Taking Root

Last year I wrote about leaving our house behind for another family to use. Leaving the house was hard. Leaving the yard that we spent years nurturing was really hard.

Len and Pippa on the back deck of the old house

When we bought that house, we were the fourth owners in just over 20 years. Like many houses in our northern town, it had been owned by one family after another who perhaps knew they would not stay. Maybe that's why no one had had put much time or effort into the little yard. There was one spruce too close to the house, a pyramid cedar, and a scraggly lilac. You could see right into the neighbour's yards. The first year we were there, we planted 9 trees. We added more over the years, along with some shrubs and numerous perennials and even a tiny raised plot for tomatoes. By the time we left, our modest and somewhat exposed yard was a green bower, shaded on all sides by growing things. 

Back yard 

Every time we planted a tree in our little yard we would ask, "How big is this thing going to get? Will it be too big for the space?" And then we would shrug and say, "How long are we going to live here anyway? Not long enough for any tree to get too big."  That wasn't true. We stayed for 14 years. Long enough for the apple to produce more fruit than we could ever eat. Long enough for the volunteer mountain ash we dug out of our previous yard to tower over the store bought mountain ash, the amur maple, the columnar cedars and Hart's grade one spruce tree.

We had many failures in our tree planting adventures. A Chinese weeping willow from Hole's Greenhouse was a gorgeous tree for many years until a harsh winter caused it to die back. It kept regrowing from the base but it was no longer a tree- it was a weedy shrub that was impossible to kill. We had a fabulous flowering plum that thrived for years and then faded away and died. A hybrid rose that bloomed for years and then gradually died away. 

The maple thriving in the back corner

Our biggest challenge was in the back corner where a greenhouse had once stood. Try as we might, we could not get anything to grow there. We first tried a silver tip maple that lasted a year, obviously not hardy enough for that zone. Once we planted a Russian Olive, knowing that several neighbours had massive ones. Surely it would live. But no. It was frustrating.  Around about that time, a maple started growing outside our bedroom window. The key must have blown over from the Tange's massive tree across the street. Under the window was no place for a tree since it was in a narrow passageway between two houses. But we let it grow because I loved seeing something green instead of a blank wall. However, it did not take long before it was just too big for the space. "Let's dig it out and stick it in the hole in the back corner," I suggested. By then this thing was a good 8 feet tall. My husband had to hack out most of the root since it was growing right up against the house. "That's not gonna live," we said as we stuck the bare root in the sad mix of clay and old muskeg in the back corner. But if we didn't transplant it, it was going to die anyway. It didn't cost us anything but labour. And it obviously liked our soil and climate. Darn it if the thing not only lived, but flourished. 

Unlike our previous yard, the yard in our new house has not been neglected. Under the stewardship of its only owners, every inch of the yard has been meticulously landscaped and loved. The plants have been fertilized. The well-placed trees and shrubs have been pruned. When Jack and Nancy designed their yard, they designed it for the future. They grew a garden that they could enjoy for years. And now it's ours.

It is odd, tending someone else's garden. But it has also been fun discovering what grows. What plant is this popping up so soon in the front yard? Oh, it's a bleeding heart! The bears seem to like the shaggy nanking cherries-should we take them out? But oh no, look at how beautiful the blossoms are, how sweet it smells, how many bees buzz around. What are these, cropping up all along the retaining wall? Anemones nodding their white heads. Clematis creeping up the wall. The climbing rose. A little patch of rhubarb, nothing like abundant plant from the last house, which pleases my husband who apparently doesn't like rhubarb. Peonies that I was never ever able to get to grow in my muskeg based dirt. 

Peonies in the back garden

At the edge of the property, a patch of native mahonia aquifolium blooms. Oregon Grape. It has planted itself along with a little nanking cherry and a willow. Found throughout the nearby forest, its early yellow blooms have the most amazing smell. Its holly like leaves last year-round and its bitter fruit makes a lovely jelly.

Mahonia aquifolium

Towering grasses and Humpty Dumpty dwarf pines and a massive maple whose red leaves are a sight to behold in fall. There is almost nothing to do with this yard but to enjoy it. 

Sir Isaac and Guapo under the maple

Still we want to make it our own, just a little. We are trying to figure out where to plant an apricot tree and how to protect it from the deer and bears that wander freely through the unfenced neighbourhoods. There was a dead plant out front. "I think a hydrangea would do well there," I said to my husband. As he was digging out the old plant he said, "Did you know they used to have a hydrangea here?" For sure enough there was the old plastic tab of the previous hydrangea, a pink one, just like the one I bought with my Mother's Day gift certificate from my daughter. 

Deer hiding under the mountain ash

One of the clematis in the back is dead so I dug out a wild clematis columbiana- a native species also known as "virgin's bower" - from the wooded lot next door and planted it next to the dead one in the garden. It had an impressive root system and I am not sure if it will survive. It is is a native species, and like that volunteer mountain ash in our old yard, I hope it will take root. But I also know not all wild things can survive in the richer soils of the domestic garden.

Clematis Columbiana in the wild

Whenever I stick a new plant into the ground, I talk to it and encourage it to grow. "Bloom where you're planted' is nice sentiment. But it doesn't always apply to plants. Some plants cannot grow wherever we plant them, no matter how much care we give, any more than they can thrive wherever their seeds blow. But according to the saying plants and people are supposed to thrive wherever they find themselves. 

The McNaught descendents, Beaverlodge Alberta

My ancestors were pioneers. My great-grandparents and their many descendents have transplanted themselves far from where they were born, working hard to flourish in new environments from the Peace Country to southern Alberta to Vancouver Island to California to France to the UK. My husband's family is much the same. Some places are easier than others. Just as it is for plants, some species are best suited for certain environments. Some can adapt better than others. The ground may be fertile for a maple or a mountain ash, but not for a Russian Olive. The weather will be ideal for rhubarb but not hydrangeas. 

Some species will take root, but others will find their environment too inhospitable. They may find their tender new growth eaten alive by animals or insects, mowed down by weed wackers, destroyed by herbicides or even blasted out by a tiger torch. Or they might try really hard for a long time but be taken out in a single season by unexpected events. Or eventually they may succumb to the elements, wither and die. While some invasive and introduced species survive by nature or nurture, sometimes the indigenous species are all that will live. 

Arrowleaf balsalmroot, a native species in the forest nearby

Unlike plants, humans can try to create their own environment, water and fertilize and create their own little microclimate. Sometimes that works. But if you are fighting Mother Earth, eventually the real nature of the place will win. You might survive but you'll never blossom.

I have always tried to bloom where I was planted. Tried to live my best life no matter where I have lived. I haven't always succeeded. Sometimes I wonder if it's not just easier to relocate to a place where you fit in instead of constantly battling elements outside your control. 

Will we thrive here? Right now we are finding the climate and soil pretty sustaining. Let's see if those roots will hold.