Against the Grain: The Resilience of Laurel

Against the Grain: The Resilience of Laurel

In the hushed and dappled light amongst the sleepy boughs, under the vast curtain of the sky, there's a green guardian that stands against all odds. She's the Cherry laurel, Prunus laurocerasus, wearing a mistaken identity at times—mistook for her cousin, the Grecian laurel, the victory wreath of old.

This stalwart, born of Asian and European woods, has seen the march of countless seasons, endured the fickle whispers of the forest’s breath. Planted as a large groundcover, an underpainting to the towering masterpieces that are forest trees, she sprawls with a deliberate, silent rebellion against the manicured lawns and tamed gardens of civilization. I remember Newtown house, its bones old, its stories buried deep as its roots, and how the laurel there had turned feral, growing serpentine, a wild sculpture unbounded, spiraling 21 feet into the heart of the sky.

Laurel is no domestic to be confined in the borders of convenience. Left to her own devices, she touches the sun and shadows both, and will claim the ground she dwells upon, her girth and height a testament to her indomitable will. In the gardens we command, the laurel acquiesces, reduced to hedges and screens, the snip and shears bending her lush expanse to human will yet never breaking her spirit.

This dark-souled hedge, with its leathery, dark green leaves, knows not of timid growth. While lacking the propulsion of the rampant Leylandii, the laurel boasts a dignity in her ascent, a steady foot a year, a crescendo in slow motion that defies conditions other greens would balk at. She thrives under the blaze of the full sun or in the secret recesses of shade, shunning neither moist embrace nor the austerity of dry soils.

Planted with gaps where hearts could beat between them, the laurel hedge runs its course, a silent sentinel sworn to stand its ground. Each year, as spring kisses the earth, the laurel's white flower spikes erupt in a celebration amongst the luster of her foliage, like confetti against a somber suit. The inedible cherries that follow, dark as a moonless midnight, remind us of her lineage—cherry, plum, apricot—all kin in her sweetly fragrant yet steadfast empire.

The wielders of shears often ask, "When do we dance with the laurel, cutting back her wild dreams?" And I would tell them, from April to August's twilight, cut her back before autumn's lament begins. Prune her when the sky is clear, for dampness ushers in unseen foes, a sinister bacterium lying in wait to claim her heart with the cruelty of the bacterial canker. Say farewell to the violence of hedge-trimmers, for they maim her foliage with their jagged indifference. Instead, use the precise grace of secateurs, a tender cruelty she bears more easily.

And what of those times when roots must untangle from the security of their longtime bed, to move to new soils, new horizons? Spring is the season of change, the time of transplanting, where the laurel, ever the stoic, is most forgiving.

Within the veins of the Cherry laurel runs a silent resolve, a depth unplumbed by the casual glance. Like souls weathered by life’s relentless cadence, she bears the scars of survival and triumph in equal measure. When we beckon her to our ordered realms, let us not forget that within her lies the wilds from whence she came. Her leaves whisper of persistence, and resilience the quiet defiance of simply being unapologetically alive.

It is in this unyielding presence, this testament to survival, that we can find echoes of our own being. For do we not all, in the end, yearn to claim our patch of sunlight, to bloom against the grain, to persist with an uncompromising will that speaks of where we've been and who we dare to be?

The Cherry laurel, with her shaded gestures and verdant tenacity, is more than a mere hedge for our gardens; she is an allegory for the soul’s relentless pursuit of existence against the ever-pressing shadows. She stands, unbroken, a sanctuary in leaf, defiantly casting her shade as a banner of life's unceasing, gritty wrestle.