Even though I recorded this podcast several days after the last one, my peonies were still in bloom. However, I was unaware until I edited this one what a persistent and powerful memory trigger the scent of those flowers are for me.
If you look carefully you can see those magenta blobs which are the peonies next to the driveway that I kept passing as I did my chores.
Below is the view up the overgrown slope in front of the house where I spotted some wild foxglove while I moved wood during my experiment. If you look carefully, you may be able to see all three of the floral interlopers.
As you may be able to tell—but may need to take my word for—these flowers also are purplish pink like the peonies. This intrigues me because from the time I was very young, I never liked that color and I liked purple even less. Show me a flower catalog and I ignored the purple lilacs and zeroed in on the pink, blue, red and yellow varieties. Foxgloves? Definitely that delicate pale yellow. Rhododendron, only the exotic pink or white ones. Lupine? Never those brash purple ones that road crews plant in highway medians. Only the pastels won my approval.
But nature changed my mind. The showier hybrids come and go, their shorter track records no match for my rugged terrain and the increasingly capricious climate. The magenta rhododendron my son got me one Mother’s Day decades ago when he was just as boy thrives while their more exotic relatives have passed on to plant heaven. The purple lilacs and lupine have become old friends I can count on year after year. And now the foxglove. Part of me wants to brave the tangle of blackberry bushes and black locust that shelter them to dig them up and move them to the garden proper. But another part of me wants to leave them right where they are.
If you’d like to learn more about how nature affects your brain and, by extension, your health and behavior and conduct your own refreshing nature experiments, check out Your Brain on Nature by Eva M. Selhub MD and Alan C. Logan ND.
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