Flowers

Sometimes people ask me if I miss Zimbabwe, and I’m never quite sure what to say. There are things I miss about it, certainly, but I have been in Europe for so long that I feel as if I belong here now. (Even so, after so many years, there are still days when I wake up in the morning, and in that instant just prior to waking, as I am trying to work out where I am, my bedroom in Zimbabwe comes up briefly as an option.)

The fact is that my childhood happened in Africa, and my adulthood happened in Europe. I thought I was very grown-up when we moved (I was 16), but now I realise that I really wasn’t. And if I lived there now, my life would be very different, not only because the country has changed so much since I lived there, but because I have grown up. So if I miss “Zimbabwe”, it is not so much the country as my childhood that I am nostalgic about.

When I was in Brazil, something that never failed to draw excited squeals from me was seeing flowers that I had last seen in Zimbabwe. Whoever I was with at the time would tend to get the impression that I was fanatical about flowers in general, and would start pointing out this flower or that flower that I might like to take photos of. And then I would have to explain that it was not “flowers” I was excited about so much as “flowers that brought back memories”.

I would like to share some of these with you. If you are African, you may well find these as nostalgia-inducing as I do; if not, then I hope you simply enjoy looking at them.

Nasturtiums

These are edible flowers. Some people put them in salads. I’m not entirely sure why, though – they’re peppery and not particularly nice. My mother swears that when she was a little girl, she once put a nasturtium in a glass of water, and she saw a water baby swimming around it.

Black-eyed Susans

The black-eyed part of the name is clear enough. But why Susan? I don’t know.

  

Canna lilies

Apart from being beautiful flowers, these have the most fascinating seed pods. When they are green, they look like this:

and the seeds inside are white. When they dry out, both the pod and the seeds in it go black: 

and if you scatter the seeds in the garden in the evening, then the fairies will come and take them away during the night. 

Bird of Paradise flower

Spectacular, no?

Busy Lizzies

These are wonderful for two reasons: first because they come in so many different colours, and second because they have the most fantastic seed pods. They are shiny and bulbous, and when you squeeze them, they burst and curl up:

Eucalyptus

 

If you crush eucalyptus leaves, they release a delicious smell. The flowers are furry and gorgeous, and when they fall off, they leave a little cup behind, which also falls off eventually. I used to collect these cups, put a drop of water in each one, and leave them out for the fairies. Every now and then, I would announce that I could hear the fairies crying because they were thirsty and I had to go and fill up the cups.

Golden showers

You really want to type in “golden showers flowers” if you go and do a Google search for this. Apart from being very pleasing to look at, these flowers are very exciting, because if you pluck them off the green base, you can drink the nectar out the end.

Dark red roses

Not necessarily African, but I include them because my grandparents had a section of their (huge) garden with a collection of rose bushes growing, untended and perfectly happy to be so. They were always slightly black, making them look old even when they hadn’t even opened yet, and they smelt heavenly.

Frangipane

These flowers are wonderful for making necklaces with, because you can easily thread a piece of cotton into the centre and through the short stem. The trees have a milky white sap which we were warned was poisonous and which I was always slightly afraid of.

Dahlias

I first discovered these in my grandparents’ garden when they grew out of a pile of rubble where some building work had been done. For years, I was convinced that dahlias necessarily grew out of rubble.

  

Wild strawberries

We had these in our garden, growing in the shade of a big tree, hidden among moss and violets. We never ate them – I think they might have been poisonous.

Mulberries

The best way to spend an afternoon during the school holidays: climb the mulberry tree (and never was there a tree so tailor-made for climbing), and sit in the branches eating mulberries. Then spend the rest of the day with purple fingers. And if you have silkworms, you keep them in a box full of mulberry leaves. 

Flame lilies

This is the national flower of Zimbabwe and is protected. You are not allowed to pick it, even if it is growing in your own garden. They grew in my grandparents’ garden, for a few weeks every year, and we would go round counting them.

Jacaranda trees

Not indigenous to Zimbabwe, but so much part of the scenery that you would never know it. Every year, thousands of these trees come into bloom, and the streets turn purple. The flowers fall to the ground, inspiring teachers up and down the country to give their pupils creative writing assignments on “purple carpets”. Bees creep into the flowers on the ground, and then you walk around with bare feet and get stung, but you never learn to put shoes on.

If you squeeze the base of the flowers, a white, mucus-like ooze comes out. You can imagine how many hours of entertainment that provides.

  

Mielies

Or corn, if you will. We had some of these growing in our garden. They were a nuisance to prepare – you had to peel the cobs and pull off all the annoying hairy stuff. Then you boiled them, covered them in margarine (you couldn't get butter) and salt and pepper, and sat there gnawing them, and bits got stuck between your teeth. I refuse to eat them now without cutting the grains off the cob first.

Clover/Donkey weed

       

A bed of clover is the most decadent place you will ever have an afternoon nap. Someone at school once told me it was edible, and I tried several times to eat it, but was never quite convinced. (Having said that, someone at school also told me that red ants were edible. I was never brave enough to try them, but the other kids ate them. Mind you, that was at the age when we were still eating banana skins, mud, and food from the dog’s bowl.)

  

Mukwa

The wood of the mukwa tree is used to make furniture. The seeds are used to make instant parachutes. If you drop them from a height, they float down most delightfully.

Hoopoe

Not, strictly speaking, a flower, but what a magnificent crest and beak!

Lilac-breasted roller

Well, we appear to have moved into bird territory. 
I first became aware of these when I saw one on a postage stamp, and after that, I started seeing them all the time. And they always seemed to be sitting on electricity lines (although this one isn’t).

Masked weaver

These are very industrious little birds, and at the beginning of the summer, they all start building funny teardrop-shaped nests with the entrance at the bottom. How the babies manage not to fall out is one of life's great unsolved mysteries. When the nests are high up, it’s supposed to mean there is going to be a lot of rain that season – the birds build the nests out of the reach of flood waters. (A bit overly cautious, perhaps, since it never floods in Zimbabwe.)

  

Red bishop

A sure-fire way to catch a predator’s eye, but what a stylish way to go!

Chongololo

I suppose this is a millipede, but nobody in Zimbabwe will ever refer to it as that. Chongololos are delightful creatures with such fine, numerous legs that they look as if they are gliding along on two waving ribbons. They tickle if they crawl on your hand, and when they are scared, they coil up.

My grandparents

whose garden was a magical playground.