by Debbie Naples
If Godzilla stepped in your garden you would know it, the enormous foot print would be a dead giveaway: “wow” you would think a “a monster was in my garden.” Depending on the size of your garden he might have squashed whole thing… Still if a bratty kid treads through your bed of prized and exotic delphiniums you might also exclaim, “who let that monster in my garden”…it’s all so relative. Pesticides kill pests (whatever they are) but also kill fish, it says it right there on the label, your fish, in your ornate Japanese fountain, your Koi found dead…monstrous, to say nothing of those ‘burny’ herbicides accidently sprayed on tomato plants… the monster theme continues to unfold. Was the serpent in the Garden of Eden a monster or just a tragic conversationalist out for a good time, did he really think she would eat that apple? Just who are the monsters in the garden, let’s explore…
Every one thinks insects and bugs are monsters, so why not add this little character to our monster fun pack?
One day in the middle of June, the Iris Borer quit Weight Watchers and here is his story:
The Iris Borer is a simpering little sod of a 1⁄4 inch long larvae that climbs up an iris leaf and eats its way in until low and beware it grows into a fatter more pinkish whitish grub. This debauched creature then continues its eating frenzy through the rhizome, that is the root, the heart of the iris, until the iris is quite dead or just plain gone. If other borers disturb it they too may be devoured! You can find him or her eating slowly and surely in the summer, all summer. They lie inside the rhizome, faces covered in crumbs, slime covering their leg-nubbed bodies, plant material crammed into their maws. Later to further the insult and continue the arrogance it will presume to transform into a moth and as a moth it will lay eggs in the area of its crimes.
And then there are the plants themselves. There are literally thousands of weeds that will take over an entire garden in less than a minute. Little monsters and big… Godzillas of the plant world.
Allow me to explain my favorite weed. Convolvulus arvensis or more commonly referred to as Bindweed. It sports a lovely white or pink flower on a tiny thread of a vine, so irreproachable and small, and yet has no trouble strangling the most innocent bystander. This little beauty can send down roots to nine feet. I have seen a variety of objects covered by this wily creature. At first sight it is both interesting and intriguing how a plant so diminutive and seemingly vulnerable can be such a deep rooted and unruly prankster, a monster perhaps. It will hide a rose, cover a clump of daisies, or bury a small Veronica, as Veronicas are often small in this zone. It will smother vast groupings in a matter of days: impressive.
In our world, in suburbia, in this century, the final conflict always ends in the backyard. As my last note regarding ‘Monsters in the Garden,” I will discuss the growing issue of: Giant overbearing shrubs. I am not sure if anyone has looked into this, but there is a mounting horror in the suburbs of actually sighting a neighbor, or other people. And so we engage what I call The Genghis Khan Strategy. We plant a shrub that behaves like a marauding villain, killing and/or covering everything in its path. Quick, efficient, and bad tempered, threatening, and sucking up all the nutrients in its area, possessing a fantastic root system that cannot be killed even with black tar poison spread over its stumps! So forget about Godzilla, think Mongols, Mongols also repelled tar. But why do people need giant overbearing shrubs that resemble a group of calculating barbarians of the Medieval period? Well, because they block out other people’s giant overbearing shrubs and more importantly, the giant overbearing people, as well as pets, tasteless patio furniture and everything about the next door neighbor. No one ever considers that giant shrubs that take over the earth are against the Bible. As it clearly states to: love thy neighbor, not screen-out thy neighbor. Below I will leave you with two of my most favorite giants of the suburban property lines.
Lonicera fragrantissima (aka The Invader) or more commonly known as: Winter Honey Suckle, which grows as big as Chevy van in thirty minutes. Will take over the back of the backyard, will not be stopped by a beginner’s pruners. Can take a beating without even a second thought, withstands fire. And has scented dainty white flowers tra la la. As we walk the property line (of defense) we find another immense specimen: Forsythia x intermedia, and/or Forsythia suspensa with no suspense. If you don’t know what a Forsythia is, go outside. There it is, over there, that long gangly thing that looks like a collection of thin whips coming up out of the ground, a huge mass of tangled stems, kind of alien space-hair-like. Adults run from Forsythias, ignorant of how to prune them; children and animals hide in their hollowed out undersides, including skunks. If you are lucky, in spring, you will catch sight of the small yellow flowers running up and down the‘whips’; if you are really lucky you won’t see through to the neighbor’s house.
Well folks that’s all there’s time for, tune in again for more chatter about Pearl Bushes of the deep Exochorda racemosa, The lily leaf beetle Lilioceris lili, at home, and Rumex Crispus, Yellow Dock, member of the Weed A-list, ‘Ruler of the Roots’.