Garden tales

The Web is a wonderful place to find serious gardener stuff, such as this direct quote from a venerable gardening source: "Take care to make sure the seeds do not grow willy nilly." Unfortunately this is the type of information that too many gardeners ignore, and they let their seeds grow willy nilly, and they soon reap the consequences: too many zucchinis.

No, just kidding. The overabundance often seen with zucchinis occurs because little gnomes secretly carry them into yards, office buildings, etc. during the night when everyone is sleeping.

There is the perennial garden, and the annual garden, and then there is ours, which could be most accurately described as the Willy Nilly Garden. No matter the amount of discipline I try to impose, a few plants have declared themselves independent, and take orders from no one. They roam about the garden at will, poking their tendrils into everyone else's business, not wanting to miss anything exciting going on.

At some point, if they keep growing, they will discover that the real happening place in the yard is not in the dirt, but in the old ladder hanging decoratively on the fence. Well, that used to hang decoratively on the fence.

The ladder is one of those items that has never had a secure home. At first we propped it against our fence, which gave the appearance of the intention on our part of making nighttime raids into our neighbor's yard. It was then retired to a reclining position, propped on the side of the fence. More than once Joe has offered his opinion that the proper place for the ladder is in the trash.

The yard is not a respite for Joe. It contains too much nature, and this nature intrudes upon his senses, making it impossible for him to relax. Recently he finally agreed to sit and enjoy it with me, provided he could have his coffee at the same time, although this does nothing to help with relaxing. But the tranquility was soon interrupted by a sound, picked up by Joe's keen ears, of chewing. This sound was traced to the ladder, which was discovered to be harboring carpenter bees who, judging from the amount of shavings beneath the ladder, were building a small condominium inside the ladder.

The ladder was promptly dislodged from the fence and dumped unceremoniously as far from the house as possible. We did not actually see the bees we supposed were inside, so we could be wrong. It could be little gnomes, growing hydroponic zucchinis.

Beware the Garden Lurker

We interrupt this important blog post before it starts to bring you this even more important news flash:

Residents of a certain Maryland neighborhood, beware. Reports have surfaced of a Garden Lurker, who is described as having "swishing hair" and "an unnatural hatred for slugs" and has startled several residents in the area with her lurking behavior.

Residents report walking by the Lurker's raised garden bed, minding their own business and in some cases whistling "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah," when suddenly they sense a movement among the flowers. There, crouched down at eye level between dame's rocket and tickseed, is the Garden Lurker, looking for all the world like a giant jackrabbit.

"She scared the bejeebies out of me," said one resident who encountered the Lurker. "It's like a garden statue come to life."

Gardening experts say this lurking behavior is not uncommon. They surmise that the Garden Lurker has become obsessed with ridding her garden of pests -- she has been overheard mumbling such phrases as Death to aphids! while brandishing a trowel -- and is keeping a close eye on her flowers. Experts say the Lurker poses no harm to anyone, unless you are crawling on her plants, in which case she means you great bodily harm.

Some gardeners, according to experts, even lurk among their flowers at night, the better to catch certain nocturnal pests in action, but so far there are no signs that the Garden Lurker engages in nightly vigils. Nevertheless, residents are keeping a sharp eye out during their morning walk to their cars, just in case the Lurker has fallen asleep in the garden.

To date the Garden Lurker has confined her activity to her own garden, but nearby residents worry that her zealous crusade against slugs and other invaders -- and her obvious lack of any life outside the yard -- may impel her to lurk in their gardens. They wonder whether they should be putting any deterrents up around their yards, like signs saying "aphid-free zone."

But the best cure, experts say, is for the Lurker to be removed from the pressures of garden life and taken somewhere to rest and recover and gradually regain a sense of normalcy. Somewhere like the beach.

Have flies, will swat

The flyswatter has been around almost as long as flies have, and has proven to be an effective solution for breaking delicate objects in one's home while one swats at pesky flies and other insects, who generally escape unscathed.

The modern flyswatter was apparently invented in the early 1900s, when a doctor in Kansas, wishing to stir up people's passions against flies because they spread disease, formed the rallying cry of "Swat the fly!" Soon thereafter a schoolteacher named Frank invented the fly bat, which consisted of a yardstick and a piece of screen. We can surmise that schoolteacher Frank was quite familiar with objects whose purpose was to inflict pain and injury on another, and perhaps created his "fly bat" more with unruly students in mind than insects, but nevertheless the invention took off. The doctor -- with a medical person's flair for marketing -- renamed it the insectus mortalis apparatus. No, really, he called it the flyswatter.

I highly recommend owning more than one flyswatter, because it is something you do not want to have to search for in your hour of need. You can, of course, substitute some other implement that roughly resembles the flyswatter, such as an AK47, or a shoe, provided the shoe belongs to someone other than you. We personally have about 17 flyswatters in our home, although I am sure we used to have more, some of which were probably carried away on the shoulders of little determined bands of ants.

It did not take us long after moving into our home to figure out that we needed a doomsday supply of flyswatters. With just one, whenever we saw a bug, by the time we would run up (or down) a treacherous flight of stairs, retrieve the flyswatter and run back down (or up), the bug would be long gone, its laughter trailing after it. The bugs would leave little coded messages for each other, like some sort of Bug Underground Railroad, that roughly translated to: SLOW RESPONSE TIME. HOUSEHOLD LACKS FLYSWATTER ON EACH FLOOR. DOES HAVE SHOES ON EACH FLOOR, BUT FEMALE LOATHE TO USE THEM AS WEAPONS.

And so I headed to Target, that venerable purveyor of everything -- except flyswatters, as it turned out -- to stock up. Unable to locate any, I did locate an employee, who turned out to be unfamiliar with the word "flyswatter," as well as with many other words in English with which I attempted to explain what a flyswatter was.

Now, Wikipedia describes the flyswatter as a "small rectangular sheet of lightweight, flexible, vented material" that is "attached to a lightweight wire or plastic handle." This is EXACTLY how I described what I was looking for to the Target employee. Well, except for the small rectangular sheet part. And the lightweight, flexible, vented material part. And...the lightweight wire or plastic handle part. I believe the actual words I used were "stick" and "smack." But she totally should have understood what I was describing.

So, if you are trying to describe a flyswatter to an individual who apparently has never heard the rallying cry "Swat the fly," I recommend the liberal use of gestures and props, including actual bugs so that you can act out how you wish to use the flyswatter in conjunction with the bugs. Or possibly with the employee.

Wood you be mine?

A much-anticipated milestone is imminent in our household. Besides the final episode of the TV show Lost, I mean, although it is difficult to think of an event that has been more anticipated, at least by me. A certain someone in this household, which is not me, has been utterly consumed by Lost for the last 18 years. "But Lost hasn't been running for 18 years," you say. Obviously you do not know much about the show, in which time travel and other mysterious time manipulations are common, including parallel universes, one of which may very well feature the characters wandering around the island for 18 years.

Despite the excitement this coming event has generated, another happy milestone is approaching: the Hero and the Princess's fifth anniversary. Although no firm plans have been set in place yet, no doubt any celebration will involve the traditional, romantic gift for the fifth anniversary, which is: wood.

This is especially appropriate at this particular season in the Hero and Princess's life, when their lives are consumed by drywall and two-by-fours and decisions about whether to brave discovery of what might be under the wood floor in the basement. Yes, wood is definitely a timely symbol of their relationship.

However, silverware is also considered a fifth-anniversary symbol, presumably because by the fifth year a couple's original silverware has mysteriously dwindled, to the point where they are sometimes forced to eat with gardening tools. This net loss of silverware is especially common when there are any children in the house, a situation that also requires the removal of sharp knives from the home. The Hero has often, for the Princess's safety but particularly his own, contemplated removing sharp knives from their own home, but cannot think of any place the Princess would not be able to find them ("So, THAT'S why you were in such a hurry to seal the fireplace up.").

How might a couple celebrate the "wood" anniversary? Our research has turned up these suggestions:

• With a toast to each other, that their love might grow like the trees around them. Note: This is NOT suggested if the trees around you, like the maple in our backyard, are dying. Decayed wood is generally not considered part of the fifth anniversary tradition.

• With a gift of fireplace kindling. Note: This should NOT include the spouse's prized, handmade bowl from second grade, fashioned out of toothpicks.

• With a gift of a bonsai plant, whose ageless evergreen qualities symbolize the hope for a long-lasting marriage. Unrelated aside: The Hero has often expressed a wish to grow bonsai, and indeed before his marriage had such a plant, which perished under mysterious circumstances after the Princess arrived in the home.

• By carving from a unique gift from wood, unless all the knives have been removed from your home.

Whether the Princess and the Hero plan to celebrate with wood or silverware, we can be assured of one thing: They will NOT be planning a trip to the Lost island, even if it DOES have a lot of wood trees.

What do plants and dinosaurs have in common?

If you are relatively new to gardening, one of the first things you will notice when you are choosing flowers is that most plants are actually named by dinosaur experts, as is readily apparent by two facts: The names are a) unpronounceable, and b) ugly. Argyranthemum, for instance, is a pleasant little daisy-like flower, but it sounds like something that could have hung out with Tyrannosaurus Rex, wreaking havoc on the neighborhood, instilling terror in other creatures ("Argyranthemum invades village, causes havoc, tramples daisies").

There are exceptions to this, of course. Some plants appear to have been named by disease specialists, as we see with Scabiosa, which is a plant with beautiful, round purple blossoms but which sounds like something you would immediately make an appointment to see a world-renowned dermatologist about.

To offset this, most plants have been dubbed with common, more attractive names, such as painted daisy, pincushion, tickseed, etc. Sometimes even these common names become too difficult to remember, and one starts to refer to one's plants as "that plant with beautiful, round purple blossoms," "the yellow spiky thing," "the terror plant," etc.

In our yard we have Hesperis, which is also known as dame's rocket. It is called this because in the second year of its life, with no warning whatsoever, it shoots up like a rocket, towering over other plants in the garden, 75-year-old trees, your neighbors' houses, the local cell phone tower, local dames, etc.

I have discovered that, despite the glowing description of Hesperis on the little card that came attached to it from the nursery ("Delightful purple blossoms!" "You will love this flower!"), it does closely resemble a terrorizing carnivore. It has, in fact, been banned in Connecticut and Massachusetts and some Canadian provinces.The warnings I have been reading about Hesperis include:

• Plant is invasive.
• Will crowd out other plants.
• Will take over the universe.
• RUN!

This plant has already engulfed another one that was nearby, whose names -- Latin or common -- escape me, but this does not matter anymore since the plant is nonexistent now. I fear that mankind's only hope rests in Lamium, also known by the charming name dead nettle, which is located at the other end of our garden and is also considered invasive ("plant-eating"). Maybe the two will meet in the middle and, in some fierce "Battlestar Galactica Green" duel, battle it out.

The hair is the important thing

My hair stylist seemed particularly pleased with her handiwork this time, and asked if I had anything exciting planned for the rest of the day.

"I have to go to the nursery and get flowers," I said, "and then plant them."

She looked disappointed. "It's a shame you have to be out working in your yard, with this terrific haircut," she said. "Don't you have anyplace more glamorous to go?"

"Does the grocery store count?"

She sighed. "Well, at least when you're out there at the nursery" -- here she looked upwards and began to wave a brush around -- "the sun will shine on your beautiful hair, and the copper tints will glitter when you swish your hair around, and you'll look just like an advertisement," she waxed rapturously.

But although the sun did shine while I was at the nursery, no one appeared to notice my hair. Obviously I did not swish it enough.

With that disappointment behind me, I tried to concentrate on choosing my flowers. Since the flowers in other customers' carts always interest me more than the ones in my own, I'm thinking someone needs to implement a fast-food take-out system for nurseries, in which you can just go up and down the line of customers waiting to check out, point to what you are interested in from their carts, and say "I want one of this, three of that, a couple of this one," etc., and voila -- in a few minutes the staff would bring it all to you, and off you would go, after suavely handing over the equivalent of a college tuition for everything.

Or better yet, nurseries could have a select grouping of flowers already IN the waiting carts, and you could just get the whole lot at once. It would really cut down the amount of mental -- and physical -- work you have to do. Kind of like the way a certain family member, in his bachelor days, would buy whatever outfit was on the mannequin, because he was assured that the items all went together in a cohesive manner, which he could not be sure of if he were to depend on his own intuition.

But in the absence of any of these options, I resorted to choosing flowers according to my usual custom:

1. Find several white and yellow and pink flowers to complement all the purple already in my yard. Give self strict orders NOT to buy any more purple flowers.

2. Select several purple flowers anyway, because they are too pretty to pass up.

3. Get more white and yellow and pink flowers to offset all the new purple ones.

4. Get a bigger cart to hold everything.

5. Head to the checkout. Refrain from looking at any more flowers along the way.

6. Look at everyone else's cart to see what they have that I didn't notice earlier.

7. Immediately regret that I didn't pick what they did.

8. Spend the rest of the time in line deciding whether to get out of line and go start over again. Continue to wonder this even after flowers are loaded in car and I am driving home.

9. Arrive home to realize that, really, I don't have THAT many purple flowers.

10. Sigh, plant flowers, and remember to swish hair in the sunlight.

Animals in the (weird) news

The Princess regrets that her regular blog programming does not appear today. She can offer no good excuse for this, other than that she has no boss to provide encouragement, in the form of threats, to produce a post. BUT, she has at least provided some links to stories that may offer her readers some amusement. The Princess will return next week, provided she is not overcome with exhaustion from pulling weeds.

In Finland your stuffed animals can take a vacation. The catch? You have to stay home. Sometimes it's good to know that not all the goofy ideas in the world come from America. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64B2Q920100512

On the other hand, if your living, breathing pooch hasn't exactly been a saint, you can try to help him improve his chances of getting to Heaven:

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2010/05/05/20100505church-service-for-dogs.html

This may be my solution to yard work. But will the homeowner's association approve?

http://newslite.tv/2010/05/13/wallabies-sold-as-ecofriendly.html#more