Loser!

This old rose died when a disease was
killing wild multiflora roses.

Calling someone a "loser" ranks right up there with bullying EXCEPT when we talk about plants we've lost.

New or inexperienced gardeners think those of us who have gardened for years NEVER loose plants.

We not only loose plant we probably have lost MANY!  And we also tend to CAPITALIZE too much!

Seldom does any garden have all perfect conditions.  Even with a cast of hundreds of paid nursery help, perfect everything and all the money in the world - there will be failures.  The trick with perfect looking gardens is they get rid of the mistake, fix the area and move on.  

Intermediate Bearded Iris "Synergy" was killed when we had
new cement walks put next to this beauty.  I tend to cry for this one.

Even with amended soil, soil quality can vary greatly from place to place.  Soil can be right for some plants and then wrong for others.

You may have planted in full sun but that cute little tree is now a fifty foot beauty shading everything within the back yard.  You may have planted in the shade but had a wind storm take out that big tree and now all those shade plants are suffering.

A plant may be guaranteed to our cold hardiness zone 5 and then we have the mother of all cold winters and they die.

You planted a rhizome or bulb in just the perfect spot until that spring where it rained every single day making them sit in water until they became a soggy dead mess.

You laughed at other gardeners when they told of rabbits or deer eating plants to the ground because you NEVER (sorry) never have varmints and then they found your yard.

You didn't realize the row of walnut trees you planted to make money for your retirement had a toxin that kills many plants.

Gaura "White" is what is termed a "short lived perennial".  It
still makes me sad to loose one even though they
didn't promise to be mine forever.

And so it goes.  Throw in the "luck" factor, the vacation you took right after planting twelve shrubs that needed water every day, the grandchild picking a flower which ended up pulling the entire plant up by the roots, the person who gathered every single seed from the plant that must self seed each year and well, you can see there are so many probabilities for failure even if you are a seasoned gardener.

Assuming a plant is not real expensive, I will plant a repeat after one dies.  I take into consideration it could be a fluke instead of wrong conditions.  I NEVER (sorry again) throw away my money a third time.  Sometimes I have no idea why I can't grow certain things.  When I have no idea, I blame my walnut trees.  They don't protest and it makes me feel like less of a failure.

The point of this article is:   "If you garden, you will have things die."  Deal with it, get over it and move on.   

I probably had Columbine "Ruby Port Double" longer than most hybrid columbines.
They will cross-pollinate with wild columbine and eventually they are
all the same.