Sage
I’m not sure exactly why, but the sage I planted two years ago has decided that it loves my garden more than anything else and I should probably let it keep taking everything over. I don’t disagree, exactly, except that I only need so much sage and while the flowers are pretty, I’m interested in a little more variety than sage everywhere, all the time. So I prune it back and do my best, but unfortunately, I’m married to Forrest, who has never seen an unwanted plant he wouldn’t be happy to find a space for.
Every year, our local elementary school holds a plant sale and of course we go up and buy some things. This year, I mentioned to them that our cucumbers had died in some late spring storms so any extras that they had, I would be happy to buy at the end, after all the parents had had a chance. When I sent Forrest up to get them an hour later, he returned home with not only the cucumbers, but also every single extra plant that they hadn’t sold.
“They were just going to compost them!” he protested. I have no idea if this was true, but what I do know is that he has carefully found a spot for every single one of those plants, including in other people’s gardens. For a week or two there, if you came to our house, you were leaving with a pumpkin plant.
Which brings me back to the sage. We have a brick planter in our front yard, one that has been here since long before we moved it. At first, it had a beautiful lavender bush, but during the baby years, we didn’t have time to prune it, so it got too woody and ended up dying. We’ve tried replanting lavender a number of times, but the trees around it have also grown up and now it’s too shady to take. I’ve gone back and forth on what to plant there, usually just giving up and letting ferns take over, but this year, I was too busy or preoccupied and before I knew it, he’d snuck in four sage plants that I had been keeping in an old pot on the back porch.
Like the plant sale starts, I had been planning on composting them. The plastic pot was old and starting to crack, the sage was rootbound, and the whole thing was a bit of an eyesore. But stubborn as he is, he carefully separated them, unwinding the intertwined roots and giving them new life. To his mind, they might not take to their new home, but some chance is better than just throwing them out.
And of course, that sage is thriving. Even with the spring storms, it has grown, flowered, and is covered in happy bees bouncing around. And I’m simultaneously pleased and annoyed. What am I going to do with all that sage? Because let me tell you, when summer comes, my kids will be out there harvesting it and drying it and presenting me with old jam jars full of the stuff. I’ve still got some from last year!
As for Forrest, ’m not even sure he has noticed. In fact, I know he hasn’t, because if he had, he’d definitely be smiling frustratingly and very specifically not saying, “See? I told you those plants were still good.” But luckily for me, he’s too busy trying to rescue some overgrown raspberry canes, carefully splitting them up and finding new places to stash them, planting them where I’m sure they will happily thrive.