Transplanting

On rooting in new soil

I dug up the hibiscus at the end of June. My mom came over with flowerpots and three decades of professional landscaping know-how. She told me how far out from the central stalk to place my shovel and then how to angle the blade inward as I pressed it into the dirt with my foot, so that the roots would come out encased in a cone-shaped cocoon of soil. I worked my way around the plant, which was chest-high and three feet wide, nervous that I might sever some central root, that I would make a careless mistake in attempting to give this favorite perennial a new home.

We dug up the hibiscus because we were scheduled to move to new house a month later, in a new state: from southern Maine to central Vermont. My mom suggested that we take some of the perennials we’d planted a couple years earlier along with us. I welcomed this idea—bringing tended plants along felt like bringing some essence of one home over to another. (And, given that I’d far underestimated how big the hibiscus would get when I’d first planted it, and it was now looking cramped and crowded in its corner of the garden, it seemed a wise idea.)

Our decision to move had been made, in some ways, over the last few months, and in some ways, over the course of nearly a decade of conversations between my husband and I about what we wanted our lives to look like and, more recently, where and how we wanted to raise our daughter. We were excited about the pending move and…I was nervous. Nervous that I would sever some central root in uprooting us one more time, in this attempt to give our family the home we’d long been dreaming about and felt we had finally found.

The hibiscus sat in its flowerpot in the driveway, tucked up against the side of the house, as, on the other side of the wall, we packed, and packed, and packed some more. It wilted a bit in the afternoon sun and refreshed again in the evenings when I soaked it with water.

I wilted a bit every day, too. Little and big pangs of missing what we would be leaving behind arrived in my heart weeks before we actually left. Family and friends of course. But also, all the small bits of earned recognition that comes from being in a place over time: the trees that lined our walk to the park which we would not see turn fiery red this autumn. The familiar faces at the cafe. The feel of the wind that was always tunneling through our backyard. The smell and sound of the sea.

And then we would bring a carload of belongings to our new home, up and over the White Mountains and into the Greens; this new home with the little brook running by and blooming lilac and the sun that rises over the mountains before spilling slowly into the valley. And I, too, would refresh.

The hibiscus was one of the last things to be loaded into one of our last carloads of boxes. I wondered if, with all the stress of transplanting, perhaps it wouldn’t have the energy to bloom this August as it usually did.

My mom was here visiting us in Vermont when we put it back into the soil. She dug out a cone-shaped hole, pulled the plant from the pot, and placed the it into the ground, instructing me to give it ample water for a few days.

In those early days, we started getting to know this new place. We noticed how the wind doesn’t blow nearly as much here where we’re tucked between the mountains. How the clouds unleash unexpected downpours, even when no rain is predicted. How friendly and kind the neighbors are. The smell and the sounds of the splashing brook.

I miss all of the people and familiar places I knew I would miss. I miss them dearly. And, for the very first time—over many moves, over many years—I have been surprised to notice that I don’t feel homesick. Rather I feel as though we have, at last, arrived home. Our roots here are young and tender, recently transplanted. It will take time to make our anchors, to work our way deeper into this place. But I no longer feel the prickling uncertainty that has been lodged near my heart for so long.

I feel ready.

Last week, the hibiscus bloomed.