Hartley Neita, Contributor
WE sometimes assume that the only flowers that colour our gardens at Christmas are the euphorbia with its fluffy white blooms and the poinsettia, with its bright red glory.
Most of us, too, think of the sorrel as just a plant from which we make Jamaica's most popular Christmas drink. For me, however, it was a delight to discover that it does when I saw a two-foot tall plant with a scarlet flower this week at the entrance to artist Gene Pearson's home.
Travelling around and visiting the gardens of friends, or pausing on the road to steal a look at the gardens of St. Andrew, as I have been doing this past month, makes one realise that there are far more flowers at this time than these three.
Blooming pink, yellow and red flowers now, is the kolanchoe, a low shrub with thick, dark green leaves. This flower is not as stunning as the poinsettia, and maybe that is why it has not been popularly recognised as a Christmas flower. Mango and citrus trees are also still blooming, and with the current rain we are enjoying seems to herald good and sweet crops.
Other flowers which are now being seen, bloom all year, but one gets the feeling that they are more prominent at this time than in other seasons. For example, there is the dracaena, which blooms a white flower and which exudes a delicate fragrance day and night. Like the jasmine which draws attention to itself with its fragrance at nights.
Also blooming now are crotons, the sansiveria, more popularly known as "mother-in-law long tongue", the Cristina with its orange/yellow flowers, roses, chrysanthemums, plumbago, gerberas and water grass. All of which gives the parish of St. Andrew where I live, breath-taking beauty.
Transformation
There is also the slow transformation from what was earth and bush into vistas of flowering glory on the verges on either side of the new Hope Road in St. Andrew, around National Heroes Park, and the various round-a-bouts in the city. It has taken a long time for the public service agendas involved in beautification to wake up from their slumber since the onslaught of hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
Flowers also attract birds, and even in urban St. Andrew one can now see them flying in the parks and singing with each other as they take up temporary residence in private gardens. So, too, are butterflies which seem to have migrated to the hills in recent years.
In those sections of Kingston called the inner-city, residents have also regenerated the plants in motor car tyres placed on their sidewalks, so that there are many beautiful mini gardens giving colour to the concrete edge of the roads.
So as we celebrate Christmas, let me share a thought with you.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh were the gifts the three kings gave to the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. Joseph, however, could not match this wealth and probably bought a rose and presented it to Mary. If that was so this was the gift she treasured.
So maybe, we do not have to search the jewellery shops for gold and silver and other expensive precious stones for gifts at Christmas.
A rose is always a rose. And it is a poem of love.
