The dark purplish red/burgundy shrub in the photo below is Viburnum ‘Shoshoni’. While I’m highlighting it’s fine fall foliage color, it’s not the true purpose behind today’s post.

I may have shared this previously so if you’ve read this before, feel free to move on. I tend to get a little melodramatic at times and this is going to be another one of those times. Fair warning provided.

We now move on.

I recall the day vividly. A Sunday afternoon in late spring of 2005. I’m finally prepared to tackle our blank-slate-garden after moving into our newly built home the prior autumn. When I say “prepared” I mean I’m heading to the nursery prepared to buy something. I have no true “plan”. The plan is to buy whatever sparks my interest as I travel down the aisles of Rutgers Nursery.

The best part? I have my just-about-to-turn-3 son with me. He sits on the cart, humming away, lost in his own imagination, as I panic in the shrubs section. A blank slate is exciting and brutally intimidating. Where to start? I’ve got to build the bones of the garden but my two acre property needs like, a lot of bones. I debate leaving and consulting a landscape architect. But remind myself this is “fun” and “you’ve craved this opportunity dumb ass”.

I’ll fast forward now. I only bought two shrubs that day: Two Viburnum ‘Shoshoni’. Don’t recall the decision making there and that’s not important. I’d started the journey. And I did it with my little guy. It marked the beginning. And I’m tearing up as I write this. A big softie these days.

I planted the two Viburnum plicatum ‘Shoshoni’ shrubs along the front foundation in a way that can only be categorized as “curious”. It looked awful in retrospect. If you search the archives of this blog you can see for yourself. Not by best look.

After a few years of working around it, I finally decided to relocate both of them. And that decision came with yet again, no plan. Just dig up, drag to a yet to be determined location and hope they’d survive. I know you all do the same so don’t judge. We’re all planners and we’re also spontaneous fools when it comes to our garden.

I butchered the shit out of both. Branches fell off, detached roots spread everywhere and I’d screwed it up bad. They couldn’t be salvaged. I chalked it up to a lesson learned but not sure which lesson that was but it provided much needed comfort at that time. They were the first, they held a place in my heart and yet they were now gone.

I dare you to find this shrub anywhere today. After that joyous day back in 2005, I’d never seen them available for sale again. But I pushed on, nostalgia be damned, and dove into that blank slate of a garden. No time for sadness and no time to rue my mistake. There was work to be done and I couldn’t waste my efforts on two stupid shrubs that never looked good in my garden anyway.

Here comes the dramatic twist. While planting a variegated Northern Sea Oats (RIP) I dug up the roots of another plant that had a few tiny leaves attached. I recognized those leaves immediately. You know that glossy Viburnum leaf when you see it. And I knew immediately it was the thought-for-dead ‘Shoshoni’. With vigor yet with precise precision, I removed it from the earth, untangled its ample roots and whispered “Welcome back”. I planted it in a new location, a better location, and shed a tear. I’d been given a second chance. It was going to work out this time.

And it did as you can see in the pic above. Great spring blooms, great clean foliage throughout the summer and a bonus with the short lived fall color. I smile every time I walk by it and think about that little guy who is now 6 foot 2 and about to graduate from college.

Thanks for sticking around.

I love you all.