Pat's Hibiscus Garden

Pat is my staunch neighbour. She’s in her mid 80s but looks much younger and is more spry than many people twenty younger. She took up competitive swimming in her 50s and holds international gold medals for her age groups. Until a couple of years ago when she broke her arm, she could belt out 4k swims in the sea across the road from us. She still swims, but only 1-2km these days as her humerus hasn’t knitted properly. And yes, she does wild swimming through the winters! 

Pat’s also a gardener and that’s probably one reason why she’s so nimble and flexible. Indefatigable, she is out most summer days in shorts and teeshirt, gardening for long hours. Her garden is an exuberant melee of mainly tropical plants. Hibiscus, however, are her particular passion. I asked her why. Her explanation took a very unexpected turn. 

Pat’s daughter, Sandra, while sailing the Pacific, landed up in Hawaii where she met and married an American, John. They bought a home on the side of the mountain,  plonk in the middle of a plot full of scoria. Pat and her husband,Reg, used to visit each year and be taken to delightful places only locals knew. They were very happy holidays, made even more joyous by the arrival of grandchildren. 

Each year, Pat also could watch the garden transform. On his way back from work, John used to pass a long row of hibiscus and he’d often pick a cutting from his favourite variety with flame-orange flowers. On returning home, he’d just shove the cutting into the scoria where it would cheerfully take root and grow, splashing the barren garden with dark green leaves and brilliant flowers.

Then tragedy struck. In just eighteen months, Pat and Raewyn suffered three traumatic deaths. John was shot dead by a crazed neighbour. Months later, Pat was working on their farm with Reg when he suddenly died from heart failure. Not long after, Pat’s mother, who also lived on the farm, passed away.

‘That’s it,’ said Pat. ‘I’m out of here.’

She sold the farm, moved next door to me and began her new life, taking up swimming. She brought a hibiscus cutting from the farm with her – Fiji scarlet – and planted it in her new garden.  ‘It survived and I survived,’ she said.

So did she love hibiscus because they reminded her of happy times and loved family members, I asked. 

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But it also reminds me that though I had all this horrible time, there was always a hibiscus flower somewhere. They have always been with me.’ 

Over the past twenty years, she has added more and more hibiscus to her garden – all different colours and strains. And when she looks at them, they carry happy associations of wonderful times spent with dearly-loved family. They are also a brightly-hued symbol of survival.

I will never see hibiscus in the same way ever again. In those arid times of tragedy, we should all plant small cuttings into the scoria of grief so that, in time, they might flower one day, bringing joy  back into our lives. 

Words by Zana Bell

Illustration by Zoe Sizemore