Iris x robusta 'Gerald Darby' & Senecio candicans 'Angel Wings' 10 June 2024

 

Rosa 'Charles de Mills' & Senecio candicans 'Angel Wings' 10 June 2024

Considering that I have amassed at least 3000 plant scans, I am beginning to think I may be a one trick pony. Few people I know show interest in my scans.

My youngest daughter Hilary says that it is important I keep at it as it is a pleasant distraction that takes me away (sometimes) from brooding about the loss of my Rosemary on December 9, 2020.

While I know pretty well what my individual scans will look like I am sometimes not only surprised but overwhelmed by the beauty. There is almost a sort of intimacy I share with the plant as I get so close to its details.

I have written before how the death of a plant somehow can be a lesser grief as I believe that the accuracy of my scan, in colour, size and date, approaches the idea of a Platonic essence. The rose, if it is a rose that has died, is kept as a scan in what it is. It is a rose that is a rose that is what it is.

In the last few years, perhaps before Rosemary died, I have been scanning plants not as one specimen but as a companion to another. Rosemary in her multiple interest in so many plants gently dragged me away from only specializing in hostas but also being interested in other plants that I may have ignored. In our Kitsilano garden, with so many roses in large terracotta pots, we experimented (quite successfully) in growing companion plants with those potted roses.

Rosemary particularly liked grey plants. One, Senecio candicans ‘Angel Wings’ was her absolute favourite. We both new that this so-called-perennial hated our wet winters so we had to consider it as an annual and we would buy a new one every spring. I have kept that tradition.

In sharing this idea of the companionship of plants with the best companion I ever had, my Rosemary, today I scanned one leaf (I was reluctant to cut it!) of the senecio with and iris and with a rose.

I know that at the very least if I had showed her the results she would have given me that smile I so miss.