This time of year, especially in a year like this, a lot of people are looking at their plants and asking, “Is it dead?” It’s a pretty good question, because, although plants are very capable of dying, some might be just calling it a night.   

It’s interesting how different gardeners react when a plant has apparently died. A new gardener jumps to the conclusion that a brown and withered plant is certainly dead. To paraphrase Monty Python, they concede that it is definitely deceased. No more! It has ceased to be! Expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a late plant. And, being new to gardening (and still so sweet and innocent), they freak out! This dead plant of theirs, it’s the worst thing that ever happened. They either failed the plant or the plant failed them, and they demand to know which. To paraphrase again, this time from The Godfather, they take the whole thing very personal. Forgetting it’s just business. The business they have chosen.

The more experienced gardener doesn’t overreact as much. Usually. And they don’t take it personal. They will look at the same brown and withered plant and ask a slightly different question: “Is it dead yet?” Because the plant could be just playing possum. But it could also be dead. As a gardener, they’ve seen a lot of death and have accepted the fact that everything has to die sometime. And, believe it or not, there is a sunny side. A dead plant usually means space for a new plant. Something they’ve been wanting.

My ostrich ferns have convincingly faked their own deaths the last three years. I think they’re getting a little less shade than they used to and I know they’ve gotten less late season rain. By early August, they’ve been looking unhappy and I get them more water. But with no rain, by the end of the month I’m in plant triage mode. Other plants take priority. They get water when I can. A week or two later, I’d be giving them palliative care if I knew how to do it. Days later, they look as dead as King Tut, but, by next spring, they’ll be green and growing and—same as me—fervently hoping and praying for a better year than the last three.

My ostrich ferns (and my wife Michele) fresh and full of life last spring. They have no idea of how hard summer will be and how I’ll be forced into making hard choices about who gets watered!

Now they know.

A lot of other herbaceous perennials do the same thing. Times get hard, they figure they’ve banked enough to get them through the winter and simply go underground. And who can blame them? I’d do it too, if I could.

These hostas might look finished, but they are just fine.

Trees and shrubs that lose their leaves might be dead or they might not. If they’re conifers, they’re done. At least in my experience. By the time I notice they’re suffering, it’s too late. Before palliative care, before triage, before they even look unhappy, I get water on my handful of conifers. If I remember. That’s just how it is with conifers in Ohio. In my yard, anyway. Out West, in other places, it could be different. I don’t know. And don’t care.

A Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’ I didn’t water enough. It was a nice specimen too. And, no, it didn’t come back.

Deciduous woodies can drop their leaves in the late season and still be okay. Look for nice, plump, living, hopeful buds and springy branches. If you’ve got ’em, you’re probably good, so don’t cut them down. If they don’t leaf out next year, then start to think about removal, dragging your feet just to give them time. 

Next year’s buds, tightly bound and full of energy.

To be honest, I don’t even cut down brown conifers until the next spring. I’m just funny that way, even though I know they’re a goner.

But there are some plants I don’t hesitate to declare dead. Plants like daphnes and Himalayan blue poppies. No point waiting on them because if they look dead, they are dead. So what I do is go get a broom, return, and then beat them with it. Without mercy. While cursing loudly. Loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. Cursing daphnes. Cursing Mecanopsis. Cursing their beauty. Cursing my stupid ass self for loving them so much and for giving them yet another chance. Cursing my soil, the climate, the weather, the economy, the government, the universe and whatever else I can think of.

I guess, sometimes even experienced gardeners take it personal.