I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Why I'm Not a Native Plant Purist

I did not inherit a perfectly designed native meadow. I inherited a rose garden woven with the grief of migration, the scent of gardenia after war, and the shadows of banana trees from an island my grandmother couldn't return to when her favorite aunties died.

She was Hawaiian. Raised on taro fields and English invasions. Her mother, an English teacher. Her garden — a reconciliation of both. Roses and tea leaves. Hydrangeas and heliconia. She loved what grew. She loved what was gifted. She didn't label the plants by origin — she loved what loved her back.

I still remember her phrase: "I never promised you a rose garden." She'd say it when we were complaining. When we wanted something easy, something lush without labor. But she had lived through separation, through rationed sugar and wartime distance. She tended to her plants the way she wished someone had tended to her — gently, daily, even in silence.

So when I design gardens — I don't promise a rose garden either. I promise something wilder. Something layered with lineage and contradiction. Our farm has native sages and wild yarrow, yes. But also mango trees and papayas. Lychee, basil, gardenias too. Because to grow is to remember. And I don't believe in purity when it comes to love or land.

You want a native garden? I'll help you build it. You want a memory garden? I'll help you honor it.

But don't be afraid to love the non-natives, the roses, the mangoes, the strange hybrid you are becoming. Because in a world of labels and lines, your garden can still be a place of reunion.