I find that recycling takes many forms in the garden. This year I recycled a wooden crate that had held sweet potatoes into an herb garden planter for parsley.
Although home gardeners are frequently portrayed as unable or unwilling to kill perfectly good plants no matter how unwanted, the reality is more complicated than that. There are times when a generously spreading plant – or at least some of it – has to go. Maybe because I already have way more of it in other parts of the garden than I can use, or perhaps it is too rampant to inflict on a friend. Or, sometimes a plant simply isn’t doing well and I have coddled it for too long.
We have a large “dump” area at the edge of the property where weeds, and dead branches, and sometimes perfectly good, but no longer wanted, garden plants are deposited. It can’t be called a compost pile since the uneven materials decompose at widely varying rates. The upshot is that I have more than a few times found surprise survivors who greet me accusingly the spring after they have been unceremoniously dumped.
This spring I had two such surprises. First was a clump of deadnettle (Lamium maculatum, ‘White Nancy’) that I had removed from a bed where it had outgrown its allotted space. Already present in many other garden beds, it had to be exiled. (Often these decisions arrive at the end of a long day of gardening when I am too tired to make more creative choices.)
Though rejected once, this determined plant seemed worthy of a second chance given the robust clump that made itself at home along the edge of the dump pile. I dug it up and dragged it back to the garden on the tarp I normally use to drag weeds, etc., to the dump. I split the large group into three chunks. One went into an empty spot in a shady nook. The other two were planted at the edge of a woody area at the back of the garden. They will probably have to be divided again before too long.
The second surprise was a much more significant find. Last fall I divided a large, more than twenty-year old peony that seemed to be dying out in the center. I found huge roots, many of them diseased-looking. I saved the two best looking root sections and tossed the big, lumpy root mass into the dump. What a surprise to find several shoots waiting for me to discover them one late-spring day. I dug them out of the debris, separated the roots with leafy stems from the unproductive roots and potted them up. I will make a new bed for them and plant them in the early fall.
And, finally, Mother Nature can provide surprising recycling effects. Three years ago, I severely pruned a mock orange bush that has never bloomed despite my efforts trying a variety of purported cures. The pruned branches made good supports for various plants. One forked stick got the job of holding up a low branch of a rose bush. It worked fine and I left it in the ground through the winter and into the next summer, when I discovered leaves sprouting along the stem.
I left it there for the season and again through a winter. This spring I dug it up and planted it in a pot, which I placed in a sunny spot. Maybe given more sun, I thought, it would bloom. It continues to flourish but still has produced no flowers. If it survives the winter, perhaps I will give it yet another chance to avoid the dump.
Book Note: Time and the Garden is a collection of essays written by author Jo Busha over a ten-year period about gardening, life in Vermont, and observations of the natural world. It is arranged by season, but not all the essays have a specific seasonal connection. It will appeal to gardeners, readers seeking a strong sense of place, and people interested in rural living, even if they aren’t able to live it. This place, where Busha has lived for 45 years, has played a huge role in her life. While not a how-to book, gardeners may find the essays instructive. Book lovers are likely to feel this a cozy read, warmth for a snowy day.