nichepoetryandprose

poetry and prose about place

Posts Tagged ‘origins

garden escapes: where did they come from?

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When I find a plant in a ditch or roadside where it has no business to be, I wonder how it got there. Of course, the mechanism is usually plain. Some plants have arrived by seed, others by horizontal roots. But how did they get into the garden if that is where they came from?

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This weekend, we found three plants which made me wonder how they arrived in the community where they now grew: bouncing-Bett (Saponaria officinalis), white sage (Artemesia ludovinciana) and harebell (Campanula rotundifolia).

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escapes

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Where did they come from?

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33 bouncing bett cropped

bouncing-Bett (Saponaria officinalis)

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bouncing-Bett, common soapwort

Saponaria officinalis

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pink blur along the road

fills the ditches

perhaps she loved colour

or needed mild soap

to wash delicates

gloves sullied in the garden

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6 Morehouse Corner white sage cropped

white sage (Artemesia ludovinciana)

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white sage

Artemisia ludovinciana

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hugs the edge of the road

a slash of silver

in a matrix of green

perhaps he sought

smoke and smoulder

sacred odour of the smudge

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20 Wiggens Mill harebell cropped

harebell (Campanula rotundifolia)

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harebell

Campanula rotundifolia

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in the margins of the road

harebell catches

found among the grasses

perhaps they wished to play

dress-up with lady’s thimbles

reminded them of home

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Be safe, wear your mask.

All my best,

Jane

 

Written by jane tims

August 5, 2020 at 7:00 am

I’m from Canada …

with 19 comments

As I have been building my family tree, I am discovering how many ‘places’ my ancestors have called home.

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img056

my grandmother and her brother and four of her sisters appear in this photo at a school in Nova Scotia in the early 1900s

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The people I would call grandfather or grandmother (with greats added) include people who came to Canada or to the United States from England, Scotland, France, and Germany.  Some of their parents came originally from the Netherlands.

 

  • John Winslow (b. 1597)  Droltwich, Worcestershore, England (1620)
  • Mary Chilton (b. 1607)  St. Peter, Sandwich, Kent, England  (Mayflower 1620)
  • Patrick McMullen  (b. 1704)  Scotland
  • Peter LeValley (b. 1675)  France
  • William Spavold  (b. 1810)  England (Trafalgar 1817)
  • Eliza Greenfield (b. 1790)  England (Trafalgar 1817)
  • Stephen Hopkins  (b. 1581) Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England (Mayflower 1620)
  • Elizabeth Fisher (b.  unknown)  England (Mayflower 1620)
  • Francis Cook (b. 1583)  Gides Hall, Essex, England (Mayflower 1620)
  • Hester Mahieu (b. 1585)  Canterbury, Kent, England (1623)
  • William Latham (b. 1608)  Chorley, Lancashire, England (Mayflower 1620)
  • Conrad Hawk (Sr.)  (b. 1744)  Germany
  • Conrad Kresge (b. 1730)  Amberg-Sulzbach, Bayern, Germany
  • Johan Ulrick Kohl  (b. 1702)  Pallatine, Germany
  • Solmey Cooll  (b. 1702)  Germany
  • Johann Nicholas Borger (b. 1720)  Nassig, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
  • John Clark (b. 1793) Straiton, Ayrshire, Scotland
  • Jane Cooper (b. 1799)  Greenock, Scotland
  • Margaret Miller (b. 1798)  Hoddam, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
  • William Aitcheson (b. 1794)  Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland (1832)
  •  — Wayborne (b. 1836) Rockbeare, Devon, England
  • John Johnson (b. 1780)  England

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To make me, how many different people from so many different places had to get together!!!  As my aunt used to say, just being here, we have already won the greatest lottery of all …

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One of my next genealogy / virtual cycling project will be to track down when they came to Canada or the United States.  Immigration records and passenger lists of ships will help me in this endeavor.

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Copyright  2014   Jane Tims

Written by jane tims

May 19, 2014 at 2:57 pm

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