Categories: Eriks Zachs

Could you tell me what flowers and ornamental trees and bushes were grown on a Latgalian farmstead?

I can tell you only about the plants that grew in my home farmstead. Flowers and flower gardens were in my mom’s care. We had a flower garden and then there definitely grew 4 or 5 peony bushes, there were orange lilies – the simplest ones, I can’t tell you their biological names. Those were the lilies that grew at every farmstead. Then she also planted – those were perennial plants – peonies and lilies. But she grew also bulbous plants – gladioli and dahlias. Other flowers were sown. I can say that those were large cress, sweet peas, cosmos, asters, matthiolas, calendulas and marigolds. Maybe some other flowers – we had phlox as well. As to bushes, we had white rose, meadowsweet by the house, and lilac, of course. We did not have any other special bushes. We had a dry toilet at that time, and at its cover, let’s say, in that place, so that it was not seen so much, there were some bushes of grass planted; they had striped, white and green leaves. They were called būrteites.

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Researcher: Dr. philol. Valentīns Lukaševičs, Daugavpils Universitāte