gifts, things that would help me get a good start in life; things like recipe books and embroidered pillow cases and a cast iron skillet for baking cornbread, all wrapped in colorful paper with ribbons and bows.

Ninna handed me her gift in a double brown paper bag, held closed with a piece of  brown stringy cord, the kind that hung in the shed beside the hoes and the rake and the shovels. I peeked in the bag, and all I could see was soil and roots and a little bit of green.

"It's from all your grannies, you see," she said, "all them grannies that lived before you came along."

I carefully packed the gifts into my car, tucking the double brown paper bag safely into a space between boxes of dishes and linens.  My first Louisville home was in an apartment, first floor, with a tiny little patio outside my sliding glass door.  With my first paycheck I bought three terra cotta pots, one for each of the three plants that were inside the brown paper bag.  It was September, but within a few weeks, little shoots of green appeared in the pots outside on my patio. I knew what they were anyway, I could tell by the little hairy tubers, so I wasn't surprised.

I set them just inside the glass door during winter, then outside again in spring. They bloomed, as I knew they would; daylilies, an orange, a yellow with brown, and a red.  Gifts from my grannies.  My roots.

All this talk about daylilies this week has stirred up those memories.  I'm so fortunate.  What Ninna gave me that day has remained with me, not only in my memories, but also in every garden I've ever had. They've been shared, they've been carefully tended, they've been always loved.

One of the plants, the old ditchlily, is the oldest of all daylilies and from it all the beauties of today came.  One of the great grannies brought it with her when she journeyed across the ocean in the early 1600s.

Another was Mikado, the first cultivar, created around 1929.

Another was the Stout hybrid, Autumn Red, a product of the late 1930s.

It doesn't really matter that over the years they've been joined in my yard by hundreds of other varieties, more historics, more hybrids; what matters is that those three brown paper bagged daylilies are still growing, still blooming, and very much the focal point of my gardens. What also matters is that every summer day they remind me of my roots.

"All you need to do is love them, give them a little sunshine; that's your only job. They'll give you the prettiest sight you ever did see every single year of your life, and if you ever need it, they'll give you a bite to eat.  It's just something from all your grannies, you see.  That's what I wanted to give you, your roots.  Don't ever forget your roots, honey.  I didn't have no ribbons for wrapping."

Don't you worry, Ninna. I'll never forget. And a gift that lasts a lifetime doesn't need to be wrapped in ribbons.

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