A momentous discovery

One of the first things that we planted in our new garden was a gift from a friend. She had a pink rose bush that was far too rampant for her tiny back yard, so she dug it up and presented it to us. It was hard to say no. Perhaps that’s why we end up with plants from other gardeners … we can’t say no.

The poor rose bush was not destined to survive. It spent a week out of the ground waiting for a ride up to our place, and by the time it arrived it had lost most of its leaves. Then we didn’t know where to plant it. Ironic isn’t it?  Almost 5 acres of land and we didn’t know where to plant our first plant.

I must admit that I never thought to question what drives one’s choices in creating a garden.  We have a lovely blank canvas. How do we decide what to plant and where?  Are we driven by location, or plant material, or perhaps a bit of both.  In this case, the plant came first.  We had a rose bush and we had to find a place to plant it.  And this is where we made a momentous discovery. There wasn’t anywhere you could put a spade and find enough earth to plant a rose.  In fact, there was hardly anywhere you could insert a shovel and go deeper than a hand’s breadth before hitting rock.  Oh dear.  We were really unprepared for this.  We didn’t have any soil to make a raised bed (and where would we have put it), and we were in the middle of raising a cabin - which is like raising a barn in miniature - and had more pressing things to think about.

We ended up planting the rose in the first spot that we found (next to a juniper bush) which had enough soil to dig out a hole large enough to plant the rose.  We didn’t have that much hope for the poor thing and we were right to be concerned. When we came back the following morning, some creature had visited in the night and dug it up. It was destined for a woeful end.

Lesson #4 On the Canadian Shield, you have to bring your own soil if you want to make a garden. Oh and be prepared to plant twice.

Note:  In contradiction to my previous post, this was a lovely gift and I would have been very pleased to see it survive in my garden. As it is now deceased and long gone, here's a picture of a rose as it might have been.

Taken at the Toronto Botanical Gardens.