Our local Community Garden Club hosts a plant sale in the park each year to raise the funds necessary for maintaining several little garden plots throughout town.
The Garden Club is made up of a couple dozen ladies, the Spring Chicken of which appears to be approaching seventy years old, and Chuck, a portly gentleman who wears suspenders, coke bottle glasses and a fedora.
There are typically many vendors at the event but there are no deals to be had quite like those on the plants actually sold by the Garden Club ladies (and Chuck) whose goods are dug from their own beds as part of the thinning process or because they realize that the plant is one that is altogether unfit for the garden and/or human cohabitation and, while destroying a plant is unthinkable to the ladies (and Chuck), selling it to an unsuspecting patron is perfectly acceptable.
I returned home with one such specimen, The Pencil Cactus. I paused for but a moment to look at the unusual plant with slender, sprawling stalks and barren of any leaves.
My pause was long enough to be triangulated by three of the sweet little ladies who began their sale's pitch as to the benefits of having such a conversation piece in my garden.
I told them that a stalky, leafless plant would not make much of an impression in my garden as most things I plant look like that after but a couple of weeks.
There was not even a courtesy chuckle among them. One, evidently, does not joke about killing plants with the ladies of the Garden Club.
I mentioned that I don't like to purchase a plant without doing research first to ensure I can properly care for it. As I took my phone from my pocket to Google "The Pencil Cactus", the dear ladies began to heckle me for consulting the Internet when I was, literally, surrounded by a group of experts.
One even made a comment that if all of my plants look like Pencil Cactuses (or is it Cacti, I can never recall), maybe the Internet should not be so heavily relied upon.
Her "sweet" tone did little to hide the sarcasm and drove home the fact that the absence of laughter at my earlier wit was because the ladies were not amused not because their Belltones were low on batteries.
After more persuasion as to why (not if) I would be taking the plant home, we agreed upon a price that was only slightly higher than the sticker on the pot. It was, after all, the only Pencil Cactius to be had. The principles of supply and demand clearly had me at a disadvantage, even though the demand was not based so much on a desire to own it on my part as a dictate that I would take it home by the, ummm, sweet ladies of The Garden Club.
They handed me a bag, mentioned almost in passing to be careful handling the plant, and gave me a wide berth for the first time since I had paused at the sale table.
I assumed they warned me to be careful handling the plant for the dear plant's sake not for my own safety. It was only later, after arriving home and researching soil requirements for The Pencil Cacti(us) that I discovered their warning to use caution, in the presence of witnesses, was more to cover their liability for any harm that may come my way from the result of my purchase.
The Pencil Cactusies, as it turns out, are extremely toxic. Its sap, which it leaks as a defense mechanism for such a grave offense as touching it, is rated as caustic as lye and has been attributed to skin burns, death in pets, severe allergic reactions and, without fail, can be counted upon to cause temporary blindness via burns to the cornea if eye contact is made.
It would seem that, if one is foolish enough to introduce a Pencil Cactius into their landscaping, typical garden variety gloves should be passed over in favor of a full hazmat suit and a location in which no one nor anything will ever have cause to visit should be selected.
It would, though, seem that the Pencil Cactus, as is typical of all things evil, is quite easy to propagate, to grow and to spread. With virtually no care other than allowing it to take root, it will shoot 30' high, which, from my research would provide enough toxin to blind everyone in my community and to completely solve the feral cat problem which we have .
Alas, since I have neither space in my small yard nor a full set of Personal Protective Equipment clothing, such as is worn in chemical labs, I fear the The Pencil Cactiticus will find not home in my home's plot. I have not, though, ruled out planting it in the nearby park as a deterrent to all those pesky children.
Fortunately, I did not return home with only an invasive pet killing, skin eroding, blindness causing plant cutting. I also have a tray of milk weed that the
When I say suggested, I do, as one may have guessed by now, mean insisted that I purchase.
When I say milkweed, I also mean the actual weed that grows along roadside ditches and which is pulled from fields and gardens and discarded, rather than a shared name for a different plant that is altogether glorious.
I became owner of a flat of weeds after mentioning I would like something to attract butterflies. Such flowering plants, here in the land of brutal summer heat that is far more conducive to tropical foliage than to nectar producing blossoms, are not nearly so common as the large variety to be had in the States of The Northern Territories.
While the dear Seniors of the Garden Club had little to offer me in way of flowers, the bags of milkweed were plentiful. Assuming, I suppose, that a weed might be harder to force upon me than the novelty that was the Pencil Cacticuses, five of the gooey sweet ladies surrounded me and explained the plight of the Monarch butterfly, whose caterpillars feed exclusively upon milkweed.
To lure migrating Monarchs to my yard by offering them only food and no place to lay their eggs would be akin to inviting friends to dinner and not agreeing to raise their children for them, it seems.
When I mentioned that my limited space for gardening really allowed me little room for cultivating a weed patch, I was informed that my attitude was leading to the near extinction of the Monarch.
When I mentioned that I have never seen a Monarch in my yard so the necessity of providing a nursery weed was of no value, a scolding voice from one of the sweet ladies and menacing leers of agreement from the rest of the brood, informed me that I do not see Monarchs because I refuse to plant milkweed.
I looked to Chuck, who in my three years of patronizing the plant sales has never managed to get a word in, for some logical validation that perhaps pesticides and a loss of habitat could more accurately be blamed for the decline of the species rather than my anti-weed mentality, but he only nodded his agreement before looking away. I am certain that the habit of being agreeable with the dear ladies of The Club is all that has kept Chuck, the solitary male member, in good standing.
I, grasping the futility of the fight, agreed to purchase and to plant a weed. I left with as many as the dear ladies could stuff into the sack and was assured that $2 per weed was quite the bargain.
I finally broke free from the "sweet" sirens who called me to their toxic and invasive wares and headed for vendors who were selling plants which would actually beautify my yard and not require a trip to the ER.
After, I loaded my car with the plants, both those desired and those forced upon me, I made one more trip to a Garden Club table which was staffed by Garden Club ladies who were selling their home made baked goods.
I handed my selections to the elderly cashier and, as she bagged my items, she stated the price, "Two dollars for the banana bread, fifty cents for the cookies, fifty cents for the brownie. That will be $4 total."
She continued to smile but the unspoken, "Challenge my math, Sonny. Go ahead, make my day," rang through loud and clear.
I paused for a moment and gave her a squint of my eyes. She returned a much more practiced menacing stare and I think a true smile started to form at the very prospect of a conflict.
Having become all to well versed on the methods of the old lady mafia that is The Garden Club, and fully accepting that I am no match for the sweet ol' biddies, I simply paid her ransom and was thankful not to be forced to bring home prune bars.
