Monday, April 14, 2008

I START AN INVENTORY OF GARDEN PLANTS. I TRY TO USE LATIN NAMES. BRIEFLY, I CONSIDER A CAREER AS A CRIMINAL. MELANIE BRINGS ME BACK TO EARTH.

White Sage:-
To me, it's a lumpy old plant with woody stems that split - grow top heavy - and fall over sideways - revealing dull and dusty underskirts with spiders in.

But, suddenly, I am tantalised by the idea that White Sage might be a dangerous hallucinogen! (Californian!) I could pack it in bundles and sell it to shady characters! They would give me lots of money for it! I'd be rich!

Would the lady in the back street bookshop be my agent? (I wondered.)

If she were my agent, would she stop threatening me with flattened geranium flowers? (I wondered.)

I'll never find out.

My Sage is boring old cottage-garden sage with woody stems and dusty underskirts and spiders - and the man who comes to read the gas metre says it gets in his way. (Huh!)

I'll have to look for another way to make a fortune.


INVENTORY CONTINUED:-
PLANTS WHICH WERE THERE UNTIL THEY WERE STEPPED ON:-

1. More Hollyhocks

2. Californian Poppies

3. The beginnings of a Holly Hedge

4. Mock Orange.

I remember making a fuss at the garden centre; insisting they find me a Philadelphus Coronarius Aureus because I liked the golden leaves.

But why? The ground would have been too dry. If Robert, Ceres and Caddis hadn't landed on the poor little plant when they swung off the lamp-post, it would have died anyway.
* * * * *
Ming wants to visit Hereford.

I said - "It's too far. We'd never get there and back in a day."

Ming said - "Surely Hereford isn't more distant than Mars?"

I said - "It is in a rickshaw!"

* * * * *
The Melanie that knows about Salvias - has a blog at Old Country Gardens

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2 comments:

Melanie Chopay said...

Hi Esther, thank you so much for mentioning my blog. I'm so sorry your criminal days were cut short. If you have daylilies though I think I could start you up again. Years ago I read that the Chinese gifted people daylilies when somebody in the family died. The idea wasn't to grow the daylilies but eat them. All parts of a daylily are edible but I believe the roots give you a euphoric feeling (I have not tried this personally and am NOT really recommending this). So when the bereaved family ate the daylily roots they forgot all their sorrows.

Tell Ming to make some tuna, or shrimp salad and then stuff it into a daylily bloom. It will surely impress your neighbors.

Warning...only eat one daylily a day (this time I can attest to this personally). They are the natural substitution to ex-lax. Better than bran.

archivesinfo said...

California sage huh? I've heard terribly strange things about those Californians - my naturopathic doctor is one actually. She relocated to the northeast part of the States and is getting ready to head back across the country. I guess she misses the sage?