©iStockphoto.com/Sean Locke
Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I know where all the birdies is and so on. During the winter, I tend to become something of a mushroom, hiding in the dark and shunning the outside and sunlight. Ah, but the warmth of spring, the longer days, and the glorious smell of wild flowers and blooming trees pulls me out into the world. While I’m a little too clumsy to gambol about like a young calf, I do think there is something of a spring to my step. I even enjoy the smell of the dirt, the peat and humus. I’m overcome with an almost irrepressible urge to garden.
Woe, though, to the poor unfortunate and unsuspecting seeds and bedding-out plants in the world. Little do they know that they are about to meet their almost certain demise.
I am a killer of chrysanthemums, a murderer of marigolds, a slayer of seedlings. I am guilty of vegicide. My face is on the wanted posters lining the walls of many a greenhouse. It is in my care that good
plants go to die.
There are many reasons for my black thumb; the main one being that I am a genius at starting something, but I tend to lack follow-through. I’m easily distracted. I’ve been known to burn water because something bright and shiny danced its way into my consciousness. Therefore, while I’m happy enough to prepare the soil, to a degree, and devoted enough to buy the gardening magazines that will inform me about which herb likes to be planted next to which vegetable, I can’t actually be bothered to read them. I’ll plant the seeds, and I’ll even water them. I will dutifully dig little holes for wee seedlings
to spread their roots.
After that, though, they’re on their own. I call it “guerilla gardening”. It’s horticulture with a tough-love edge.
The lessons I have learned about floriculture stay with me forever once I’ve expended the necessary energy to learn them. For instance, I’ve never forgotten my mother’s suggestion that plants that are
spoken to tend to thrive. With this in mind, I’ve begun giving my minor crops pep talks, occasional stern lectures, and sometimes, well-deserved verbal abuse. It’s plant boot camp around my home.
“All right, you weeds!” I holler at them, carrying a hoe like General Patton carried his riding crop. “Your comfy life of lying about in the sun, waiting for someone else to bring you your food and water is
OVER! You hear me, shrubs? You may think that the mighty oak breaks and the willow bends, but by the time we’re through here, you’ll be mulch! Worm food! Now I’ve heard some whining in the ranks there. Someone has been complaining about the amount of sunshine they’re getting. Well, BOO HOO! You want more sun, peony? Then evolve! Grow legs and march yourselves over there! I won’t be coddling you! I won’t be catering to your every whim! And I certainly won’t be doing anything about the hickweed that’s climbing all over you. Law of the jungle, fungus face. Only the toughest survive. If you want to cut it in this plant’s army, you’d better have the stamens to carry you!”
They quiver before me, crying their little planty tears–which the more naïve among us refer to as “dew”. Some of them give up the ghost almost immediately, their bodies tossed upon the compost pile as a
warning to others. Others, though, are made of stronger stalk, and weather the storm. They’ve become seasoned veterans, silently weeding out the new recruits by invading their patch of dirt. They may not be pretty, but by Jove, they’ve got guts. I’ve got the most resilient battalion of sprouts ever to grow, Jolly Green Giant’s bounty included.
At least until summer, by when I’ll have developed a whole new hobby, leaving the rag-tag infantry to desert me for either greener pastures or heavenly groves.
Madame Fabulous–otherwise known as MadFab (more fab than mad)–has been a professional writer, actor, director, producer, occasional photographer and painter for most of her adult life. Her mother would argue that she’s been a drama queen from the get-go, however. She is a mother to three: Alexa, Theo and Ethan who she blames for the eternal house messiness, the ongoing pantry emptiness, the perpetual head-shaking oddness and the lifelong happiness. She very recently became engaged to the man who, for the record, she totally pegged as “That Guy” from the start.
She is involved in a dysfunctional relationship with the Internet(s)–a relationship she tried to end last year. It didn’t stick; the online world had her at 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111.
Click here for MadFab’s message to the Interweb.
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You garden like I parent! And message board administer! Pretty much how I do everything. I ain’t got time to be coddling.
If those plants are worth anything, they’ll pull themselves up by their stems and thrive in spite of your neglect. You’re doing them a favor.
Damn skippy. What doesn’t kill them makes them stronger. They’ll thank me one day.
Darn binary and making me decode it.
Who do you think taught me how to translate binary, Blue? And thanks to Dookie, both the online world AND Lionel Ritchie had me at 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111.