A friend tells a sweet story about her mother, whose London garden is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen. An émigré from Sri Lanka, she arrived in the English countryside barely out of her teens and carefully tended an unknown plant for weeks, patiently awaiting the day it would bloom. When it did, she was delighted by its bright yellow sunburst of a flower. In time she learned the name of it: dandelion.
We remember our first encounter with some plants, but others seep more slowly into our consciousness. Take verbascums: I have developed a creeping fondness for these flowers over the years, tickled by the way they turn up unannounced.
