Hardy Hibiscus: Lessons from My Grandmother's Garden

The psychologist Carl Jung believed that archetypes, deeply rooted patterns shared across all of humanity, live within our collective unconscious. Among them is the archetype of the garden, planted in us by millennia of human experience. We feel its pull when we're silenced by a stunning vista, enraptured by a flowering lily, or at peace in nature. As gardeners, we can't help but seek to create the primordial garden, one that exists fully formed in our souls but never quite manifests in our outer reality.

Our gardens can reflect the innermost beauty of our souls: our love, our deepest passions, our creativity and memories.

It doesn't matter whether it's simple landscaping or a secret space to get away from the world, there's always a reason behind it. You saw something you liked, you want the front of your home to look nice, you want it to match your home's color, or you just want it to be aesthetically pleasing for yourself and others.

One of my all time garden favorites is the hardy hibiscus.

Born and raised in Ohio, I left home in my late twenties to see the world and do the things. Now, after 30 years of doing the things, I've returned home to settle down and enjoy the “grandchildren” years of my life. Though at times I feel like an alien in my own world, in my own home, I returned to what always felt grounding for me: my garden. So the first thing I planted when I got home was hardy hibiscus, and it did not disappoint. Not just because of its huge blooms and beautiful foliage, or because it's showy and colorful and takes up space. It's deeper than that. It's more emotional. It holds special memories of when I was a child and the summers I spent with my grandmother. I remember how she would make tea out of the blooms and show me how to make little dancing dolls, and play Scrabble and Rummy under the shade tree. We would make clover necklaces and catch lightning bugs. As I got older, her lessons grew. Her love of plants, her wisdom about life, her witty way of correcting me in a loving and gentle manner. She had a whimsical, fairy-like way of being in the world. She told me how she would seed and grow by the phases of the moon, when to plant vegetables and when to tear it all down and start over. She taught me her special pepper recipe to keep the worms off her tomato plants, and how to can beans. She taught me how to make an apple pie and, at the same time, make two pints of apple butter out of the peels. Now that I have a granddaughter, I realize it wasn't just what my grandmother taught me, it was the priceless time I got to spend with her. Now I get to share that wisdom and those memories with my granddaughter. I hope I can invoke the same magic and love of gardening and love of plants in her life, learning about nature or just giggling and having fun in the garden with her, as my grandmother did with me.

Maybe we all eventually come full circle in life, landing where we remember beginning. Some of the happiest times of my childhood were at my grandmother's, in her garden. Fifty years later, what brings the most joyful light into my world is spending time in the garden with my granddaughter. I don't think that's a coincidence.

Hardy hibiscus does evoke the memory and the magic of my grandmother for me, but it also reminds me, just as its big beautiful blooms perish after only a few days, that life is fleeting. While we hold onto these beautiful memories of our past, we should also take each present moment of our lives to share the memories we already have, and to create new and beautiful memories of our own.

My challenge for you, whatever secret garden or landscaping project you're working on around your home, is this: plant one thing with an emotion behind it. It could be a color, a fragrance, or a memory. Let that flow through you, let it become a rooted part of your garden. Let it hold your past, your present, and your future. Let it speak to you every day, and most of all, share it with someone you love.