Crimes Against Shrubbery

Ah, spring, when a young gardener’s fancy turns to greening plants. The sap starts running, the leaves peek out, and the gardener fumbles for the shears and pruners.

“Pruning – The Kindest Cuts” reads the headline for a class at the community college. I pay more attention to items of botanical interest than I used to. For four months last spring and early summer, I worked part-time at a local landscape nursery. I’ve always been more interested in animals than plants, but the nursery job taught me a deeper appreciation for plants as living organisms. Although I’m certainly no expert, I know enough to know that each plant has its own characteristics and needs, and I also know that many casual gardeners pay no heed to their plants’ characteristics and needs (mea culpa). Some shrubs really love being whacked back to the ground, while others will simply never recover from such a severe pruning. Without knowing what each plant requires, gardeners will make the unkindest cuts, lopping off branches left and right and then wondering why the hydrangea never flowers. Indiscriminate pruning can be harmful and can compromise the health of a plant. Or it can be just plain ugly.

Forsythia frequently finds itself the target of overzealous pruning. Beloved for their early, vibrant yellow flowers, forsythia threaten to take over Michigan. The ubiquitous shrubs are found in every neighborhood and office park, and the occasional highway berm. Often the poor Goldilocks are shorn of their blonde tresses. Forsythias’ genes compel them to be leggy and airy, tall and expansive. Left to their own devices, forsythia do not resemble cauliflower au gratin, as these distressed shrubs outside a fast food restaurant do.



Here’s what forsythia are supposed to look like.



Would you give an Old English Sheepdog a poodle cut?

Would you make a sheepdog goosestep in precise formation with a platoon of other dogs? That’s sort of what’s happened to these plants unlucky enough to be drafted.



Now, I don’t find arbor vitae to be among the most charismatic of shrubs. They’re unassuming, quite happy concealing foundations, providing backdrop for showier plants, or adding winter interest to cemeteries. They look embarrassed here, shorn and naked from the waist down, and regimented into some redneck version of Versailles. When I drew “lollipop trees” as a child, this is exactly what I had in mind. I never thought they actually existed.

These examples of crimes against shrubbery come from fairly well-off parts of two different towns. It goes to show that this can happen anywhere. Anywhere. Even right in your own neighborhood.

Please, stop senseless shrubbery abuse. Call your landscaping professional today.

Second photo of forsythia by Bradford McKee. His article Hack Job appeared last year in Slate and inspired this post.
Other photos courtesy of my accomplice KT.

Marriage Proposal

I received a proposal of marriage, oh, about two months ago already. This was in earnest, despite the fact that I was proposed to over the Instant Messaging function of an Internet dating site.

I was an addict of said dating site off and on for about three years. Imagine a lab rat hitting a bar to receive a bit of cheese, and every once in a random while a crumb of cocaine. I logged in daily – no, that’s a lie – I logged in at least three times a day to make sure Prince Charming hadn’t sent me any free “smiles” or anted up the cash to send me an actual e-mail. Usually no one did. But one time I hit the bar and the most gorgeous visiting professor of philosophy popped out. Of course, there was also the time I received a miniature church organist, but it’s the rush of the philosopher I feel compelled to try to replicate.

Before work one morning, I logged on and the blue instant message light started blinking like a K-mart special. The spelling and grammar had a non-native speaker quality about them. “Wow,” he said (or typed). “You are so preety for me.” What unwashed Midwestern woman in flannel pajamas at 7:25 in the morning wouldn’t be flattered? His name is M., and he thinks I’m a nice “lday.” Suddenly I’m awake without my usual mug of weapons-grade black British tea. Hey, this could be the one.

Clicking on his profile, I saw that his idea of romance includes love poems and that he enjoys his pet in his spare time. Literate and likes animals – so far, so good. He has a university education. He is 30 years old, slim, and wants kids. Perfect!

He also “lives approximately 5,430 miles from your home,” in Lagos, Nigeria.

Maybe I should invest in a web cam. Maybe my twisted wire grimace would have deterred him from typing “r u married?”

Is there a right answer to this question? If I say “Yes” to dodge him, I’ll be accused of being among the 30% of people on Internet dating sites who are married. How about the truth? “No,” I typed.

Wrong answer. “i can marry u,” he volunteers. And leave warm, sunny Nigeria for Michigan, halfway to the North Pole? “No,” I typed, actually feeling guilty entering those two keystrokes. I was breaking up with him already and moving on.

“i can come.” Now I’m paralyzed. Why do I always get the tenacious ones?
“i can stay with u.” I don’t answer. I’m getting my socks out of the drawer.
“why no?” he finally typed.

Seconds tick off the clock. Why no, indeed? Why can’t love really be as easy as simply saying, “Yes?” Aren’t literature and history filled with couples drawn together in the strangest ways? Don’t we all know some happy pair, partnered for years, who went to get the marriage license on their third date? And isn’t this part of the allure of Internet dating, that the One is out there and all you need do is fill out the questionnaire and set your search criteria to have him or her delivered to your inbox, heralded by a flashing blue button?

I am unable to make the leap. I plop back into the chair and slay my virtual suitor by telling him we don’t know each other, and never will. I still check my account every once in a while, though I've pretty much weaned myself from the habit. M. is still out there, logging on, looking, and probably proposing to my downstairs neighbor right now.

A Cookie is a Sometimes Food

Can't wait to see Cookie Monster's talking aubergine sidekick.

There Ain't No Holodeck, Girl

Yeah, that's what I heard Gwen Stefani sing the first time I heard "Hollaback Girl."

Thanks, iTunes, for setting me straight.

Is Anybody Else

As disturbed as I am by some of the animated banner ads for mortgages and debt consolidation and the like? You know the ones, with all the states listed along the side of an elongated, heaving pink pig, or lining the wings of a flapping pterodactyl? I especially liked the one that appeared on Yahoo! around Christmas time: a gingerbread man trying to pull himself up out of a glass of milk. Only it looked more like he was constipated and trying to pass a chocolate chip.

Seriously, these things freak me out. And somebody designed them, which freaks me out more.




UPDATE:I'm not the only one! See more freaky ads here.

Where's George? Sometimes I'd Prefer Not to Know.

One of my Where's George bills has been found. I entered the bill on November 29, 2004, in Chelsea, Michigan. Tonight It is 29 miles away in Belleville, Michigan, on its way to a "tittie bar" and George only knows where after that...

Sanctuary

I first saw them, tall and stately, eight months after my brother’s death. I was watching the white edge of road ahead when Jack slowed the car and wordlessly pointed across me to where they stood ankle-deep in Pond Lily Lake. At the sight of them my hardened acorn heart split a little and put out a cautious root hair.

We parked at the sanctuary and squished our way up the hill. Woolen clouds were cable-knit across the sky. Mist settled on my hair, a network of diamonds I glimpsed at the edge of my vision. Jack set up the tripod and scope, focusing and turning knobs and cursing softly to his stiff fingers. There wasn’t anything to focus on. The wetland below us reminded me of a frying pan, pewter water, lead lid of sky, rim of copper cattails. No one else was around. A few chickadees jived in a dogwood.

Other soggy birders soon joined us. There were sighs and foot stampings. “The show’s a little late,” Jack murmured and wiped his glasses for the fifth time. It was getting dark.

A smoky smudge right on the horizon line sent the birders scrambling to their scopes. I heard a faint sound like someone running a thumbnail down a comb. The sound got louder, harsher, and the smudge resolved itself into a formation of flying sandhill cranes. Once over the frying pan they started to drop, legs dangling, like a platoon of paratroopers. The noise increased as more birds arrived, then more, and more, until long skeins of them wove across the sky in all directions. I happened to look straight up just as a pair coasted in directly overhead. Their soft gray bellies seemed close enough to skim my outstretched fingers. They held their black toes together like steeples. I felt like church.

"Happy 21st Birthday" read the shiny silver balloon expanding to block my view of the Farmer Jack employee’s face. I got that one and a purple one. The employee knotted lengths of colored curling ribbon around each and attached plastic animal anchors. I wrestled the balloons into the car and headed back to the apartment.

I let them float to the apex of the angled ceiling in the corner of the room while I filled out the card and folded the paper crane. I wrapped both items in Saran-wrap, punched a hole through them, and strung them on the ribbons. The balloons lifted towards the center of the room. The strange little airship passed its test flight.

The balloons bumped against the wall as I strode down the stairs and into the back yard. June 6, 2004, was a sunny day with wispy clouds breezing by. Gazing skyward, I took a deep breath and released it at the same time as the balloons. The crane and the card might have been heavier than I thought, for the airship didn’t soar like I had envisioned. It drifted away at a slow 45 degree angle, ribbons twining around each other like dancing snakes, balloons bonking heads, cargo flailing behind. It barely cleared the wires and disappeared over the trees, headed towards Dexter.

Happy birthday, Dan. My lips moved, but no sound came out.

Grus canadensis

We heard it before we saw it. A drawn out croak rolled down from the sky. I stopped with a boot-squeak against the snow. Their call carries for over a mile, so hearing doesn’t guarantee seeing. Still, I tilted my face and scanned the blue. My companion crunched several steps further, then stopped himself and half turned back. “What is it?” he asked. The dog continued nosing about a “sticker-pricker” bush, which would get her in trouble in about two seconds. “Cranes,” I said, simultaneously hushed and excited as I always am in their presence.

Just as I named it, it burst over the bare fringe of trees, one sandhill, alone – an unusual sight, since they typically travel in family groups. Its uncoiled neck strained forward; outstretched toes trailed behind. It half-flapped, half-glided, riding a current so high up that a gull flying nearby looked approximately the same size. The sandhill crane is no gull. It is as tall as I am, with a wingspan two feet more than that. They are one of the reasons I am here in Michigan.