Anonymous, Eponymous, Eunonymous
Who thought up this plant, anyhow? In fact, who thought up any of them?
Tag: Gardening
Snip Snip
Pruning trees – the activity, the judgement required, the variables – is a metaphor for deciding where to put my own life energies: which branches to keep, and which will never amount to anything. This one will never come to anything. Snip snip. A long, skinny twig growing sideways …
You in Your Small Corner…
A reflection on gardeners who gladden my heart with their plantings of yesteryear, now grown to magnificent maturity. Driving over the bridge across the canal, I enter the stretch of this artery that is—to my Western Canadian sensibilities—just a few feet too narrow for four lanes of traffic zooming to …
Ouch and Double Ouch
I feel the burn instantaneously. The merest touch, no more than a glancing blow, scalds left forearm and leg. I don’t see my life pass before my eyes, exactly, but it’s a close thing. My attacker has been lying in wait—not quite in ambush, maybe, but cleverly camouflaged nonetheless. In …
Let Loose the Tweezers of War
It’s war. Oh yes, I know all about the mixed records of our ongoing, all-out shooting wars and police actions: the War on Terror, the War on Drugs (notably not a War on Addictions), the Wars on Oceanic and Online Piracy, and the never-ending War on the National Debt. I …
Specialization is for Insects
Balancing potted shrub on right hip, I walk carefully along the rock wall dividing our property from a lightly wooded and heavily weed-infested area. Returning to the driveway, I repeat my trek six times. All shrubs present and accounted for, I clamber down into the planting area and begin the …