Dig and Take

Lately I've been a bit angry at my yard. It happens every year, usually a few times, with the results being a ripped up landscape with several casualties. This time around the Buddlia daviddii or butterfly bush were the victims. When I first moved into the house off of Fremont about 7 years ago I planted several (8) different butterfly bushes because they are fast growers, have great long spire-like lilac blooms, and they not only smell great they also bloom all summer into the fall. The problem is I've grown tired of the plant partially because I planted too many of them, but also because they've grown out of fashion. I believe at least 4 of the 8 were from cuttings. A few years ago I did the same thing with artemisia where I really liked the silvery lace-like foliage and began mass producing through a-sexual reproduction, only to find two summers later that I hated the plant and I ripped out every last one of them throwing them into the compost because they weren't even worthy of a neighbor coming by and digging them up.


You'd think gardening would be more sacred than clothes as far as fashion goes. We prepare ourselves almost to buy boot, skinny, or relaxed cut jeans knowing that eventually something else will take its place. We can look back just a few years back at man capris and see how in the moment it all seemed so right, but with hindsight on your side you dont have banana republic to blame, but only yourself for taking the bait. Or we might excuse it by saying the capris were ok, but the drawstring was just a bit much. Like most things I purchase I would really like to think that it just so happens that at the same time the nursery has a certain plant available that I just so happen to be looking for that very plant. Funny how the plants I'm looking for are either plants I've dog-eared in some "hot new" top 10 list or is a plant a neighbor might have that I've been coveting and that they most likely saw on a "hot new" list that I might have missed. But I am "choosing" this varietal out of all others because of my special knowledge and distinguished taste. How lucky I am and what a coincidence that Cistus, Garden Fever, or Portland Nursery are all carrying either this varietal or one that is very close. I fall for it every time. I know better but cant help myself. I have found these new desired plants through magazines such as Garden Design, Fine Gardening, and sometimes even Country Garden (where Butterfly bushes were all the rage about 10 years back). It becomes so circular me declaring, "I choose my choice." Of course I don't, I've fallen for marketing because I have, like most, a deep fetish for the new. Sure I can say that I'm trying to avoid the old blase attitude by avoiding overstimulation or constant unchanged stimulation. The fetish for the new is obviously prevalent everywhere in everything i.e. clothes, hairstyles, technology, cars, bikes, even plants. But unlike mechanical sorts where planned obsolescence might force us into a purchase or with clothes where they may get worn out and tattered, plants do something very different. A plant, if you give it love, will produce, spread, and flourish making a new purchase unnecessary. Instead you might find yourself putting ads on craigslist or taking a wheelbarrow over to a neighbors house with crocosmia, irises, hostas, trillium, and even butterfly bushes. Plants are naturally counter to our consumerist habits; they give and act as a true investment that is not dependent on overseas trading or inside deals.

I feel bad for the Buddlia because it did exactly what was expected and asked of it. And I have to confess, I didnt even put the 3 bushes I recently dug up on craigslist (leaving me 2, but I think I will eventually be down to 1). Partially because they are difficult to transplant (big root system that needs a lot of care), but I think mostly because I didnt want those plants out in the world and most definitely didnt want to see them in my neighborhood (so I didnt offer to neighbors). Was I embarrassed at having so many or was it (and I know it is) having so many of this plant. I have a ton of different sorts of euphorbia and recently started collecting eucalyptus, so I dont think the amount has much to do with it. It's almost like I'm acting as the stylistic moral compass for what plants should and shouldn't be grown, although I am obviously the wrong voice since I have a problem of becoming infatuated and then after the honeymoon stage quickly cutting off all ties to the poor plant thinking they are better off serving us in their death as compost. We'll always have those romantic summer evenings Mr. Butterfly bush and thank you for all the sweet sugar cookie scented nights where we entertained friends and family and sometimes they would comment on how lovely you smelled. I would respond bashfully for you accepting your compliment not even letting on to your admirers that "our" time was almost up. I wanted us to at least have that night, those summers, our memories.


Here are some of my latest fetishes and this is an apology in advance to them because in 5 years I know what will happen besides they will probably become much larger.