The garden crime scene

No doubt you are wondering, given the posts about all the garden art we have been accumulating and using to clutter up -- I mean decorate -- our yard, whether there is anything actually live growing in the garden. This is a complex and technical issue that very much depends on your definition of "live" and "growing."


Certainly I have bought plants that were live and growing, and have planted them with the intention that they continue in that state. At some point, however -- generally about two hours after they are in the ground -- they cease to resemble living things and start to look more like some of the worn-out garden art. The tendency for this to happen to my plants has possibly gotten around to the other plants at the nurseries where I shop, which would explain why, when I pick out plants to buy, they cling to anything solid they can wrap their little stems around and wail, "Don't let her take me! Noooooooo...."


So life is going along pretty much as usual in the garden, thank you.


But things have taken a sinister turn lately. Several plants, of different varieties, have sustained damage that by all appearances points to deliberate attacks. Given the pattern of damage, it is estimated that the perpetrators are about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in length and prefer sucking their food to chewing it. They obviously have no trouble getting their daily allotment of greens (which, according to the recent My Plate Insect Nutritional Allotment released by the USDA, should take up the entire plate).


The plant damage suspiciously coincides with recent sightings of certain beetle-type insects. These insects display a peculiar behavior pattern, coming out in the evening when I am watering, hovering about in a display of impressive insect ritual, and then simultaneously, as if in answer to some primeval call (probably "Dinner's ready!"), all disappearing into the rocks.


Insect sprays -- which promise to "kill bugs on contact!" -- seem to have no effect on them. The bugs do not appear in any database of crime that I have checked, making it difficult to know what approach to take to eradicate them.


Last night, however, there was a breakthrough. Though I initially had no intentions of capturing any, two of the suspects are now in custody, resting in comfortable quarters inside an empty spray bottle. ("They're NOT 'resting comfortably,' " the Hero objected. "They made noise in there the whole evening.")


I must conduct my investigations into their identity before any authorities find out that I have no warrant for them and am unlicensed to retain anything with more than four legs on my property. With any luck, identification of the perps and appropriate punitive measures I should take will be speedily arrived at, and the good citizens of the garden will once again be able to rest in peace.


Of course, they'll still have me to worry about.