I had never heard of the term “English Garden”, until I recently asked the lovely women of WSU Kitsap Master Gardeners what flowers to consider this season in order to create depth in my garden. To give a bit of backstory first, I have a memorial garden for my son Schylar who passed away at 40 weeks gestation from an unexpected cord accident during labor.
Stricken with grief, the only way I could think to parent a child that isn’t physically here was to do so through my passion, gardening. I ripped apart a lackluster space near the front door of my home that housed four rhododendron bushes, three rose bushes and a hydrangea. The previous owner had laid out this space with landscaping cloth, a shoddy rock wall and not much else that was appealing to the eye. From my kitchen window I have a direct view of this space and at the time I was spending a lot of my days, post child-loss, gazing out and pondering the meaning of existence as I tried to put the pieces of my broken heart back together.
One March day that wasn’t soaked with typical spring weather, I hauled myself outside and I ripped up the landscaping cloth. Maniacal and unhinged with the unfortunate tragedy that had permeated our family’s life, I hacked away at chickweed, crabgrass and quackgrass. Any plant that I didn’t know the immediate identification of was tossed and thrown away. I proceeded to amend the soil and I got to work.
That first year after he passed away, I filled his garden with several different types of plants, vinca, roman chamomile, creeping Jenny plants and ornamental creeping thyme. Beyond those ground cover plants and ornamentals that bordered the rock wall, I layered poppy flowers, several grass varieties and Heather. Lavender plants sprinkled themselves aimlessly across the landscape and I filled in the gaps with gladiolus bulbs and dahlias. As time went on that summer, I added things to my garden that I would find on Facebook Marketplace or I would head to Brother’s Greenhouse in Port Orchard to see what interesting plants they had. Everywhere else? Well, I planted calendula flowers.
It. Was. Beautiful.
To be able to spend the summer outside with my living son and sit among the flowers that represented my son no longer here, brought a little bit of peace to my very wounded heart. I cut myself bouquets and played with flower arrangements. I picked calendula flowers daily, drying and storing them to use for my family at a later time.
When winter came, it came with dread. The season I was about to face would layer my grief even more. Halloween, Thanksgiving, the one year mark of my son’s passing, Christmas, a New Year without him and more days without him that I will not get to experience in this lifetime. It was cold like the winter air. In addition to all of the emotions a bereaved parent experiences, I was pregnant with my daughter and anxious for her to make her arrival safely. I dug up the dahlias but never had the chance to store them properly. They became molded and they soon rotted in the unforgiving Northwest air. Heartbroken once again, it felt like I had failed my son.
I spent my winter collecting seeds to assuage my emotions. I bought peonies, more variegated types of poppies, sweet peas and perennial mixes. I acquired double daffodil bulbs, tulips and crocus to let me know when spring was making its debut. My vision for this Memorial Garden had started to expand with the idea of an English Garden.
“What if..”, I thought to myself, “…I curated this garden to be perennial only? It could have different varieties that seasonally bloomed and it could give me blossoming plants year-round”. As life would have it, an event for WSU Kitsap Master Gardeners showed up online as a suggestion and I knew that I needed to attend. Talking to these women was straightforward and so, so pleasant. I explained the conundrum of bare space in my sons flower garden and asked what suggestions for perennial flowers would they recommend. I was met with a lot of empathy from these ladies and they suggested I modeled the space after an English style garden. She suggested coastal irises, snapdragons, peonies, double daisies, delphiniums, climbing hydrangea and black eyed Susan’s, just to name a few. I am gathering all of my seeds for this sacred area, carefully preparing to fill it with the love that I wish I could give to my sweet son. I searched online for what an English garden looks like and it is the perfect inspiration for this memorial-space .
And those dahlia tubers? This time I decided to do something different, I asked for help. I reached out locally and I explained myself. I asked if anyone could spare a tuber to donate in memory of him. I was then met with so much love, compassion and understanding from the gardening community of Kitsap County. I received over 30 different responses from individuals that were willing to help me and I currently have over 60 different dahlia tubers to plant in his garden. I’m so thankful and I cannot wait to see the late spring and summer blooms.
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