Where Have You Gone Husker Red?
Friday, May 09, 2014
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| Rosa 'James Mason' , May 9, 2014 |
Some years back the perennial plant associations in North America would parade the plant of the year. My own American Hosta Society would pick the Hosta of the Year. As far as I know things have not changed.
I remember that in 1996 the plant of the
year was Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker Red’. Since then I have not noticed one in
either our garden or in the occasional garden I visit.
This mentality of bringing something
exciting and new to the plant world every year is paralleled by the camera
companies vying for attention by bending over backwards to launch the camera
that will make their competitors’ obsolete. My cutting edge Fuji X-E1 of last
year was quickly replaced (new & improved, 50% more, etc!) by the X-E2.
Since we started gardening in our Kerrisdale
home many plants and trees have died because of old age, or our ignorance. They
didn’t get enough shade or got too much sun or suffered in a drought. With our
city’s decision to ban all kinds of insecticidal spraying many (two in our
garden) cherry trees have succumbed to the Cherry Bark Tortrix or the Winter
Moth. Some trees, the cherry trees and the birches simply should have never
been planted because of our wet conditions.
Our expert gardener friend Alleyne Cooke
defines plants in two categories. One is “a fine garden plant.” Those that are
not are simply “the rest.”
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| Alleyne Cook |
Still Cooke believes, as most gardeners do,
in hope. There are some magnolias and rhododendrons that take years before they
bloom. You plant these anyway because we must all live with hope.
I planted a Magnolia grandiflora (sometimes
called a Southern Magnolia as it flowers in the south of the United States)
12 years ago in my front garden. It has yet to flower. Our neighbours across
the lane, the Stewarts had not had apples from their trees ever. Fifteen years
ago when they were about to move (they were too old to take care of their house
on their own they were told by their real-estate agent daughter) the trees had
fruit. Mrs. Stewart gave us a baked apple pie as a parting gift.
I have a few other recalcitrant plants in
our garden and like players of a losing baseball team I always tell myself, “perhaps
next year.”
So, in a 28 year old garden with two
surviving gardeners, Rosemary and me, the plants that remain are good garden
plants. Some are fancy and some are ordinary. But they have proved their worth
by their longevity.
They, the plants and trees, share with me
(I like to think of it this way) knowledge of where I buried six cats that died
in our home through the years. I have never told Rosemary these locations. The
sorriest burial was of our white female cat that was eviscerated by a raccoon. Fortunately
Rosemary never saw the poor thing dead and bloody as I did.
I have been scanning my plants now for at
least 10 years. I started with roses and I have from there transferred my
interest to just about every plant that can be scanned. I believe that the giclées made by my friend Grant Simmons are the
most beautiful plant reproductions I have seen anywhere and at last count I
have only sold one to my lawyer friend Christopher Dafoe. The few that
appreciate these plant scans ask me for my secret. I tell them all about the
mechanics but I also tell them that I communicate (talk) with my roses and I
know when to bring them inside for the scan. I think I almost believe myself. I
have seen other plant scans and they seem to be like portraits of people where
the photographer never connected with subject.
My plant scans will see the light of day in
some other time. I might not be around when that happens. What is interesting
and poignant is that my scan of Rosa ‘Reine Victoria’ and of many (many) others will be
of roses that will be impossible to find. With the garden industry plummeting,
nurseries can no longer bring in exotic roses and, of course, that plant of the
year, 1996 Penstemon digitalis ‘Husker Red’.
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| Rosa 'Reine Victoria' |
