Saturday, July 31, 2021

Tiny Spears At Ten Paces


I don't know exactly why the sumbitch is in my garden in the first place.

That is not true. I do know. I put it there. It was before I understood the point of planting natives in the garden. I still bring in plenty of exotics because I am a flawed human but I'm working in a backbone of natives too. This sumbitch is no native.

I was visiting my sister Bobbie in Colorado. She and her husband have a huge cactus garden. It looks amazing. Like it all got dropped off by aliens. They don't get a lot of water there and the cacti do very nicely. There are fat ones and skinny ones and flat ones and globular ones and some of them don't know which way to turn so they turn all the ways. Every now and then they get a whiff of rain and they all bloom, damn near audibly. I love it.

Not only that, but the garden scenically contains authentic Southwest fauna posing picturesquely all the time as though they were in a diorama and the museum curator wanted one of everything. There are bunnies. Lizards. Quail. Salamanders, for some unknown reason, even though I tell them, Psst, it's way damper where I live, and they just shrug their noodle shoulders and stay put. There are owls in the cactus holes.

My brother-in-law was tending the beds when I came up and admired them loudly, and he said "Would you like to take a few home with you to see how they do?" I couldn't imagine they'd do very well in my climate, which is, or perhaps I should say was, quite soggy at times. But the exotic-plant beeper of joy went off in my head and I said "Sure!"

I pointed at a few favorites. He went in with delicate precision like he was playing Twister on a wobble-board and snapped off a few pieces and dropped them in a cardboard box.

With extra-long barbecue tongs. In retrospect, a clue.

No dirt. "Just take the box home and open it up and leave it outside for a couple weeks to let them harden up and then lay them down where you want them," he said.
 
Around here we dig the hole twice as big as our plants and half-fill with compost and unicorn poop and fluff the roots and tamp down carefully and raise a soil ring around to hold water and cross our fingers. We most certainly do not bake them in the sun and chuck them on the ground.
 
But they took. Three of them made it all the way through the damp winter. The tall squiggly one petered out the next spring and another one sulked and rotted a bit later. But the Prickly Pear was quite happy. It kept flapping out new ears and even bloomed, briefly but beautifully. I had it in a corner I don't always reach with the hose. Fun! But after a few years it was getting obstreperous. I tried to go in and weed around it but even if I didn't touch it, tiny hairlike spines flew through space and lodged in my knuckles. It was like one of those medieval armies where everyone throws their spears at once. After a while you just decide to go conquer something else.
 
I wouldn't get within a yard of it. But it kept growing, flinging out new flappets. It was backing me into the peonies. Ultimately I quit tending the entire corner and the little bench I had there fell apart from anxiety and weeds lurched up through the gravel. This area is right inside the wall near the street. People who glance at our garden and say "Ooo, pretty" and tilt in to see over the wall? That's the first thing they see. Brown crap, neglect, and a terrorist succulent.

This year I'd had it. I had a thriving prickly pear but no owls and no bunnies or lizards and nary a quail so I armored up and went in there with a spading fork. I stabbed at it and tore it apart in chunks--each chunk miraculously packed with water that it got from who knows where, because we're in a major drought--and dropped it in the yard debris bin. I think it's gone now. But it'll be a year before I even try to clean out the rest. I know how terrorists work. Even if they're vanquished, the sumbitches leave landmines behind. That corner isn't a portrait of neglect. It's a hostage situation.

Happy birthday to Bobbie!


49 comments:

  1. We've all done it, I'm sure. When I was in my 20s (and knew nothing of the concept "invasive plants"), my mom and I decided to put in some ground cover in places. We went to a garden center and were told that English Ivy spreads well and chokes out weeds. Yeah, it does, but it chokes out almost everything else as well. It's gotten everywhere over the decades, and several times a year I have to pull it off trees and the house. It would be a vast undertaking to remove it at this point, and life is short.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They sold you ivy.
      They sold you ivy.

      Delete
    2. Hey! Go easy on me, cactus flower! ;)

      Delete
    3. When we bought our first (and last?) house here, we were warned that the three curses of the California gardener, to be avoided at all costs, are wild blackberries, bamboo, and, yes, English Ivy. Our neighbors two lots down planted ivy, and I have to watch for its appearance when a bird poops out a viable seed in our yard, or, in the case of scrub jays, plants one. I would boast that our nurseryman is better than yours had he not told us that Pittosporum tenuifolium would have well-behaved roots and was just the thing to plant next to a lawn. It doesn't, and it wasn't.

      Delete
    4. Yeah, birds poop all kinds of invasives here. Poison Ivy, honeysuckle, Virginia Creeper. We pull what we can, spray vinegar on what we can, put tarps over some of it to smother it out. If I had a long life ahead of me, I would be more proactive. But I'm 65, and well... global warming. NPR interviewed a climatologist who said that he didn't expect weather conditions like we've all been having for 70 years yet! Christ! Good time to be old, I guess.....

      Delete
  2. I have a handy hint for anyone who comes into contact with a prickly pear or the other cactus in the photo with the bunny.You can't get all of those red tufts out unless you paint them all over with PVA glue and wait until it is set dry. Then you can peel it off in one skin, taking the red tufts of spines out with it. It works.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I tried duck tape but it didn't work. Now, do I have any PVA glue?

      Delete
    2. Everywhere sells it under different names. The cheapest way of buying it is as the medium for children's paints, or wood glue, or a sealer for plasterers, or ... or... or... It's all just PVA.

      Delete
    3. Ah! It's Elmer's! I've got Elmer's.

      Delete
    4. My mum would use a magnifying glass and splinter forceps.

      Delete
  3. It could have been worse. You could have taken some cholla home. Cholla is referred to as jumping cactus because you can be ten feet away from it and the spines will find your butt.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am inclined to accept that that is not hyperbole.

      Delete
    2. I heard a rumor that a cholla once won the pole-vault at the Olympics.

      Delete
  4. For me, it's personal. I have had those tiny, hairlike spines in my eyes on a couple of occasions because of breezes and my proximity. Sure, they look interesting, but I'll just look at the pictures. There isn't much I hate in this world, but those prickly f***ers are right near the top of that short list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My husband, who is usually a bleeding heart, left our HUGE cactus outside to freeze because it impaled him when he was hand-trucking it outside for the summer. (He even escorted waterbugs out before he saw the error of his ways. I disabused him of his notions of humanitarianism. He eats cows, pigs, and chickens, forfuckssake. And they're much cuter than waterbugs and don't take over our house) Eventually, we'll be like some couple on Ozark.

      Delete
    2. Now I have to look up waterbugs. Are you flooded??

      Delete
    3. We've always had waterbugs around here, which, as I understand is a large form of roach. They are called waterbug because it just sounds better than large roach. I put out little plates (an amuse bouche, so to speak) of boric acid mixed with confectioner's sugar for them in their favorite haunts, and I haven't seen any live ones here for a while. (Boric acid dissicates them, while the sugar attracts them.) In any case, I think they are done. *crosses fingers*

      Delete
    4. I used to find many large roaches around the house years ago. Not so much anymore. Bugs? You meant bugs? Never mind.

      Delete
    5. Hubby prefers a bong. Much more practical from a monetary standpoint. I myself cough too much from smoking, which is too bad, as it seems to help him an awful lot. Alas, I must rely solely on alcohol.

      Delete
    6. Have you tried CBD products or edibles?

      Delete
    7. Mimi, I went with edibles, as I don't believe my asthma would like the smoke my lungs used to tolerate well enough. 2.5/2.5 THC/CBD at bedtime keeps the nightmares at bay without any other noticeable effects.

      Delete
    8. I tried CBD and edibles. Just got me high (the gummies, anyway) but no difference in my sleep patterns. I have no trouble falling asleep, but any little disturbance (having to pee, one of my parrots falling off their perch, hubby stumbling drunkenly to bed) keeps me up for the rest of the night. I didn't used to have insomnia until menopause. I hear that it's a thing. Whee. I'm fucking trendy. Jeremy, I only wish I had nightmares. At least that would imply that I got some sleep. (Plus probably be quite entertaining, as I have a vivid imagination.)

      Delete
    9. I don't find recurring dreams about being lost and unable to recognize the street I'm on or which way to go to get home or remember my phone number to contact my wife or kids (with a LARGE dose of panic)
      entertaining, but à chacun son goût.

      Delete
    10. My dreams are the world's dullest. I think that helps me stay asleep.

      Delete
    11. When I waited tables, I used to have a recurring nightmare about working alone, going into the kitchen, then coming back to a packed house. Scared me. Then it actually happened, and I managed to handle it. I stopped having that dream. Now my nightmares are more likely to involve someone I love getting sick or dying in some weird way. I miss those restaurant dreams now.

      Delete
  5. Glochids. Those little bastards that get in your knuckles are called glochids. DO NOT try to remove that one, last tiny glochid in your knuckle with your teeth. That little glochid will stick in your tongue and you will go cross eyed trying to find it, standing in front of the mirror with your tongue stuck out, tweezers a-ready. A friend told me to tell you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is probably a very close friend.

      Delete
    2. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear ;)

      Delete
    3. I always thought the printing on the side-view mirror should say "Objects in mirror are more expensive than they appear."

      Delete
  6. And I thought I was brave to do battle with a wild rose bush! There wasn't room for it in the compost cart unless I cut it into six-inch lengths, so that's what I did. Only stabbed myself a few times through my thick leather gardening gloves. And I put a warning sign on the cart so the collections guys would have a heads up. I cannot IMAGINE having to deal with a cactus like that. How did you get rid of it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well around here you dump it in a big green cart and the garbage truck puts out a mechanical arm and hoists it right up, so no garbage men were harmed in this project. Roses can be plenty bad. They seem to have some kind of poison in their thorns.

      Delete
    2. Rose thorns can also inject one with the nasty Sporothrix fungus. I've never had it, despite many rose-thorn sticks, nor known anyone who did, but it's a possibility.

      Delete
  7. Prickly pear was rampant throughout most of South Australia and it became illegal to plant any in your garden, so slowly it is dying out and even out if the paddocks farmers have ripped it out or poisoned it to death. I think leaving that corner for a year is a wise decision, it will give you time to dig out any newbies that pop up unexpectedly from root pieces you may have missed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nah, I think I'm going in. Now I'm so anxious to dress up that corner...I'm going to use long-handled tools as best I can and try that Elmer's glue thing afterwards.

      Delete
  8. We have a teeny tiny wittle window specimen. Enough.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Replies
    1. Bamboo is my white whale. Some neighbor in years past planted it, and it comes up every year in random places in our yard, sometimes 10' in from the fence, attached underground to a network of roots that are more like steel cables. We love our cactus - bamboo is the scourge of humanity.

      Delete
    2. See my comment above about the 3 curses of the California garden(er).

      Delete
    3. Things that are a nightmare in one place can barely make it in another. People moving here are ALL EXCITED to see blackberries in their yard. They get over it.

      Delete
  10. We lived in the desert outside Phoenix in the late 60s. One day the cat came home bristling with cholla spines, face, mouth, ears, around his eyes. I was home alone, with a baby and no way to get him to a vet. He was in agony. He lived up to his name, which was Buddha. I got needle-nose pliers and scissors. He sat quietly in my lap and whimpered as I'd cut the end off a spine, to collapse it, then would yank it out it one swift motion. Poor guy cried but never hissed or lifted a paw. I cried as I pulled over a hundred spines out of him. His tongue was nailed to the roof of his mouth. He bled profusely. When my husband got home we took him to the vet for antibiotics and pain relief. He slept a lot in the following days and had a liquid diet, followed by baby food chicken and beef for a week after that. He was such a good boy. I'll bet he watched his step around cholla cactus after that!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How awful! NOW you'll keep your cats indoors, won't you? Hummmm?

      Delete
  11. Murr, I loved your description of your usual planting procedures! (Maybe our plants would do better with some of that unicorn poop. Do you have any to spare?) Our soil is adobe, so we paid a fellow with an auger on the back of his 3/4-ton pickup to drill a hole wherever we wanted to plant anything larger than a petunia. Still, one day I leaned against one of the smaller (6' tall) Pittosporum and it just fell over.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A GARDENER OBSESSED

    by Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

    You walked too close. You trod on it.
    You dropped a piece of sod on it.
    You hoed it down. You weeded it.
    You planted it the wrong way up.
    You grew it in a yoghurt cup
    But you forgot to make a hole;
    The soggy compost took its toll.

    September storm. November drought.
    It heaved in March, the roots popped out.
    You watered it with herbicide.
    You scattered bonemeal far and wide,
    Attracting local omnivores,
    Who ate your plant and stayed for more.

    You left it baking in the sun
    While you departed at a run
    To find a spade, perhaps a trowel,
    Meanwhile the plant threw in the towel.
    You planted it with crown too high;
    The soil washed off, that explains why.
    Too high pH. It hated lime.
    Alas it needs a gentler clime.

    You left the root ball wrapped in plastic.
    You broke the roots. They’re not elastic.
    You walked too close. You trod on it.
    You dropped a piece of sod on it.
    You splashed the plant with mower oil.

    You should do something to your soil.
    Too rich. Too poor. Such wretched tilth.
    Your soil is clay. Your soil is filth.
    Your plant was eaten by a slug.
    The growing point contained a bug.
    These aphids are controlled by ants,
    Who milk the juice, it kills the plants.

    In early spring your garden’s mud.
    You walked round! That’s not much good.
    With heat and light you hurried it.
    You worried it. You buried it.

    The poor plant missed the mountain air:
    No heat, no summer muggs up there.
    You overfed it ten-ten-ten.
    Forgot to water it again.
    You hit it sharply with the hose.
    You used a can without a rose.

    Perhaps you sprinkled from above.
    You should have talked to it with love.
    The nursery mailed it without roots.
    You killed it with those gardening boots.
    You walked too close. You trod on it.
    You dropped a piece of sod on it.

    ReplyDelete