My garden’s power of resilience was tested to the extreme on Jan. 12, 2024, when the temperature plummeted to minus 12 C. It was so cold that my hummingbird feeders froze in spite of the heat lamps underneath.
I feared the worst, especially for some of the plants that had been in the garden since I started tending it fifteen years ago. My old rosemary bush had already lost several of its limbs in the freezes of previous years, on top of which its condition had been aversely affected by the teeter-tottering of warm-cold-warm-cold in a recent winter and spring. One of its limbs looked so miserable that I decided it would be an act of mercy to remove it entirely. Then I noticed something interesting. The limb had been trailing along the driveway for a few years, and in the blanket of leaves that I always keep around and under the bush, it had made lots of roots. They looked desiccated, but they were roots all the same. I decided to find out if they could be put to work and keep the amputated limb of rosemary alive.
The limb was an awkward shape, like a sickle with the rooted part longer than the other, but I found a space for it along one side of a new garden bed in the front yard. Close by was a young rosemary, brought home from a nursery. I’m persuaded plants communicate (in ways we can’t yet fathom) and I hoped the old, gnarled limb and the young plant would somehow bond.
I feel sure they tried their best, but a Coreopsis Grandiflora had grown between them. It must have been a seed, dropped by a bird, which hadn’t yet revealed its true nature when I planted the little rosemary. By summer, when the young rosemary was trying to soak up the sunlight, the Coreopsis had become exuberant (from the Latin exuberare, grow luxuriously). The rosemary didn’t have a chance, and today, at the start of winter, it looks stunted and its leaves are sparse. But the old, gnarled limb fared better. It grew as exuberantly as the Coreopsis over the summer and even made a few flowers.
In another bed in the front yard I’d planted two more young rosemaries. They, too, are showing exuberance. Their stems have grown strong, increased in number, and are thickly clad with leaves. I’d panicked at the beginning of 2024 because I thought my grand old rosemary bush was doomed and I wanted to make sure there were successors. So now, unless we’re served another onslaught of violent, freezing weather, the garden should be well stocked with this herb. Its flowers are beloved by bees, hummingbirds and all other pollinators that visit.
Hot lips sage had become a favourite of mine ever since I saw the immense bush dotted with red and white flowers that grew in a neighbour’s backyard. She gave me a cutting and it did well. But it didn’t survive past its second year. Still, I was determined not to give up. This spring I bought two young plants to grow in a new garden bed laid out in a location chosen especially for them. To begin with, the young hot lips bided their time. I worried and added other plants behind and around them. Maybe that spurred them on. By late summer they’d stretched so far upwards and sideways that they managed to obscure all traces of the plants I’d added a couple of months earlier. They ended up making masses of flowers and, to my amazement, have continued to bloom past the winter solstice, over a month longer than is normal.
In 2023 I grew Matucana sweet peas for the first time. They’re an heirloom variety noted for their stunning deep violet and red colours and their intoxicating scent. They didn’t last as long as I would have liked and didn’t grow as tall as promised, but I was drawn to their colours and scent and saved the seeds. I ended up with so many Matucana seeds that this year I decided to spread them throughout the garden. The ones growing at the designated sweet pea trellis didn’t fare well (partly thanks to inquisitive squirrels), but the ones that grew in other spots performed beyond all expectations. I’d planted several to climb up the mesh on the exterior of the outdoor garden room that my handyman David had built in the backyard. The garden room is dedicated to Pomona, the Roman goddess of gardens, who must have developed a special feeling for the Matucana sweet peas because they are still, at the end of December, putting out new flowers! I’ve never seen anything like it! Now I’m bidding Pomona to let her beneficial influence extend beyond the walls of the garden room.
So what’s my garden’s final report card for 2024? Well, it’s hard to imagine that it could be any more glowing.
Sabine Eiche is a local writer and art historian with a PhD from Princeton University. Her passions are writing for children and protecting nature. Her columns deal with a broad range of topics and often include etymology in order to shed extra light on the subject.
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