Memorial Gardens: Gardens for Healing 2 - Planting

You may also be able to find a plant in cultivation that already bears the exact name of the person you wish to commemorate. For instance I have a rose in my yard called Maria Mathilde - which is my godmother's name. Of course both my rose and the Lewisiia are really named for someone else - but if they help you to remember someone you love, you may not mind that.

If you prefer a plant that is wholly yours and really named after someone you love, look into hybridizing easily propagated plants such as daylilies. You can name them, and even register the name officially with that plant's society to make it official.

This may sound vaguely frightening and impossible, but all you do to hybridize a plant is to do what the bees do naturally - placing pollen from the anthers of one plant onto the sticky stigma of another member of the species - making certain that you save the eventual seeds of your cross, and then making certain that you plant them.

In fact you may have new hybrids in your garden already - plants that grew from seeds dropped after the bees cross-pollinated it with another member of the species. There is no reason why you can't register that plant so that it is actually and officially named for the person (or the event) you want to commemorate.

The chief thing to remember is that this is your place to mourn or to recall the happy times, and it should be a space that has personal meaning for you and for the people for whom you have created it. There is healing in the planning of these gardens, as much as in the planting.

Here are some suggestions for Healing Gardens at Home
If you have no garden - or nor space for a fitting memorial, consider planting a tree in Celebration Forest

I mentioned daylily hybridizing because it is probably the easiest plant for beginners - but there are many other plants which you can use to create one especially for your memorial garden. Here are a few more.

• Hybridizing Daffodils
• Introduction to Hybridizing Begonias
• Hybridizing Irises
• A collection of articles on Rose breeding

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