Ripping Out the Roots

This is the remaining stump out of the hole! (cell phone blurry)

Yesterday was a monumental day because we got that stupid *%&^*(# rhododendron out! Well, Martin did and he’s always my hero! I hadn’t told anyone the real reason that I wanted that thing gone not even Martin and my Boy. Yes, it overshadowed my garden but, in a way, it cast a big shadow on my life.

When we moved into this house, I had miscarried, and my brother Tom had died a few months before. We moved in during March and I miscarried again in May. I put in my first vegetable garden in June in the back but wasn’t happy with the little creeping shadows that this flowering bush cast. My garden was okay, but not flourishing.

The next year I had suffered another miscarriage by the time it was to put in the garden. My son was turning three and more delightful, but difficult as we’d just confirmed a diagnosis of autism. I had been fired from a job I adored for a political misstep and boneheaded mistake, had major surgery and felt better because of it, but struggled to heal completely before the miscarriage happened. I stepped into my back-garden space and that stupid bush was bigger than ever. I spent a week hacking at the branches and whittling it down taking out my grief and furry on it and the nearby butterfly bush just because it was there and thriving. It felt really good to lash out at something and I had a decent garden for once that year, but I could see the bush was not deterred and would grow back easily.

The year I hacked it way back not a bad garden!

The next year when it was still rather small trying to come back a pumpkin reaches for the light.

The next year I had my two final miscarriages and the most difficult emotionally and physically. The next to the last one happened just a week past my first trimester and as elation turned into raw agonizing grief and brokenness. Emotionally spent, a few months later I found myself pregnant again and with no enthusiasm for the moment and like a dying ember of my reproductive life the child was expelled as it quickly and mercifully miscarried.

My son began to fight against my every move it seemed, and I went slept walked through the next two years wounded and feeling like someone had sunk a red-hot poker through my heart and left a hole there. I wrote plays. I kept busy. I took care of my family but I felt nothing. Except that I wept nearly every Sunday in church begging God to let the hurt stop. I would go out to my garden each spring and plant things, but not touching that bush as it had won. The shadows grew deeper and the little mottled sun that got to my veggies only the peas really thrived. What are peas in a garden? A tiny vegetable that is happy to grow in half sun and shadow with sweet centers revield after casting off the outer coats that keep all the pieces together. They are one of my favorites an underated veggie.

 

An zucchnini as nothing kills the zucchini! (my son at age 7)

Just as I began to come up for air and the cobwebs crisscrossed a patch over that hole in my heart, my oldest brother became really ill landing in the hospital for months, then half a year. The spring he was really ill, I saw that rhododendron untouched had grown enormous. I began to pray for my brother, David, begging for his life and hacking at that bush taking it down. When I got to the main trunk and I was exhausted I let it be. I planted my garden and hoped for the best. My brother died that August just as I was harvesting my zucchini and tomatoes. I sat on the little bench under that bush and cried my eyes out.

The shadow of doom from the house and the bush!

My son was bigger now and would pummel me on a regular basis. My final furry purry and constant companion, my-eighteen-year-old cat, Sasha died. Each spring, I would take my fury and put it into trying to take out that bush to no avail. The roots were solid, and I was no match for it. Years went by and I did the best I could with my dwindling patch of sunshine and I left the bush alone. I began to appreciate the color and fragrance each spring and the honeysuckle that nestled in its branches. I resented the monster blackberry vines that wound around it and snaked out from it reaching into my garden.

My father died in the spring and I barely put in any plants. He was the vegetable gardener in our family growing up. I spent many hours, in my childhood, with him in the garden and loved that time with him. The plants I did put in my back "big" garden I forgot to water, and they burned up that summer as I felt I couldn't go back there much. I could see the rhododendron blossoms from my office window, and I thought to myself, “Enjoy this summer because next spring, I’m taking you down!” Little did I know that a devistating car accident would leave me with no will to do much of anthing, but I dissapeared into work at school and surviving at home for the next couple of years. I just kept busy and numb in mottled nid of sunshine.

I trimmed the rhodie a bit and put in pathetic garden after pathetic garden. Concentrating on a new raised garden I was nurturing in the front yard instead. That way I could run out and tend to it and my herb pots on the porch and be done with it occasionally watering what was in the back, but not expecting much. My son needed more attention than my gardens and I allowed him to take the hose and semi-drown the back as it went from suffering from lack of water to needing an arc to float by after he was done with it. A few struggling plants survived and even coughed up a pumpkin here or a tomato there or wee small peppers or peas but nothing much. I wanted more as my back garden seemed to represent the feast and famine of my good and bad times and the rhododendron, something that I’d tried to kill several times, was thriving.

Fast forward to last spring whereas a family we had a year of new therapy under our belt that was working to stop the pummeling and home life was much, much calmer. I had a new job and started teacher training. The miscarriages stung, but the hole had sealed to a scar when touched reminded me of the five little souls that I believe I will meet one day in Heaven and that makes me smile now most of the time instead of weep. I could breathe again. The grief was like lapping gentle waves against the shore as a constant rhythm that added to the beauty, with storms comming up less often. I put in a modest garden in the little sun that still remained. I looked at that bush and my shoulder that was aching sill after a couple of mishaps at school and many months of physical therapy, but I was not ready to battle that bush.

This spring Coronavirus shut down school and then the state. We were stuck inside with it raining and so I ordered seeds and started seedlings. It made me insanely happy to see those seedlings coming up as I hadn't nurtured my own little sprouts in many years (well not  successfully) and these were healthy, green, and thriving. I knew I had to clean up the back space to plant anything, but it wasn't my intention at first to face my old nemisis--just do a bit of cleaning. The first sunny day I went out to survey the back for my garden space. I couldn’t believe how huge that bush had gotten! It was like I was seeing it for the first time again. Something had to be done!

My son came out to help me. We started with finding the blackberries and taking them out, then the ivy that was bunched up in it, and then the honeysuckle. After we had cleared that away, I just began to calmly cut rhodedendrib branches. It felt good. Some of the branches were dead and some very much alive. I cut and he hauled and then he’d cut away at it. It felt like we were doing something useful. For me, it felt like uprooting failure, grief, fears, and all the ugly stuff that has flourished for so long with me and the autism diagnosis too. My son talked to me about how he feels about autism as we worked. It was a remarkable conversation and something I wish I had written down, but I was blown away by his depth of what he feels about it, more than I ever thought. Together, we got further than I ever had alone with that bush and we both saw there was a chance to get it out of there.

This is a blackberry root that looks like a heart. (Look to the left of my son and spy the rhodie taller than him!)

I think it looks like a human heart, don't you? (see the hole?)

A few weeks ago, I posted for the first time on Facebook about wanting suggestions on how to get the rest of it gone. I got all kinds of responses—some helpful and some not. It felt a lot like when you are grieving and so many well-meaning people tell you what you should do instead of  just sitting with you. I was encouraged when Martin came out and helped us dig around the huge roots and rocks. A small mounting of dirt piling up and lots of sweaty afternoons trying hard to get rid of the thing as we hit two months of being locked down for Coronavirus and battling this stubborn bush. Martin was all for a better garden space and helping us. It became our Sunday afternoon activity as a family. A friend lent us an axe and another friend came and sharpened it and started off hacking at the harder bits. Much like therapy. 

My son stayed enthusiastic until about a week ago when he said we’d never get it out and he stopped helping me dig. I told him, “It has to go!” He asked me, “Why?” And I said I could not garden around or have it take over everything ever again. I knew my stability during this time and all I was headed for depended on ripping out those roots. We had to succeed!

Martin, taking a break from work yesterday, decided to take a few swings at it. I was out there putting in my garden in it’s usual space when I said, “Is it loose at least?” He kicked it and it had a lot more give than it had fueled with renewed energy of seeing it move, he picked up the axe again to let chips fly. Then one more swift kick and it moved enough that I ran to the house and called for our son to help us rip out the rest. My son quietly removed the taproot and other roots as my loving husband put the stump to one side in triumph. (Side note: actually today Martin dug out what I think is the actual taproot).

Martin standing over the dreaded stump.

The two of them giving that heavy beast the heave ho out of the hole.

My son standing in the hole cleaning out roots.

There are still little roots that I realize could be the return of the bush as rhododendrons are notoriously tenacious and a bit like blackberry bushes in that way. If you leave just a piece of them, they can regrow. It feels good to have nothing shadowing my garden (well, there is a little tree, but that’s another story) and a chance at healthier plants and fruit this summer. It is like the journey through the big grief that overshadowed for too long and has gotten better with potential for lots more sunshine and growth. Little shoots of corn, cucumber, pumpkins, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, eggplant, nasturtiums, and marigolds are starting to reach towards the sunshine again.

Seedlings stretching towards morning sun!