The spring daisies are out at present in the garden 🌼🤍🐝 and they’ll forever remind me of Nanna Francesca and the daisy bush in her Brunswick Street front yard that she often asked me to stand next to for a photo. (There were actually daisies on this little green dress Grandma Lorna had sewn for me but they’re little hard to see as Nanna Francesca’s photos could be a bit ‘hit and miss’ and blurry if she pushed the camera button too hard!)
The name ‘Daisy’, or in Italian, ‘Margherita’ is one of the most popular names in Italy going back to pagan times and a love for the sun for being life-giving (and daisy faces turn to follow the sun, like sunflowers). Apart from all of these lovely connections they just seem to exude happiness as a flower and the bees and ladybirds love them too. Buona giornata! xx 😊☀️
I planted these in the vegie patch to attract bees yet the flowers have taken me straight back to the daisy bushes Nanna Francesca grew in her front garden. She often had us stand in front of those daisy bushes for photos and from the 1950s on, we have decades of family photos taken with the daisies. (I’m guessing I’m not the only one who has old photos taken in front of a certain plant or tree in a family garden over the years!) While those daisies are long gone now, I love how daisies will forever remind me of Nanna Francesca. (I also couldn’t resist including the photo of Bisnonno Vitale watering their front garden back when three generations of the family all lived in the house on Brunswick Street.)
Zoë Boccabella 