WHAT I TREASURE

My seed collection by Kelly Ireland

At the end of my bed there is an old wooden chest. Within it is a collection of containers. One, an old perfume gift box, another a biscuit tin, and one is simply a small cardboard box – all containing treasures and memories.

My first experience of sowing was at our school garden, when I was ten. They were nasturtiums. These dried up little kernels didn’t look as though they could produce the vibrant flame-red flowers that adorned the packet. Still, albeit rather dubiously, I placed the seeds into the ground as instructed. Seeing them grow into sprawling, tangled lushness was a small miracle. My world was crashing as my parents separated, and these seedlings felt a welcome distraction from the sadness. It would be another 14 years before I would sow any seeds again.

I was pregnant with my third child, living in a small terraced house. I wanted a garden with flowers. Somewhere lovely to sit while nursing a newborn and caring for toddlers. We were skint, so a trip to the garden centre to buy plants was beyond our budget. Seeds were a bargain, sold in the local ironmonger’s along with seed trays and compost. I started with sunflowers for the children and, by the end of summer, I’d grown over 300 plants. Some were annuals and would not flower again. My neighbour suggested I saved seeds from them for the next growing season, and so my seed collection was born, in the same year as my son. It’s 15 years since I started my collection, and it’s expanded from six envelopes to a frankly ridiculous number.

One particular envelope contains seeds from my deceased grandmother’s garden. I can never sow a Rudbeckia without thinking of her and her guerilla gardening ( before it was a thing). She kept the seeds in her coat pocket, and sprinkled them wherever she saw a patch of cleared earth. A decade on, and her street, and all of the surrounding streets and gardens, are now full of these plants. Their joyful, sunshine flowers remind me of her spirit always.

In the early spring I will open the chest, sit on my bed and get to know my old friends once more. I’ll remember the stories that go with each little packet, and work out where I can squeeze one more of this or that into the garden. Then, in the autumn, I will go round with my little envelopes and collect the seeds so I can keep the cycle going. It is a ritual I love, and a collection I hope to pass on to my children, along with the stories that go with them.