London - We suffered a death in our house recently. Actually, the death might have occurred weeks or even months ago, we can't be sure. And no, it wasn't the great-aunt we keep in the attic. It was the old plumbago that lived in our conservatory, our absolute pride and joy, with its delicate pale-blue flowers that every summer and autumn, and sometimes into November, filled an entire wall, from floor to roof.
It had become a family mantra, when we saw plumbago outdoors on holidays in hot countries, that ours was better, bigger, lovelier, bluer.
We assume it was the unusually cold winter that killed it, though it may have been old age or, less palatably, lack of care. We never did much to keep the plumbago going, never needed to. It was one of the fixtures and fittings we acquired with the house when we moved in nine years ago, and it seemed to thrive every year with hardly any feeding or watering.
My father-in-law, much greener-fingered than me, said it was so well-established that the roots must have found water, deep under the impoverished topsoil.
The most likely culprit is the cold, judging by everything else we've lost in the garden this year. It's not until the spring that you know what havoc has been wrought by the frosts, some of which, this winter, were harder and more merciless than any I have known since we came to live in the Herefordshire countryside.
A glorious bush, that every summer bursts with thousands of little pink-and-white flowers, looks as if it might have copped it too. And our two small bay trees are history.
But it's the plumbago that saddens us most, probably more than is entirely healthy. After all, it's not as if we've lost a close relative or even a beloved family pet.
That said, I'm pretty sure I feel sadder than I did when Ralph and Rufus, the hamsters, died. I wouldn't define this feeling as grief, exactly. I don't think we need bereavement counselling. But we're still in a kind of mourning, which isn't something anyone warns you about when you begin to take an interest in gardening. Come to think of it, maybe somebody should start a support group for people who have lost much-loved trees, bushes and plants.
We could all sit round a table eating HobNobs, swapping bud or blossom stories, and assuaging each other's guilty conviction that we might have done more to save our loved ones.
In the meantime, I am wrestling with the guilt I feel for learning more about the plumbago in death than I ever did in life, the broad equivalent, I suppose, of showing interest in the experiences of an elderly relative only after his or her passing.
Its name, for instance, stems from the Latin word for lead, plumbum, and the verb agere, meaning to resemble, and can be traced all the way back to the Roman writings of Pliny the Elder.
Apparently, the sap causes lead-coloured stains on the skin. Not that, if you'll forgive me for getting maudlin, we will ever have to worry about that again. -
The Independent