The
phone calls are coming in now,
always at suppertime, always when
my mouth is full. It's a sure sign
of spring — strangers begging to
take care of my lawn.
I
resent this. I kinda like taking
care of the little bit of lawn I
do have myself — that's why I'm a
gardener. I tell the callers this
very politely, but they don't seem
to understand. Sometimes I say,
"How dare you suggest my carpets
need cleaning!" This usually
throws them, giving me the
opportunity to hang up.
I
could just hang up anyway, I
suppose, but given the number of
calls I get it could easily become
a habit, then I might find myself
hanging up on the important ones —
like Publisher's Clearing House
phoning about the fifteen million
they promised me. I'd hate to hang
up on that call.
Lawn
care is obviously big business. I
suppose this indicates there are
an awful lot of non-gardeners out
there with lawns that need care.
It's a shame that lawns aren't put
to better use, other than
providing a place for toxic waste
disposal (oops, I'm revealing a
slight bias here).
Of
course there is an organic
solution — old goats. They'd do a
fantastic job of lawn care (I
don't mean retirees, although it
would be a better way to get
exercise than hanging out at the
mall upsetting security guards).
No,
what I mean is an environmentally
friendly lawn care company that
would drop off a goat for a couple
of days, then pick them up again
after the grass has been trimmed
and fertilized — perfect. For an
extra charge, the goats could wear
spiky hoof adapters and aerate the
lawn at the same time too.
I
doubt this would stop the pesky
phone calls, but they'd sure be
honest, wouldn't they . . . "Hi,
this is the Get Your Goat Lawn
Care Company" — sound familiar?
Soiled Again
Convoys
of dump trucks are hurtling
through the streets with
increasing frequency. It's topsoil
time. It happens each spring when
gardeners peek into their
neighbour's yard and see stuff
growing twice as fast as in their
own yard -- or at least it appears
that way.
It's
actually an optical illusion
caused by breathing the fumes of a
gas lawnmower mixed with freshly
applied lawn chemicals (optical
illusions are one of the less
serious effects).
"It's
has to be my meagre topsoil," they
say, "I have to have more
topsoil."
There's
a commonly held belief that more
topsoil will solve all garden
problems. Fact is, if you live in
a newer home it might be true.
I've seen yards that had no
topsoil, other than the little bit
stuck to the back of the turf.
There are two ways to remedy this:
Make some or buy some.
Since
making topsoil is time consuming
(at least half an aeon per inch),
the alternative is to buy soil,
and the place to buy it is from
the grocery store in little
plastic bags, or by the truck
load. Buying by the bag is very
expensive if you need any kind of
quantity, especially when you
factor in the price of the new
shocks the car will need after
hauling multiple loads. And the
trouble with bags is, the soil
vanishes as soon as one is dumped
one onto the flowerbed -- "I just
emptied a whole bagful there.
Where'd it go?"
This
is not an optical illusion. It
really happens. What’s more, it
may not be soil. What better way
to dispose of industrial waste
than to have it dispersed in small
quantities across the country?
It’s
much better to order by the yard
from a local dealer, preferably a
whole truckload. It never goes to
waste, and you might even get your
own soil back. That's right, your
very own soil, the very soil that
was stripped off a lovely, flower
filled meadow and sold to a soil
cartel before your house was even
built.
At
least you’ll know where it came
from. Of course, it will have
passed through a few hands before
ending up in the back of the dump
truck that's hurtling down your
street this very moment -- and
you'll still have to pay for it --
the street value, not the field
value.
Limp Lettuce
Lovely!
That tray of cress I planted has
sprouted already. We usually buy
the stuff, but now we’ll be able
to eat our very own freshly grown
organic produce.
Except
for things like apples and
potatoes, all our fruit and
veggies are being shipped in from
afar at this time of year, from
countries that have warmer
climates, endless growing seasons,
and no snowploughs. It’s okay, but
after eating from my own garden
for the last few months, I find
that veggies with more frequent
flyer points than I do tend to
lack flavour—if they ever had any.
And
there’s nothing worse than cutting
open an avocado that you just know
arrived on a truck that had to
have taken a wrong turn somewhere
south of Tucson and got lost in
the desert for a week.
People
who live in climatically
advantaged countries don’t realize
how vulnerable we are here in the
Great White North. Any disruption
in the delivery system and we’re
eating limp lettuce at stiff
prices. I still remember watching
that amazing news footage of OJ
Simpson racing down the empty
freeway in California.
All
around the world people were glued
to their TV sets, fascinated by
the chase. Not me, I was thinking
about all those truckloads of
romaine and iceberg backed up in
traffic when they were supposed to
be hurtling north to my local
grocery store.
Pollinating
Rabbits
Rabbits
in Western Australia doing more
good than harm? Professor Harvey
Warren of the University of
Northern Australia has reported
extraordinary findings while
studying desert wild flowers. The
Nullabor Plain in Western
Australia receives very little
rain, but when it does arrive, the
desert blooms with wild flowers,
almost overnight.
What
puzzled Professor Warren was the
lack of pollinators for these
flowers. Typical insect
pollinators are unable to survive
the long periods, years even, when
there is no moisture or plant
material present to enable them to
survive, but flowers need
pollinators in order to produce
viable seed.
Professor
Warren made his astonishing
discovery while alone on a field
trip in a remote area of the
Nullabor Plain. After a rare,
intense downpour, plants sprouted
and began to bloom, then shortly
after, rabbits began to arrive
from the more temperate regions to
the south. It was as though the
flowers had sent a pied piper to
fetch them.
As
soon as the rabbits appeared, they
began doing what rabbits do best —
eating. Nothing unusual in that,
but when he observed that the fur
of the rabbits was beginning take
on a yellowish tinge, the
professor was intrigued. He
managed to trap a rabbit and
examine it closely. To his
surprise, he discovered that the
yellowness of the rabbit's fur was
caused by pollen from the flowers.
The rabbits were doused in the
stuff.
Not
only were the rabbits shuffling
about among the flowers, munching
away, they were doing the other
thing that rabbits do
exceptionally well. All that
vigorous activity caused pollen to
fall onto the fur of the rabbits.
It became clear that while the
male rabbits were racing about in
amorous pursuit of female rabbits,
the flowers were being pollinated
by the clouds of pollen rising
from the rabbits' fur.
This
was the answer to the pollination
question. Professor Warren
thoughts were, "Blimey, we've been
trying for years to wipe them out,
and it turns out the little
blighters are the answer to
greening the desert." Australia
may never be the same!
