This has been one of the strangest gardening seasons I have had. We have had a long, slow beginning to the growing season with glimpses of sun, but then lots of rain and cool temperatures. The plants are enjoying all the water after last year’s droughty summer–everything is quite green and lush. The weedy plants are thriving; the trees are glistening and lush. The roses are luxurious. The gardens, however, took some serious losses after a very early snowfall in November, a series of snow/rain/thaw/refreeze events throughout the winter, and a slow awakening into spring.
I lost a lot of woody perennials in the herb garden. I had a nice bunch of 7 year old sage plants, and only four of the eight or nine survived. Those that did survive are growing only from the ground–the whole crown of the plant was killed off. I lost anise hyssop, all of my lemon balm plants (thankfully, they dropped a bunch of seeds last year!), most of my astragalus, and a few hyssop plants too. Most of these plants were at least 7 years old and healthy. The early snow meant that I didn’t get mulch down on all the beds, however, and they really needed the extra protection. It was heartbreaking to realize that so many plants were simply dead, that no cajoling on my part would make them spring to life. I felt like a failure as a gardener. I questioned all the things that I might have done wrong, but I’m realizing that this is part of the new pattern. Everything is becoming less predictable: the beginning and end of seasons, snow and rainfall amounts, temperature extremes, etc. What we used to be able to rely upon as rules of thumb, we must now re-calibrate.
The hardest loss this year has been the bees. I have carefully and purposefully planted flowers that would extend from early spring to late fall to offer food to the pollinators as they prepare for changes of season. This year, I have whole swaths of white clover where I have seen not one honeybee or bumblebee. I have seen plenty of tiny native bees and flies, which is wonderful and heartening, but I can count under twenty the number of bees I have seen on my valerian, yarrow, comfrey and other early bloomers. There have been many hummingbirds, butterflies, and other beautiful friends to appreciate, but I am really missing the buzz of the bees as I work in the garden. Yesterday morning, I saw three honeybees and two bumblebees on the large patch of spiderwort in one of the gardens. That sighting gave me such joy, but I also wonder, will they ever come back? Is this just a one-season anomaly, or is this the beginning of a hard crash? We don’t know very much about how this all will look as we get deeper and deeper into the Anthropocene, but what is becoming clear to me is that we need ways to mourn, ways to honor what is being lost, rituals to process the deep pain of losing our companions in the world.
And, we need to stop messing around and change our policies as a nation. We can’t keep doing what we’re doing. As a daughter of coal country in Appalachia, I know that coal kills people who mine it. I have seen the ways that it wrecks human bodies. Of course it is also wrecking the planet as we extract as much as we can from the earth. We must change our broken ways of living. We must change our relationship to the world itself. We ARE Nature. We are dying too. We need to stand up for the rights of all the other species with whom we share this beautiful place.