Page 16 - Brandon Sun - Your Home your Way (2019)

16 THE BRANDON SUN • YOUR HOME YOUR WAY • THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2019

Brandon resident Susan Hawkins waters her vegetables at Hummingbird Garden on the southeast corner of the city, a couple summers ago. (File)
The garden evolves over time alongside the gardener

BY ADRIAN HIGGINS tastes and, most importantly, ing of the gardener turned out China, was once considered
philosophies. to be thugs or wild invaders. the choicest of all viburnums
Sometimes the long-distance Since the 1990s, for example, Another transformation is but now is showing up in nat-
gardener looks out the window we have turned from ornamen- how a longtime gardener has ural areas and on invasive plant
and notices that the maple tree tal to ecologically minded gar- changed over the years. This is blacklists.
he planted as a six-foot sapling dening — to landscapes where an interior evolution, inherently Roach is singularly well
21 years ago has become a shade native plants play a larger role, veiled, perhaps even to oneself. placed to reflect on these chang-
tree 25 feet tall and 20 across. and where gardeners seek to Plants that were trendy at es. Twenty-one years ago, she
Maturity creeps up on you provide refuge and sustenance the time have become old hat wrote a book, “A Way to Gar-
— in trees, in the garden, in life. to pollinating insects and oth- or disappeared. Whither the den,” that combined practical
Year to year, the changes seem er wildlife. Despite this move- Japanese snowbell tree, or the aspects of gardening with its
slight. Cumulatively, they are ment, the world of gardening Arnold Promise witch hazel or more metaphysical rewards.
enormous. has never been more multi- sedum Autumn Joy? Her laboratory was her two-
The same might be said of faceted, it seems, with positive Roach thinks of the “it plus-acre property in the Hud-
the world of gardening itself. trends in passions for succu- plants” she excitedly installed son Valley, 2 1/2 hours north
I was chatting about this the lents, houseplants, tropicals, that would not be welcomed of New York. At the time, she
other day with another horti- organic growing and heirloom today. The houttuynia Cha- also had a high-pressure post in
cultural scribe, Margaret Roach, vegetables, and all the rest. meleon, a leafy ground cover, the New York publishing world,
and was glad to hear that, like Weather and climate pat- is impossible to remove, much as editorial director of Martha
me, she has thought a lot about terns have changed, too, along like equisetum, and both go Stewart Living magazine. She
the journey through the garden’s with pests and diseases that wild in wet soils. She planted worked high in a skyscraper
fourth dimension, time. Over have materially altered what we lamiastrum as a ground cover; it with a staff of dozens.
several decades, we have seen grow. Ornamental plants once also doesn’t know where to stop.
marked shifts in plant palettes, considered vigorous and flatter- The doublefile viburnum, from » Continued on Page 17