This is the translation of part of a text I wrote five years ago, when I first moved to the Netherlands. It’s about culture shock and how I found it in the way people relate to their flowers in different countries.
«Even flowers are tall in the Netherlands. Roses and camellias grow in bushes that look like trees. In Mexico, Peruvian lilies grow up to my ankle, in pots, and to see them one would have to be invited to someone’s back back patio or be able to jump really high over fences. In my mother’s house, we protect our purple wild potato vine more than the silverware. In the Netherlands, gladiolas grow on the streets, without barbed wire fences or gates to separate them from the noses of those who instinctively pull their faces close to them. I was taught that flowers were for smelling.
In the Netherlands, flowers are to be admired. They are bought in bulk on markets: tulips, mistletoe and daffodils, and windows are kept impossibly transparent to display them. Window ledges fit more than one vase, and, in Mexico, they are small enough so that a foot won’t.
When roses were planted in Reforma Avenue, men in suits would cut and take them, and women would take little plastic bags to bring them home, roots and all. Joggers would even bring tiny shovels with them to facilitate the unplanting. In the Netherlands, vines grow without these fears. In the Witte Singel canal, flowers remain untouched for so long that grow to be as tall as walls.
In the front patio of my mother’s house, there are azaleas, fuchsias and night-blooming jasmines. It is in the back where she keeps her arum and yellow lilies and agapanthus. I learned that polen makes me sneeze by touching the pistils, and realized I am alergic to marigolds when I plucked its petals. In the Netherlands, I can’t find out what those white, poppy-looking flowers smell like. It seems they respect them too much for that sort of craziness. In Mexico what is crazy is that in the Netherlands they have gardens on the front of their houses that are open to the public. They are called «hofjes».
In Mexico, the only plant that can be out on the streets is the jacaranda tree because it is tall enough, so that no one plucks its petals, and sufficiently democratic to cover all sidewalks with its purple flowers.»
I thought about the botanical booklet I want to make.
Maxim Zaragoza 