June 2004 The Megaphone Page 5
by Jane Ann (Seright) Lemen
This is the season when all of us, or at
least many of us, or maybe just some of us, are crawling around our yards, dirt
under our nails attacking plant life, or pushing small internal combustion
engines with whirring blades in an American past time known as
"gardening" or "yard work." Over the years, I have learned a
few things which might be helpful to pass on to others.
First, there are different approaches to gardening. The Most Efficient and
Effective Way to maintain a beautiful lawn and flower beds that will be the envy
of your neighbors is to be quite wealthy and pay someone else to do it.
Another approach is the Vic Seright the Elder (in other words, my dad rather than
my brother) Method of Efficient Gardening. There are two principles to the
Vic Seright the Elder plan:
1. If it's green, it's OK. For example.
My mother pointed out to my dad one time that a maple tree was growing up in the
hedge along the side of the back yard. Dad's response was, "So? It's
green, isn't it?" And that turned out to be a wise decision.
The tree grew taller than the hedge and after the property was sold, the new
owner tore out the hedge and left the tree standing.
2. If it's green, it can be mowed. When my folks
moved to the house I was raised in on North 11th and A, it had beautiful flower
beds wherever you looked. The previous owner had followed the Most
Efficient and Effective gardening principle listed above with a part time
gardener. Gradually Dad just mowed a little farther over each summer, and
soon the upkeep of those gardens was no problem at all.
Another thing to keep in mind when gardening and maintaining your yard is that
no matter when you mow and fertilize or how often you mow and fertilize, your
neighbor's grass will not only be greener but will also be shorter.
Also, it's not commonly known, but the width of a lawn mower is scientifically
designed so that no matter how you plan your mowing, when you are finished you
will be at the farthest point from where you store the lawn mower. And
changing where you store the mower won't help; the finish point will still be
the farthest corner of your yard from the storage point.
When ordering flowers or vegetables from catalogues, please keep in mind that
your flowers and produce will look nothing like the pictures you see in the
catalogues. The reason is they hire professional vegetables and flowers to
pose for those pictures. Those vegetables, for example, are never eaten.
Their sole purpose is to pose.
One of the most important things to understand when gardening is the
intelligence level of plants. If you didn't realize that plants have
intelligence, then no wonder you've had trouble with your gardens.
The first thing about plant intelligence is that weeds are much smarter than
domestic plants like tomatoes or petunias. If you think about it, it makes
sense. In the animal world, one of the smartest animals, known for its
intelligence, is the fox. We talk about being "sly as a fox."
The fox has to be sly and clever to search for its food, to find a safe hiding
place, to outwit people after its tail. But has anyone ever commented on
being "sly as a pig" or "clever as a cow"? No, because
those animals just sit there, or rather stand there, and wait until their food
is brought to them (which shows how smart we are). The same is true in the
plant world. A tomato just has to sit there while we pour Miracle-Gro all
over it. Weeds, though, have to be very smart.
In fact, weeds often out-smart us. We pull them up but then leave them
lying in a heap. At night, when no one is looking, they frequently CRAWL
back into the garden. And if you've ever thought you missed a weed, it was
because it was camouflaged when you first weeded.
One of the smartest, at least in quick thinking, is the silver maple tree, or at
least the seed of the silver maple. As these seeds, also called
whirlybirds or helicopters, drop from the trees at a relative speed of 75 miles
per hour, they must make a split decision on the best place to land. That
place will be where it is most inconvenient for you to get them up and where you
would least like a tree to grow. A disproportionate amount will land among
crushed gravel or lava rock rather than on easily swept patio surfaces.
Some will gaily sacrifice their future to land in your guttering where their
life span is short, but they sure cause you inconvenience in rooting them out.
However, environment can affect plant intelligence. Grass is a very good
example. Grass only has one job in life and that's to grow. Not too
difficult a task, but grass in some environments, say your lawn, just cannot
figure that task out. That's why you have bare patches or an invasion of
weeds (proving again that weeds are smarter than domestic plants). But
grass in another environment, say your tomato patch, can not only grow but also
be prolific.
There lately has come another threat to American lawns and gardens, at least in
suburban Indianapolis where I live. That threat has come, sadly, from our
neighbors to the north whom we once considered trusted allies. In a fit of
spite, Canada has exported two commodities to us that have greatly affected our
outdoor quality of life. Those exports are Canada geese and Canadian
thistles.
Finally, there is one great gardening need here in Indiana and that is birth
control for silver maples. Either that or a way to convert the billions of
whirling seeds a single tree produces each spring into a fuel to power
automobiles. Our back yard supply alone would put Saudi Arabia out of
business.
I hope this helps folks with their outlook on gardening.
Submitted by . . .
Jane Ann (Seright) Lemen
Class of '59