The Rose of Sharon

Where the linden oak fell across the front yard lay the only part of the front flower bed that I had succeeded in keeping clear from vines. I cleared it during the first two weeks of summer last June, pulling grapevine, virginia creeper, and carolina jessamine. It was the part of the bed closest to the street. I liberated Rosie Meyer daylilies that I had planted and two bushes that were there when we moved in ten years ago--a yellow tropical whose name I can't remember at the moment, and a white Rose of Sharon hibiscus. 

My mother called them altheas and they were one of her favorite plants in the garden. They sprouted readily and were easy to transplant. She created a hedge from them on the east side of the house on Coventry Drive in Nashville. Hers were lavender with a magenta center.

My Rose of Sharon is pure white. After being freed from the vines and getting a good load of mulch last summer, it really took off. This summer it was full and tall and covered with blooms. Around its drip line, little althea seedlings had sprouted. I offered them to one of my colleagues who admired the bush, but before she gathered them the oak tree branch fell.

The topmost branches of the fallen part of the tree were on top of the althea and Rosie Meyers. On July 4, I was able to cut what was on top of the daylilies and put the brush out at the street for the yard waste collection the following Monday. The Rosie Meyers were less squashed than the hibiscus. It was completely mashed down. I had to wait for the arborist and his crew to uncover it while I was out of town. When I came back, I saw that they had to cut it all the way back to the ground. Only two small branches growing along the ground remained. Already it has put out new leaves, and the little seedlings are still intact. It will be years before it is seven feet tall again, but I am hopeful that it may recover.