Advice for the Horticulturally Harassed

(From the dustbin; this one had some religious overtones, but useful for some chuckles during a global pandemic.) Enjoy!

“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

“If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.”

“A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

Say What?

Dr. Chlorophyll’s pal loaned him a copy of a now out-of-print gardening dictionary. Among the entries:

CARROT: Crunchy root vegetable the consumption of which is alleged to improve eyesight. The veracity of this folk belief is challenged to some degree by the large number of rabbit cadavers on streets and highways.  

PEACHES AND PEARS: Everyone loves these trees, both for their fragrant flowers and their delicious fruit, but, alas, they are both afflicted with hundreds of diseases and disorders, including trunk drool, root slobber, bark slime, stem drizzle, mush wood, limb sludge, twig fuzz, craptip, crud leaf, petal smudge, sprout droop, munge, dampcurl, bud custard, splotchblossom, devil’s whiskers, lobe dropsy, creeping dinge, gray gange, bunkle, sperl, flenge, munge, morbisy, and snet. The only practical preventive measure is to dispose of young plants immediately by burning or burying.

VERMICULITE: Obscure order of nuns dedicated to gardening. Like other devotional orders, the sisters take the traditional vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience, but in keeping with the demanding nature of their calling, the Vermiculites are the only such group with a special dispensation to drink, smoke, swear and throw things.

WASPS: Annoying pests deliberately introduced into much of North America from England during the 17th and 18th centuries. They have infested large areas of the U.S. and Canada, destroying millions of acres of lush forests and verdant plains and replacing them with their preferred habitat, a mixture of boxy dwellings, telltale spired religious structures, and desert like golf courses. Characterized by a low-pitched drone, an antlike industriousness, and extremely perfunctory mating behavior, they can generally drink their own weight in fermented liquids in a day. No method of dislodging them has ever been found.