Editor’s Note

On a blackboard against the wall in a dusty pink haven of Hyde Park mall is a chalk-written message which reads: “My father grew roses, and I grew up a pansy.” I notice it when I’m paying for some or other delightful arrangement of flowers at Botanicus, where master bloomsman Johannes van Greunen and his team make the temporal nature of flowers irresistible. Botanicus keeps me going through the winter months.

But now that it’s October, afternoon showers are imminent, decking out the city in a purple bikini (once the jacarandas have bloomed and ripened). My favourite flowers are in season. We’ve just had the ranunculus brightening up greengrocers across Joburg with their baby’s breath, peach-flesh, tangerine, pearl and butteryellow petals, which look like chiffon, but last for weeks. In a fortnight, we’ll glory in peonies, with their mille-feuille flowers that look like fine French confectionery.

I’m not sure if everyone loves flowers, but I think the start of my appreciation was in early primary school. A new kid had come to the school and decided, at our young and tender ages, that I was the one. In the afternoons he’d ride his bike to my gate bearing gifts of chocolate. I wasn’t keen on him, but instead of giving him a hard “no”, my mother suggested I tell him his gesture was very kind, but I just didn’t like chocolates.

The plan worked for a few days, until he came bearing his mother’s prized blooms wrapped in a wet cotton wool and silver foil vase. Sweet peas, tuber roses, freesias and jasmine my primary school summer evenings smelled delicious. Alas, he never got the girl.