Killing Me Softly
3/10/2025 10:36 am
The singer Roberta Flack died recently. Ms. Flack is probably best remembered for her lovely ballad "Killing Me Softly," written by Lori Lieberman after hearing Don McLean in concert singing one of his lesser known, moving ballads, "Empty Chairs," a song about a loved one leaving. Empty Chairs is from the perspective of the one left behind -- how they failed to listen to or believe the expressions of the one who is gone.
Well, I don't know from perspective of the plants that I have killed whether I did it "softly" or "harshly," but I know that I've killed bunches. That's what gardeners do. We risk failure. True, some of us take more risks than others. We do this in conscious and subconscious ways. We plant something out of its zone. We plant something in more or less sun than we know it needs. We plant it too early. We plant it too late in the year. We fail to water. We over water. Honestly, it is a miracle when we succeed! And it becomes the stuff of ballads when, even after we succeed, the plant just up and dies. (Or maybe we moved it to a "better spot" and killed it.) We end up missing something, sometimes not fully understanding our role in the process until it is too late.
I recently saw a Facebook "memory post" from John Manion with an unidentified picture of a native Clematis, and I wondered aloud if it was Clematis crispa. Long time Georgia Perennial member and Clematis expert Lyndy Broder knew it was Clematis socialis, a different C. viorna species that is colonizing, not a climber, and is considered rare and endangered due to habitat destruction. Once Lyndy mentioned it, an alarm went off in my head. Hadn't I tried that one? My records are pretty detailed.
Yes, it turns out I did in fact kill one from Brushwood Nursery on my front slope back in 2016 or 2017! (It is joined in Clematis heaven with C. ochraleuca, C.texensis 'Duchess of Albany,' C. montana rubens, C. pitcheri ‘Pottowatomie’, Clematis alpina ‘Stoljwijk Gold,' C. tanguitica 'Helios', and every other yellow flowered Clematis I have ever tried in metro Atlanta plus still other Clematis.) Clematis have probably broken my heart more than any other species. But that didn't stop me from purchasing ten species of viorna a few years ago (and I have only killed a few . . . so far). Now I have proudly adopted a new motto: "Helping to keep rare plants rare!"™️
C. socialis - Picture from John Manion's Facebook Post
C. crispa (It's alive!) - Liane Schleifer's Garden
Clematis pitcheri not crispa . . . still alive! But not rare so likely to stay that way.
This week death came to some tulips in pots by my front door. I use deer spray, but maybe it had been too long since I last did a spritz. Then I consciously decided to wait another day until after Sunday's rain. The deer didn't wait. They decapitated these. But hey, I did spray the ones they didn't get five feet away and may get to enjoy them for another couple of days!! Not the symmetrical planting I planned and honestly, I wonder why I bother. Symmetry almost always lets me down. (Anyone hear a song title in that?)
Well, suffice it to say without further elaboration, that I have a large spreadsheet of 18 years filled with "D" for dead. Part of me is looking forward to leaving the evidence behind when I move. Except that we all know that I will take marginally hardy plants, happy where they are, and move them to a colder zone without a second thought. I will also just give some certain fails to local gardening friends before I go, before the new owners (who don't yet exist) sod over my precious oddities and rarities.
All of which leads me to Roberta Flack's second biggest hit song, "The First Time Ever I Saw His Face" - a enduring love song. I relate to this song equally. As I do one of my several walks a day through my garden in spring, I scan for faces of new flowers and old ones. Thus it was that I worked up excitement over a single flower on my Hepatica acutifolia -- the first in 7 years! Yeah, it is about as big as a dime.
Hepatica acutifolia
Then there is the single bloom that I get most years on my double blood root, Sanguinaria canadensis f. multiplex 'Plena'. I will remember to dig it up after it blooms this year (assuming it gives me the typical one bloom) to take with me to my new garden in Asheville. After all, I brought it to Atlanta before my mother sold her home in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Yeah, hers did better.
What about the single Galanthus nivalis (Snowdrop) I have only seen twice (which I planted in 2011)? And yes, I did kill a cultivar later . . . .
Galanthus nivalis
At least the leaves and stalks of the Arisaema ringens pushing up through the ground are a reliable and welcome sight in spring, which will be quickly followed by cobra head flowers.
Arisaema ringens
How about the single Allium schubertii (Fireworks) that ever blooms for me, while some of the others only push up foliage and mock me. Others are just gone. (Yes, there were 15 bulbs tried through the years to get a single glorious victory!)
Allium schubertii
Even I have managed to keep the endangered Silene polypetala alive. It was purchased in North Carolina and driven to Atlanta (because they aren't allowed to sell it by mail order out of state if it is listed as endangered.
Silene polypetala
The irony? I am moving it back to North Carolina with me (but pieces are up for grabs to others of you committed to at least trying to keep endangered plants alive). The good news -- it is only hard to buy, not to grow. That explains my success perhaps.
These two Roberta Flack ballads hit home because they mirrror the circle of life. We risk being disappointed for every commitment we make to a person or a plant. We might succeed, we might not. We might be at fault; we might now. Maybe it is just the yin and yang of gardening. Without the risk of disappointment, would the joy of success be as meaningful?
So my suggestion is to get out there this spring, look at the ground and see what is returning and what isn't. Consider a missing or dead plant to be a shopping opportunity. And while you are shopping, why not throw some money at something rare, endangered or which you have no business trying to grow where you live? You will feel extra special if you succeed, but if you fail, well, them there were the odds anyway.
Contributed by Liane Schleifer, Helping to Keep Rare Plants Rare™️
