Lifestyle Archives - Page 22 of 25

Bzzzz May 2nd, 2007

You have to admire the imagination–and wonder at the torrid love lives–of our Colonial ancestors. Their preoccupation with all-things-of-the-heart is revealed in the names they gave to their favorite garden plants.

Certainly, many plant names were descriptive, albeit colorful. Names such as Bear’s Ears, Bloodroot and Crowfoot.

But to others they gave heartbreaking names, such as Love Lies Bleeding and Love-in-the-Mist. What we know today as a pansy was then called Heart’s Ease.

Welcome%20Home%20Husband.jpg This is one of my favorites (pictured). It’s called Welcome Home Husband No Matter How Drunk. Now, of course, we know this plant as Hens and Chickens.

These days, the naming of plants is in the hands of those corporate hybriders, so we get names for roses such as Strike-it-Rich Grandiflora Rose, Aromatherapy Hybrid Rose, Ronald Regan Hybrid Tea and Geraldine Ferraro Rose. Our new and improved tomatoes get names such as Health Kick Tomato and Tomato Taxi.

It’s almost worth dipping my toe into the hybrid scene so I can get to name some plants too. I think I could be quite good at it.

How about a Hysteria Wisteria? Or a Don’t Give Me No Lip Tulip? I think I would rather like some Get Your Fat Butt Off the Couch Potatoes!

Posted In: Gardening, Lifestyle

Bzzzz April 29th, 2007

Sophie gets a bath.JPG

Hi, Sophie here. My mom can’t write her blog today because she is exhausted. She said today was extremely trying and she deserves a break.

She woke up at 6 a.m. with good intentions to get Ben off to his basketball game and tidy up before heading off to a big plant sale held by the local garden club. She got out the door in time to be early to the sale, although she had to answer a lot of questions from Dad about why she was taking the big pickup truck instead of her regular car. She said something about bringing home a jungle and Dad just shook his head. He does that a lot when he talks with Mom.

I took a nice long nap with Sarah and Dad. Sarah snores.

Mom came home in the early afternoon, but she didn’t have a jungle and now SHE was shaking her head. She told Dad that she went to get some breakfast before going to the plant sale. Apparently listening to the radio without the truck running is a bad idea because she said it wouldn’t start again when she was ready to go to the plant sale. She thinks AAA is going to kick her out of the club because she calls them too much about the truck. She also said she had to wait a long time for the tow truck to help her get started again and also at the car shop while they replaced the battery.

When she finally got to the plant sale, almost everything was gone. I think this made Mom very sad that she wasted time eating when she could have been buying plants, especially when she thinks she is fat anyway.

She told Dad she consoled herself by going to the local nursery and buying bags and bags of what she calls “composed manure,” but that smell an awful lot like a farm to me. Eeeewww.

When she unloaded her stuff and started working, it was already well into the afternoon. After a while, Mom looked around and suddenly seemed to think it was Talk Like a Pirate Day because she kept yelling “Aaarrrrrgggghhh!” But then she suddenly sat down in the dirt and put her head in her hands and made little whimpering sounds like my sister Sarah does sometimes. Dad came to help and spent a lot of time shoveling dirt around. This seemed to make Mom a lot happier and she stopped sounding so much like a pirate.

Mom planted lots and lots and lots of things today, including almost all the little baby plants she has been fussing over in the house. She also set up the pretty fountain that makes waterfall noises. But then she ruined everything and gave both me and Sarah a bath, which I did not feel was necessary.

Now I am tired like my Mom. And I smell funny.

–Sophie

Posted In: Dogs and Cats, Gardening, Lifestyle