The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Time 2020-12-13 22:08:20

Web Name: The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

WebSite: http://www.chigiy.com

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So there’s a drought. On the bright side, the Brugmansia I tried hard to grow for 9 years or so is finally doing well, so well in fact, that it has taken over a small portion of my yard. That’s what happens when you plant something in the right place. It also helps there is a drought and the temperature hasn’t dropped below 49 degrees all winter and NOW it’s spring and no end to all this great weather in sight. Damn, oh well. All these perfect conditions caused my angel trumpet to grow and grow and creep up the stairs to my tenant’s apartment. My tenant is so sweet she would never come right out and say,” Why don’t you trim that stupid plant? I practically need a machete when I walk down the stairs!” She would say things like “Do you need some help with yard work? I could start right over there by the stairs to my apartment.” or “Wow! That plant sure has grown! I can barely find my way up to the apartment.” Every morning the poor girl has to climb down the stairs and under my Brugmansia like Snow White in the dark forest, the branches grabbing her hair and pulling at her nice work clothes. I’m sure she expected me to be waiting at the bottom of the steps with a hairy wart on my nose and a red shiny apple. At the beginning of the “winter season,” assuming the plant would die back on its own, I cut the branches back. But with this year’s absence of winter, the Brugmansia just kept growing and blooming and blooming and growing. Mirror, mirror on the wall who has the fairest Brugmansia of all? Tis my Brugmansia and it’s time to cut her back again. Maybe we will actually have a winter next year. Warning this post contains strong language.O.k.,The chick I went to Costa Rica with, Erin, is tough. I mean, TOUGH. I thought I wastough, but she puts me to shame. So when you hear your tough, seasoned travelbuddy scream from the bathroom, you know something is definitely wrong. jumped up and yelled through the door “Are you o.k.? “Yes,but a huge spider just ran over my foot and freaked me out!” Sheopened the door, and there it was, crouched in the corner of the floor betweenthe toilet and the shower trying to appear much smaller than he was. Holy crap,that thing was the size of my palm.Erinfinished up and hurried out of the bathroom and out to the office to check out.I still had to go potty. So I gathered up the nerve and took a seat…about sixinches from the biggest spider I have ever seen.Ilooked at him, all huddled up in the corner, and I actually began to feel sorryfor him. I decided that the maid in the next room was not going to think twiceabout killing an enormous spider standing between her and the ability to cleanthe bathroom floor. So I decided to save him.had a large wide-mouth quart glass jar. I opened the jar and pushed it towardthe spider. I realized before I came within three feet of him that he wasn’tgoing to fit. So, of course, I opened the bathroom window. I grabbed thelaminated mini-bar menu and climbed into the shower. I started to scoop thespider towards the window. Now,I like to think of myself as brave and open-minded about creatures, but when thatf---ing spider jumped into the air like someone had it on a string, I turnedscreaming and ran full force right into the tiled shower wall. The last time I saw a spider jump that high,I was watching Arachnophobia. peeked over my aching shoulder. The spider had settled back on the floor, so Itook a deep breath, picked up the menu again, and decided to keep scooping tillthat fucker was out of there.pushed the menu toward it. It jumped, and I scooped again. It leapt up again, andthis time I moved it within jumping distance of the window. I scooped one last time, and the spider flew (andI sort of batted it) the rest of the way out the window. I slammed the window, ran out of the bathroomand slammed that door too, as if the spider was now all pissed off and comingback through the window to get me. Onour way out, we decided to look at the view from our room one last time. One ofthe toucans we had been hearing but not seeing for two days was sitting in thetree outside the window, eating and sunning himself. Toucans are also known as “bananapushers,” because of the way they look when they fly. And,I’m pretty sure they eat spiders.asked the chicken-dancing man once again if he was alright, and once again, hewas unable to produce a straight answer. So I asked him a different question:“Excuse me sir, have you been drinking?” This question triggered a round ofwild arm-flailing reminiscent of a marionette having a spasm. He answeredwith a word one wouldn’t expect from a tattooed sports car driver wearing allblack and chains. “No, I haven’t been drinking!” he insisted. “I’mjust . . . FLUSTERED!” Onceout of his car, Chicken-Dancing Man was running all around my yard whilerunning his mouth with his disjointed story. Apparently, he was trying to getto L.A., he left his cell phone on his girlfriend’s dresser (no doubt rightnext to his map of California and his crack pipe), and he swerved to avoid arabbit.Hebegan following me around closely, begging me to use my phone. I told him tosit down on a piece of lawn furniture while I went to get a phone.Helit on the chair for a split second, more like a hummingbird than a chicken. Bythe time I had turned my back, he was up and running through what used to be myfence, across the street to my neighbor’s house. AsI walked inside my house, the phone was ringing. It was my neighbor asking if Iwas o.k. and letting me know that she had just called the police on the chickendancer and was sending her husband over to help. I let her know that Iwas fine, but that the chicken dancer was now at her front door. I couldhear him all the way from where I was, telling the same story about the rabbit,the phone, the drive to L.A. dialed the sheriff myself, just to make sure that there they were on the way,and then I picked up my camera and walked back outside.ChickenDancer was on the phone to his father, supposedly. Atthis point, he was beginning to realize that his predicament was only going toget worse by sticking around, so he hung up the phone and danced over to thesideways Miata. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Iknew he wasn’t going anywhere, my neighbors knew he wasn’t going anywhere, butChicken Dancer seemed to think that if he revved his engine hard enough, histires would magically reconnect with the ground and he would be on his speedyway again. Itwas just about this time the first sheriff pulled up. Hesauntered over to the man in the slanted car and spoke to him for a few minuteswhile the neighbors and I stood across the street making bets on what kind ofdrugs were coursing through Chicken Dancer’s system. Soon,another sheriff arrived, followed closely by a fire engine.Whentwo more sheriffs showed up, I suddenly felt a twinge of guilt that I had nodoughnuts to offer. Then the EMT vehicle pulled in and unloaded theirgurney. They wheeled over to the Chicken Dancer, who was being quietlyinterrogated by a large group of various uniformed men.Bythe time the CHP showed up, Chicken Dancer was having his person searched. Itwas clear he would not be driving to L.A., or home, or anywhere that day. Over the past several weeks I have been busily amending the soil, tweaking the drip system, and planting three types of vines all along my upper fence so that our family can enjoy more privacy and also so that the dogs would bark less at passersbys. Every morning, I would pour myself a cup of coffee and head up to the top of my property to check on them. I planted fast-growing vines, and could actually see them making progress every day as they stretched up towards the morning sun. Ah, those were the days of hope and prosperity…the blissful days before one man’s night of partying and addiction crushed my hopes, my dreams, and, well…my vines.I was lying in my bed, cozy and happy in the knowledge that I still had another hour before I had to get up. And then I heard an engine revving up my hill, fast, followed by a loud crash. It got me out of bed alright. If I was a cat, I would have been stuck to the ceiling. I looked out of the window and I saw a green sports car lying on its side in my yard and wearing most of my upper fence as a hood ornament. I heard the hysterical voice of a man.I slipped on my Uggs (o.k. I lied: my Bear Claws. I am too cheap to buy Uggs) and my robe. Fashion was not my first concern. I ran down my stairs, secured my dogs, who were looking quite puzzled at the strange vehicle’s parking job. I bolted out the door to my side yard. I approached the car and its flailing driver. He was talking loudly to no one in particular. He was tall, and tattooed, somewhere around thirty. He was sporting a large gold MC Hammer-ish chain around his neck. He had black hair, a black t-shirt, black jeans and giant black sideburns. Elvis meets Johnny Cash with a sprinkling of Sid Vicious. I asked him if he was o.k. I never got an answer, just a steady stream of words. Words about a missing cell phone, a girlfriend, swerving to miss a rabbit, looking for Los Angeles, All the while the words were spewing, the Country Western, Punk Elvis was doing this strange flailing chicken dance. I gazed past the flapping Elvis, behind him I saw his car resting with all its weight on top of my brand new vines....to be continuedI was staring up through a forest, sunlight barely squeezing through thickbranches, leaves closing in on me. I closed my eyes and thought back, back to atime when life was simpler, before the forest, before I learned the secret ofgrowing Brugmansia. Audrey lll making her way up to the second story of my house.That’sright, I did it, I successfully grew Brugmansia. We have been successful to the point of scary,perhaps. She – yes, she -- has grown sobig she has taken over a small portion of my yard, making it difficult to climbthe back stairs over my garage. I have named her Audrey III. Audrey lll just after I first planted her.Goneare the days of watching a spindly, anemic Brugmansia die miserably at the endof the season. Now I have Audrey III,who blocks out the sun, and who I also believe is planning to ingest me.Whatis the secret? What did I do different? I read that Brugmansia like to besheltered from the wind, so I planted Audrey III in the quiet walkway betweenmy house and my garage. Lo and behold,she is now a heck of a lot bigger than I am, and still growing.Iwater her regularly, but I haven’t really fed her yet, although I have afeeling she will ask me to any day now. Shealso has yet to bloom, but this may also be a good thing.Birdhousegourds are gourds that are shaped like enormous pears. Afterthey are dried, you can cut a hole in the lower portion, stick a perch under it,and hang it in a tree. Somebirds, if they squint their eyes and lower their expectations a little, findthat they make good homes.plant these gourds every year. Someyears are successful; other years, the gourds all succumb to mildew and die.Onething I consistently notice, even though I have read gardening articles thattry to say otherwise, is that if several gourds set on a vine, the one thatstarts to develop first goes on to be a big strong gourd, while all the othergourds on the vine wither and die.It’skind of like the baby spiders that eat each other until there is only oneleft. I think that happens, doesn’t it? SoI have learned that if I want more than one gourd, I have to grow more than onevine. Asfor the baby spiders, they’re on their own. beginning of this summer hasn’t been great. I tore my MCL, I came down with an evil flu which, three weeks later,still inhabits my body in the form of a sore throat and an unrelenting cough.threw my back out coughing, so now I limp around, coughing, with my head turnedat unnatural angle. I am...pathetic.Myhusband purchased most of the tomato plants in my veggie garden, and most ofthem are growing quite nicely. Exceptfor eleven of them. Most of which areEarly Girls. Theylook weird. They are short, stunted and hunched. Sort of like me, come to think of it. They are loadedwith fruit. The loaded part is great, but they appear to have stopped growing. Whatis going on with these plants? Ileaned painfully down, head cocked to the side, and read the tag. I saw onelittle word that bummed what little stone I had left: “Determinate.”So,what we have are tomato plants that will stay small and die shortly after themajority of their fruit ripens. Insteadof the INDETERMINATE TOMATOES that I normally plant, also known as viningtomatoes.(Indeterminate)vining tomatoes grow and fruit happily and bountifully until the first frostkills ‘em. They regularly outgrow their containers and get so big that theyappear to be reaching out to devour one of my dogs.Whowould ever buy one of those stunted, hunchy, gimpy tomato plants?Itturns out there is a place for determinate tomatoes. They are fine forcontainers. They require very little staking,stay small, and produce a high yield. Then they croak, and tomato season endstwo months earlier than necessary. Ifyou want to piss off your garden-obsessive wife, then by all means, buy thesewhimpy little determinate tomatoes for her monster vegetable garden. Then, waitto read the tag until it’s too late to buy more tomatoes….

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