While gazing upon my garden bed in summertime everyone always asks me:
Why do you plant nasturtiums?
They ask as though my choice to do so defies reasonableness.
Perhaps it does.
Nasturtiums. Say it. Nasturtium is a delicious flower name. So many consonants to chew on as you make your way, tongue banging tooth, through the syllable count.
Three syllables; did you count them? This is something good to know when you need a lovely flower to plant in a haiku or a tanka.
Okay fine, three syllables, so what? you might reply. This doesn’t explain why you plant them across your south facing, front yard flower and vegetable garden?
Well, for starters my dear father, plant lover that he is, introduced me to nasturtiums when he planted them instead of impatiens in his bed beside his front door step. Generous as he always is, he gave me several plants to try out front at my own place and I bought several more.
Space them out as they fill out were his words of wisdom and he was right. Part of the beauty of the plant is how quickly they fill a bed with a profusion of leaf and bloom but more leaves depending on the soil.
My mother in law’s mother always planted them in her Cape Breton garden. This is how I know that they do well in “poor” soil. Her mother planted them precisely for this reason.
But nasturtiums don’t just do well in poor soil-they perform differently in different soils based on the nutrient profile available to them. The Old Farmer’s Almanac says less fertile soil will bring more blooms and my father and I have found this to be true.
Whereas soil like my mushroom- compost, rich garden bed, cause a leafy abundance of those gloriously veined, lily pad- shaped leaves. And while the blooms are beautiful, the leaves whose wide faces catch and hold raindrops in a way that is delightful to behold are most welcome to my family and I.
And they do catch raindrops in the loveliest manner. My husband discovered this one rainy summer day when he was new to mindfulness.
Tilt, swoosh, tip.
The raindrops collect in the leafy centers and you can play catch with them with other leaves. Try it some rainy day you find yourself in a nasturtium bed midsummer and you will suddenly fall into wonder like a child blowing dandelion seed and watching as the fluff disperses on the breeze.
In other soils, nasturtiums flower more but what do these blooms look like you might wonder. Depending on the seed, they might be coloured tomato red, burnt orange, crimson or the palest, gentlest yellow. Bell of the ball- like, the petals remind me of fairy skirts made of crumply taffeta. All cheerful to gaze upon well into autumn until one morning you awake to see the ball is over. You forgot to tarp and the frost has taken them for its own; slack-stemmed, withered, blackened.
Nasturtiums have so many wonderful qualities it’s difficult to begin to know why I plant them.
Wait, I do know where to begin. They smell divine and the flowers invite your nose in for sniffing like those beauties of the ditch, false morning glories.
Pick a large bouquet for your table and see for yourself. Don’t be stingy for there are plenty to choose from and they will fill out quickly any void you leave.
How to pick? you wonder.
Reach into the dense darkness their bright green leaves have created. Reach bravely, grasping tenderly the long and narrow spindly stems that wind about each other in an amazing tangle. Slide fingers down into the cool recesses of the bed. The day is hot and long-go on- you deserve this little moment and the delectable cooling it affords your forearm. When you sense you’re nearing soil, stop short and pinch until your fingers meet each other. Twist gently here, feeling the flowers wetness seep onto your fingertips. Repeat until your hands are full, your heart is smiling and place them in a vase somewhere you will find yourself looking at them.
Wait, before you wipe your fingers clean take a moment and smell them. Do they smell spicy? Grab a leaf, take a small bite. What do you notice? The leaves are greens which add a peppery punch to summer salads. The flowers, all brilliant, deeply hued and paler shades are edible too and look so pretty on a summer plate. High in vitamin C, nasturtiums contain iron and other nutrients and the leaves do well in pesto's too.
And they are loved by butterflies and you, although you may not be a tiger swallowtail, will fall in love with nasturtiums too.
Speaking of butterflies, nasturtiums welcome butterflies to take up residence in the gardens where they’re planted.
When the wind is light and the sun is high in summertime, the whole bed can look like one great and swaying hammock of green. And this is so welcoming to lovers and patient observers both. I hope that one day you might have the good fortune of watching these broad faced leaves become a haven for cabbage white butterflies with a penchant for reproducing. Sit awhile if you note some cabbage whites on your nearby kale; fluttering white, dame rocket petals that they are, and wait. You might be in for a show.
One day I caught a glimpse of what looked to be a new species of butterfly in the garden and realized quickly it was not one but two and they were so well adjoined to one another that they could flit from leaf to leaf without seemingly losing a beat. It looked as though they were defying physics (but only human limitations, really).
Once you are done being dazzled by this, as I was, stay another moment when they become still and see if you can truly tell where one ends and another begins.
This is where the wildest beauty enters. But isn’t that what is most beautiful in life?
And I am not only speaking of sex.
No, I mean those moments when you don’t know where you end and everything else begins.
The sun beating down on your hair, your face, your shoulders and you squatting low on your haunches in the corner of the garden now reserved for the nasturtiums and you thought at first you were watching cabbage white butterflies mating.
Or picking a bouquet of nasturtiums…
Or maybe swooshing water droplets left after a recent rainfall, from leaf to bright green, wide- faced leaf…
And once, of a sudden, you’ve forgotten who you are!
Leaf, water droplet, ray of sunshine, petal, wing of butterfly, hand in a garden…
Why wouldn’t I plant nasturtiums year after year?
Cheers,
Jill