Garden funnies

[Kathy & Laurie]

Oooooooooh!  Loopers, thrips and borers - they sound nasty. 

All I can say is - hang on to your Hollyhocks. 

Laurie.

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #31

FLUORESCENT LIGHT: You can grow plants under ordinary office-type fluorescent lights, but be warned ? they are likely to develop odd habits: They will bloom only from about 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.; they will require a powerful mulch of paper, ashes, and coffee grounds; they will tend to cluster around water supplies, the plant heads will generally turn toward any windows or clocks and begin to droop around 3:00 P.M.; and none of the plants will ever blossom or produce any fruit. ? H.B. & R.McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #32

BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE: The system currently in use for naming plants is based on one devised by a Swedish botanist known variously as Carl Linne, Carl von Linne, and Carolus Linnaeus, whose confusion over his own name has unfortunately extended to his system. The initial two words under the Linneaean system are always Latin. (Ideally, they shouldn?t ?give away? what the plant is or be easy to say or spell ? that spoils the fun!) Thus, if some horticultural investigator turned up a new thick-stemmed orchid Chyrrhaemzygophylla braeiourhynspsia, which may be abbreviated to C. braeiourhynspia. (Plants are sometimes named after their discoverer, but the authorities responsible for the designations are reluctant to do this unless the botanist to be honored has a very peculiar name, like O?Clytemnestra or Ffrench-Turpsichert.) Following these two Latin words, a third sometimes appears indicating the variety of the plant if it has some particular quality others lack, as for example, that it is unusually difficult to grow (irascibilia), has a noticeable odor (phooeyii), or looks like something fell on it (obliterata). Now, if a particular specimen develops, say brilliant red blossoms instead of the tiny white ones it displays in the wild, it might be further qualified as a cultivar and have an additional epithet, preceded by the letters c.v. like ?Carmine Miranda.? Many nurseries contribute to the confusion by applying their own names to the plants, like ?Flame of the Amazon ? Rarest Orchid in the World!? or ?Cobra Breath ? Snatched from the Jaws of South American Serpents!? and as a result most gardeners rely on the simpler Universal Plant Identification Code, under with C. braeiourhynspsia is ?That Thick-stemmed Orchid with Flowers Shaped Like a Shoe in the Green Pot.? ? H.B. & McK.

What a mess that is to text! My italics didn't carry over from Word to the Forum, you are going to have to imagine where they occur. - Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #33:

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, stemdrizzle, mush wood, limbsludge, twigfuzz, 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 the young plants immediately by burning or burying. ? H.B. & R.McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #34

SPRINKLER: Adjustable rotary irrigation device, typically with two settings: ?Drool,? which creates a puddle of water 6 inches deep in a circle about a yard in diameter, and ?Monsoon,? which propels a high-velocity water jet into the woods, the garage, your automobile, and the street. ? H.B. & R. McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #35

GREENHOUSE: Many people have found that a greenhouse provides a solace in our increasingly difficult world. A mean-spirited employer, a shrewish spouse, a persistent creditor, a meddlesome in-law ? they all seem to disappear as the happy gardener putters around among his oleanders, nightshade, mistletoe, mandrake, hemlock, and foxglove, diligently crushing the glossy leaves and brightly colored berries to produce the jams and jellies for which he is justly noted or selecting from among his orchids, jasmine, camellias, and gardenias a few blossoms for the tasteful funeral sprays that garner him so much praise. In time, magically, his problems fade away, and he is left in tranquil solitude surrounded by his generous and uncomplaining botanical companions. ? H.B. & R. McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #36

ROOT: 1. Subsurface part of a weed that is inadvertently left in the ground when the upper portion of the plant is removed, thus resulting in the weed?s speedy re-growth. 2. Subsurface part of an ornamental, or tree, a small portion of which is inadvertently left in the ground when the specimen is transplanted, thus resulting in the plant?s rapid death.?H.B. & R. & McK.

- Toby 

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #37

BORDER: Strip of ground that divides the area where the shrubs were from the place where the lawn will be with a neat row of plastic markers indicating where the flowers would have been. ? H.B. & R. McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #38

ROOF GARDEN: Garden on a penthouse or terrace of an urban apartment. Because of increasingly harsh conditions in most cities, the only reliable products of roof gardens are the common house leak (Gypsum dicoloratum) and the resulting rhubarb with the neighbor below. ? H.B. & R.McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #39

HERBS: Widely grown and valuable plants useful as flavorings and preservatives. It?s hard to agree on the most popular, but certainly a good candidate is sweet basil. The best-known variety is Rathbone basil, or wild Sherlock, a highly aromatic plant on the basis of a very small whiff of whose pungent, peppery odor expelled from the oral cavity during a speech, mingled with a hint of garlic, it is possible to deduce that the interlocutor has recently eaten Italian potato dumplings in small cellar restaurant with a picture of the Bay of  Naples on the wall. ? H.B. & R.McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #40

KEY: 1. Light, wing-shaped fruit from maple trees which, when dropped on the ground and buried under a shallow layer of soil, results in a new tree. 2. Light brass or steel object which, when dropped on the ground and buried under a shallow layer of soil, results in a new padlock, a new hasp, and some new window glass. ? H.B. & R.McK.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #41

IMPATIENS: Fast-blooming flower. Plant it. Water it. It grows, it blooms. Bango, it makes seeds. It wilts. It dies. No hanging around for dirty tubers to form. No years of waiting for showy growth, fancy fruit. You got time on your hands, plant an acorn and lay in some Proust. You want quick results, impatiens is your baby. ? H.B. & R.McK.

- Toby

[ideasguy]

Hooray!
Its great to see those guys have discovered that gardening is not an impossibility after all. Nice to see they have managed to grow at least ONE plant 
Can we optimistically predict that the book has a happy ending?

[bossgard]

George: From what I can tell, the two gardener authors have a very happy ending to their book. I took a peak, and they do get to the letter ?Z?.  And I have also been told, that their respective gardens survived the whole ordeal of them writing the book, and remnants of both gardens still exist today and are open to the general public to enjoy the rare specimens of Impatiens that they grew.

- Toby

[bossgard]

DAFFY DEFINITION #42

SUNDIAL: Ornamental garden clock that indicates the time by means of a shadow cast by a pointer onto a dial marked with numerals. Most sundials have inscriptions: The common ones are ?Make Haste While the Sun Shines,? ?Tempus Fugit.? and ?Out of Order? ? H.B. & R.McK.

- Toby