I’ve been waiting for this, watching the buds develop. And now they are open, releasing their scent.

As with lilacs, honeysuckle evokes memory. The plant on my arbor came from Gramma’s house, where several of them vined up into trees, and over the garden house. She got a start from her neighbor, Mrs. Edith Henry. I remember–teenage years in the 70s. Staying with Gramma and Grampa at their place in the Boistfort Valley in summer. My two older cousins Matt and Andy were often there too. In the mornings we would get up, and after Grampa got in from milking the cow, we sat down to breakfast. Always fruit, then stacks of buckwheat or sourdough pancakes, with home-churned butter and honey. Fueled up, dishes washed, we headed out to move the irrigation pipes, or cut, rake, bale hay. The boys and I loaded the old pickup with hay and brought it to the barn. The roughness prickled our sweating arms as we bucked bales up onto the growing stack. The midday meal, a rest, then back out. Sometimes in the afternoons, we had time to go down to the river or explore backroads in the pickup. After supper, we would sit out in the yard and that’s when the honeysuckle let its fragrance out. Wafting gently through the warm humid air, calling hummingbirds to come sip nectar, flowery and a little citrus-y…

I hope wherever I live and garden, I will be able to take a start of this honeysuckle with me.