The Garden That Came Back

I have always wanted my own beautiful garden. Not a tidy one, necessarily — a generous one. The kind you walk past and feel something lift in your chest before you've even named what you're looking at.

That longing has a place attached to it. For the past decade, every summer, we've gone out to Hatzic Lake — Jurie's parents own a little trailer right on the water, and getting to spend our summers there is a privilege I never take for granted. Over the years I've watched the people in those small lakeside lots turn their corners of the world into something close to magic.

There's one unit covered in hundreds of roses, every color you can imagine, spilling over itself. To me it looks like paradise — the kind of place you could stand in front of for an hour. And then there's the lovely Rob, who builds these fairy gardens so beautifully made, so full of small invented worlds, that you take one look and feel pure, instant joy. My father-in-law belongs in this story too: the man has a green thumb that borders on the supernatural. He can make anything grow.

All these wonderful people, doing this wonderful thing — and I wanted, more than anything, to learn how to do it too.

So when we moved into our house, I decided this was it. I was going to grow everything. Flowers, vegetables, fruit, herbs — the whole dream, all at once. I planted with my whole heart (and, it turns out, a fair bit of money). A beautiful garden, I was learning, is not a cheap hobby.

And then the next year came, and almost all of it was gone. A few brave things returned; most simply didn't. That was when the math caught up with me: if I wanted this garden to keep existing, I'd be paying for it again, every single spring, forever.

Learning to plant for the long game

So I changed my strategy. If I was going to spend money and love on this, I wanted plants that would come back on their own. Perennials. I chose roses, strawberries, tulips, lavender, hostas — and, of course, mint.

Let the record show: mint took over everything. Lesson firmly learned — mint gets its own pot, banished to solitary confinement, where it can conquer only itself.

The following year humbled me all over again. I went out to see what had survived the winter, and the answer was: the hostas. That was it. The hostas, and — naturally — the mint, which I'm fairly sure will outlive us all.

The day Rob and Moira came over

So I did the only sensible thing left: I begged. Rob and Moira are the sweetest couple — good friends of my in-laws — and I asked if they'd please come help us figure out what on earth to do with our backyard. And they came, because that's who they are.

Rob walked the yard, looked at my poor struggling roses, and gave me the piece of advice that changed everything. I'd been growing them in a pot. Roses, he explained, need deep soil so they can put down deep roots. Give them that, and they can survive almost anything.

Roses need deep soil, for deep roots — and then they can survive almost anything.

Three years later, about ninety percent of my plants come back — and not just back, but more vibrant every single year. The roses are fuller. The lilies open in colors I didn't even know I'd planted. The garden I used to mourn every spring now arrives on its own, a little braver each time.

I'm not my father-in-law yet. I don't have Rob's fairy gardens or that paradise of a thousand roses by the lake. But I'm learning that a beautiful garden isn't bought in a single season — it's coaxed, slowly, by people generous enough to tell you what you're doing wrong, and patient enough to wait for the roots to take. And these days, when something blooms back stronger than the year before, I feel a little of that instant joy I've been chasing all along. Right here, in my own backyard.

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Everything worth having around here seems to take three springs and a generous neighbor. If you'd like the next chapter — the garden, the kitchen, the whole slow business of growing things — join my newsletter. I'd love to have you.