Rosa thicket
Delinquent pupil – or star student? by Natalie Warner
A few days after reading Natalie’s article below, after she’d sent it through to me, the latest episode of The Emerald podcast by Joshua Michael Schrei came out. Here’s an extract:
“The Western world has long warned against the dangers of anthropomorphism. …But looking at the world today, a world of dead, disposable objects, discarded with no afterthought, a world in which economists will tell you that a forest is only of value once it’s cut, in which school kids can’t name five varieties of plants that live in their own backyard, in which our assumed right is to pillage the mountain and the watershed and the fragile desert without conscience, I say that not anthropomorphising is the far greater danger. Not seeing life around us, not seeing watching eyes upon us, not seeing a living world that demands respect in exchange and with whom we are eternally connected, like the tissue of one great being. This is the real danger.”
It seemed relevant and timely to share alongside Natalie’s piece when we have been conditioned in our modern culture to view plants as passive, insentient objects for us to exploit and use. Seeing them as being sentient and having personhood may feel a little strange to some of us. (I recommend listening to the episode in its fascinating entirety. You can find it where you get your podcasts. Episode: Inanimate Objects Aren’t Inanimate. It is quite long so best done when you have some time.)
Rosa thicket: Delinquent pupil – or star student? by Natalie Warner
The rosa multiflora was the shrub that started it all. It was home to some sparrows, but an absolute menace to the other plants. A once bushy hebe had been flattened out of shape and was leggy beyond belief. Others had been pushed to the ground, having lost both the will and the means to stand tall.
I knew I’d have to do something drastic. Sunlight was blocked out of a large space, so plants in the rose’s shadow weren’t thriving at all…and many were simply suffering. If I wanted this garden to be beautiful again, I’d have to use a saw. This rosy thicket had a ticket to destruction, even to itself. It was a knotty beast that could only drive in top gear with the accelerator to the floor.
When I decided to cut down the thicket, I made a promise: to replace it with bird-friendly hedging. This would complement the rosa multiflora, and bridge the gap between it and the berberis/privet mix when everything grew back.
I didn’t remember the rosa multiflora from childhood. Photos from the 1980s showed no evidence of a rambling rose, so I have no idea how it arrived. Was it borne on the wind, or a rootstock’s revenge upon grafting? Either way, it was going nowhere. Some literature deems rosa multiflora ‘invasive’, which is as loaded a word as ‘weed’. But what does invasive really mean – or how can it be understood? Does the invasive plant bully other plants and kill them? – or does it have a thirst for life that should be honoured and celebrated?
I was prepared to learn.
The notion of invasive plants intrigued me, and reminded me of postgraduate teacher training. Whilst studying, I was encouraged to be mindful of the ways that people can be taught – and the many ways in which people learn. Sometimes you show people how they can learn; sometimes people show you how they learn. For example, people learn by observing; by doing things for themselves; by talking things through with a partner or small group. Others remain silent during lessons, reflect and work independently; they may remain silent for the entire course unless you coax their thoughts out with questions.
There are many more examples, but the point is this: It doesn’t matter how you learn, so long as you do so in a way that supports you and doesn’t harm others. This is a two-way street, but the teacher is in the position of responsibility for the group’s wellbeing; making sure that learning takes place and that learners thrive. There are several moving parts, but part of the solution to managing this delicate ecosystem is to let students show you who they are, and to let that inform your professional judgement about how best to teach.
With that in mind, I gave the rosa multiflora a persona. She’d be Rosa, an ebullient child with brilliant potential, evidenced by the swathes of white flowers and heaving hips that nourished pollinators for months. I knew she was an incredibly strong character: she could create structures on her own that support birds’ nests. Most of all, she wanted to live – to thrive, to grow, to delight. She was a good, kind soul, but she didn’t know her own strength; or maybe her immense power needed purpose and direction. I knew that if I sustained her interest, if I gave her one job that she could get stuck into, she’d do it better than any plant in the garden and channel her energy constructively.
I already knew that Rosa adored climbing. She loved nothing more than wrapping her stems around anything within reach. I’d need to build a strong frame for her to enjoy so that her hugs didn’t end up choking her neighbours. I never imagined having a climber or rambler in my garden, but here I was, Mickey Mousing a bamboo frame. I’d seen trellises and other flat, fence-friendly structures, but my Rosa needed a quadrangle. She was going to be 4D, never mind 3D; climbing in and around herself as well as anything I gave her to work with.
After a ceremonial scratch – or was it revenge or initiation? – Rosa let me clasp her new green stems with string, tying them to the bamboo gently but firmly. I arranged the canes along her pattern of growth, reining in offshoots to let them know here, I’ve got something you’d like, wrapping them around the bamboo like twine. We spent the afternoon together, with me ducking and diving around her stems, weaving them into a pattern with a bamboo loom. Eventually, I ran out of bamboo, but maybe that was enough for now. I knew Rosa would tell me if it wasn’t.
In the weeks that passed, I noticed Rosa’s behaviour improving. She wasn’t choking the hebe, nor was she reaching through the fence. The stems I’d wrapped around the bamboo canes were producing offshoots of their own, smaller ones that I hoped would flower later in the year. Rosa would be a thicket again one day, but this time it would be different; it would be the supportive ecosystem she was always destined to be, a bread basket for pollinators. Her densely woven fabric would be a security blanket for sparrows, safely tucked away in the folds of her branches.
Then, in the first week of May, I got the affirmation I needed. Two sparrows came to perch on the bamboo, tweeting merrily. They’d come to inspect the new build, having been evicted from the old one by way of my demolition…or so I thought. They hopped happily from branch to branch before heading towards the berberis and privet to confer. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll move back in when their new house is ready. Rosa and I would be delighted if they did.
Natalie Warner is a knitwear designer and fashion lecturer specialising in garment construction and pattern cutting. Through her writing, she explores how local and personal spaces can be sources of emotional nourishment and wellbeing; how the clothes we wear and spaces we inhabit support and root us. Natalie posts updates from her garden on Instagram @_nataliebynature and you can keep up with her knitwear designs @natalieinstitches.
Natalie is being paid for this article.
Photo credit: Natalie Warner
Oh, Natalie I absolutely loved this. A beautiful example of how everything in nature, including us, can thrive and coexist when understood and supported. And I'm looking forward to sitting with that podcast episode too!