Readers share tales of treasured family plants.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

After moving into my home more than a decade ago, I befriended an elderly couple a few houses down. The man had Alzheimer’s disease, so I often heard the same stories from him when I stopped in. He had many interesting adventures to tell me about, but his favorite to recount was the tale of his beloved peonies.

Long before I arrived to the area, there was a small neighborhood built at the bottom of our hill, near the river. My neighbor lived there as a young man, and every year, he’d forage for mushrooms near the river. On his way home, he’d pass a patch of peonies in someone’s yard that he admired.

Years later, after he’d moved to his new home at the top of the hill, the neighborhood was set for demolition