The Symbolism of Gardens and Plants in Same As It Ever Was
The Botanic Garden: A Place of First Encounter and Maternal Longing
The botanic garden is where Julia Ames first meets Helen Russo, the volunteer docent who will become both a maternal figure and the unwitting witness to Julia's affair with Helen's son Nathaniel. In Chapter 4, Julia is crying in the herbaceous perennials while Helen patiently explains cacti differences to three-year-old Ben and lets him hand-feed greens to the rhinoceros iguana. The garden setting matters: it is a cultivated, curated space where plants are deliberately arranged and tended, and Helen presides over it with the same ease she brings to her own home. Julia, sleepless and overwhelmed, is drawn to Helen's maternal aura — the garden becomes the stage for Julia's longing to be cared for.
The botanic garden also establishes Helen's relationship to nature as knowledgeable and generous. She is not merely a visitor but a docent, someone who interprets the natural world for others. This positions her as a guide figure, and the garden as a place where Julia can be led toward something like stability. The garden's connection to the complexity of mother-daughter bonds is immediate: Helen's effortless maternal warmth is precisely what Julia fears she lacks.
The Philodendron: The Affair's Botanical Metaphor
The philodendron in Nathaniel's carriage house is a small but telling detail. During her fifth visit, Julia notices the plant needs water and offers to tend it. Nathaniel's comment that plants are more his mother's territory underscores how the affair unfolds within Helen's domain, in a space Helen furnished — the macramé planters and Chindi rugs are, Julia assumes, Helen's selections. Julia's care for the philodendron becomes a proxy for the care she is withholding from her own marriage, and the plant's neglect mirrors the neglect at the heart of her transgression.
The philodendron also connects to the long shadow of infidelity on a marriage. Julia, who struggles to feel like a competent mother, finds herself performing competence in someone else's space, watering a plant that belongs to another woman's son. The detail that Helen slips in at off-hours to put groceries in the fridge makes the carriage house feel like an extension of Helen's care — and Julia's affair a violation of that care.
Perennials and Crocuses: The Past That Returns
The Russos are do-your-own-gardening people, and the border of their lawn teems with perennials. Perennials are plants that die back and return year after year — an apt metaphor for the past in this novel, which keeps resurfacing no matter how hard Julia tries to outrun it. The perennials also signal the Russos' rootedness: they are people who stay, who cultivate, who belong to a place in a way Julia never has. This connects directly to the resurfacing of the past and the impossibility of outrunning one's history.
In Chapter 15, after the affair has begun, Helen points out the crocuses starting to peek out underneath the redbud. Crocuses are among the first flowers of spring, pushing through cold ground — a small image of renewal and persistence. Julia, who has been avoiding Helen, is being shown something tender and early, a sign that growth is possible even in difficult conditions. The moment is also quietly ironic: Helen is pointing out new life while Julia is in the middle of a betrayal that threatens to destroy the very relationship the garden represents.
Lisianthuses and Anemones: Cultivated Reconciliation
By Chapter 57, on the day of Ben's wedding, Julia has eight hundred dollars' worth of lisianthuses loaded into her car for the reception. Lisianthuses are cultivated, elegant flowers — appropriate for a wedding that has been meticulously planned by Sunny, who is a planner and leaves very little left to chance. The flowers represent the carefully constructed life Julia has built, the surface of things arranged and beautiful.
But Julia also picks up a bouquet of poppy anemones on impulse to bring to Helen. The anemones are a gesture of reconciliation, an acknowledgment of the woman who pitied her just the right amount and who is ultimately responsible for far more good things in Julia's life than she is for the one big bad thing. When Helen asks whether Julia is courting her and accepts the flowers, the anemones become a bridge across eighteen years of estrangement.
Helen's own garden, with its celosia — described as resembling little Dr. Seuss heads — is still thriving; the do-your-own-gardening people have kept their perennials going. The garden is a constant, a living record of the Russos' way of being in the world. The scene connects to the passage of time and the inevitability of aging, loss, and memory's unreliability: the garden persists even as Pete's absence has left the house much dustier.
Julia's Garden: Grief and Continuity
After Mark Ames dies, Julia shows Sunny around her garden. The garden she has cultivated becomes a space of continuity and memory — she will remember the moments with Mark while walking through it. She also volunteers at the arboretum, a return to the kind of cultivated green space where she first met Helen. The garden becomes a way of processing grief, of tending something that grows and changes, of staying connected to the living world.
The progression of the garden motif tracks Julia's own growth: from a woman crying in the herbaceous perennials, to someone who waters another's plants while betraying her marriage, to someone who tends her own garden and shows it to her daughter-in-law. The gardens and plants of the novel are never merely decorative; they are the novel's way of asking what it means to cultivate a life, to tend relationships, and to let things grow — or fail to grow — over time. This arc connects to maternal ambivalence and the fear of repeating one's mother's mistakes: Julia's garden is something she has made herself, on her own terms.
Study Questions
1. How does the botanic garden function as a space of transformation in Julia's relationship with Helen?
The botanic garden is where Julia first meets Helen, and it is a space where Julia is openly vulnerable — crying in the herbaceous perennials while Helen gently offers her a silk scarf. The garden is a cultivated, curated environment, and Helen's role as docent positions her as a guide. The space allows Julia to be seen and cared for without judgment, establishing the foundation of a relationship that will become central to her life. The garden's order and beauty contrast with Julia's internal chaos, suggesting that the relationship with Helen offers a kind of structure Julia lacks.
2. What does the philodendron reveal about the affair and its relationship to Helen?
The philodendron in Nathaniel's carriage house is a plant that needs care, and Julia provides it — a small act of tending that mirrors the care she is withholding from her marriage. Nathaniel's comment that plants are more his mother's territory reminds us that the affair unfolds in Helen's domain, in a space she furnished and continues to maintain. The plant's neglect before Julia's intervention suggests the affair is a kind of neglect — of her marriage, of her family, of the relationship with Helen that the garden first made possible.
3. How do perennials and crocuses connect to the theme of the past resurfacing?
Perennials are plants that return year after year, and the Russos' garden is full of them. The image connects to the novel's central concern with the past's refusal to stay buried: Julia's encounter with Helen in Chapter 1, eighteen years after their estrangement, is itself a kind of perennial — something she thought was gone but that comes back. The crocuses Helen points out in Chapter 15 are early spring flowers pushing through cold ground, an image of persistence and renewal that is quietly ironic given Julia's ongoing betrayal.
4. What does the shift from lisianthuses to anemones reveal about Julia's priorities on Ben's wedding day?
The lisianthuses are expensive, cultivated flowers for the wedding — part of the carefully planned surface of the day. The poppy anemones, picked up on impulse for Helen, are a different kind of gesture: unplanned, personal, and directed at the woman who shaped so much of Julia's life. The contrast suggests that even on a day devoted to her son's future, Julia is still reckoning with her past. The anemones are a gift of acknowledgment, a way of saying that the relationship with Helen matters more than the carefully arranged surface of things.