Part of my shift toward weedscaping, of course, is pure laziness. I can fill the yard debris barrel in less than 10 minutes. Then it sits in my yard for two weeks, when it’s picked up by Waste Management and hauled off to be dumped somewhere else, temporarily dormant seed pods and all. By that time whatever I’ve tried to remove has come back twice as strong, and so I start again. Others can have my share of that glory. I’m tired of it.
In addition to the laziness, though, I have started to wonder about the nuts and bolts of the gardening craze. Plants are pretty pricy, for starters. Good luck finding anything under $20 at Portland Nursery, which is to gardening what Powell’s is to reading, including the piousness.
Then come the varieties. I don’t think I’m alone in this sentiment, but I am one of the few people I know who will admit that I don’t like endless options. I’d like fewer of them, in fact. I have a tree with red leaves in my yard, a Japanese Maple, I believe it’s called. It’s beautiful, I think, and I’d like a couple more for the side yard. So last weekend, when the sun was out and the temperature was very close to 70 degrees, a friend of mine and I went to Portland Nursery and had a look. And sure enough, there were more varieties than I cared to count. “I just want a goddamn maple tree with red leaves,” I told my friend. He said, “You have to be more specific than that.”
Which reminded me of a question I’ve been toying around with for a while now. Why are we coming up with new incarnations of plants at all? There aren’t enough growing here already? Does crafting a new variety compromise those that already exist? Is there an ecological reason for coming up with new plants each year or is it simply marketing? I’ve heard a thing or two about how companies like Monsanto play good with seeds and such, and it’s scary. Or do we just really enjoy imposing our will on a process that nature is obviously more qualified to manage?
And then there are the chemicals. For such an organic, sustainable town, there sure are a lot of commercials for weed killer and fertilizer on the Portland airwaves. Another thing that’s odd about Portland is that for all our talk about food equality and addressing food deserts and fresh and local food for everyone, freshly prepared and local, it seems to me that most of what’s grown and sold and hyped around here is strictly for show.
Speaking of show, another strange thing I’ve noticed over the past eight years is this. Though it might seem reasonable, assuming that a plant for sale at a nursery in Portland is one that will thrive in the zone that Portland is in, don’t count on it. Why do people grow plants here that require daily watering and elaborate wrappings during the fall and winter followed by mulching and fertilizing? I have no idea.
Anyhow, my lawn mower is pretty nice. It’s fairly small and very quiet. I mowed down part of the yard on Wednesday afternoon, and when it stops raining I’m going to do some more, operating – literally and figuratively – under the belief that if a plant resists pulling and digging and cutting and can, in many cases, grow right through the tiniest of cracks in concrete, there’s a pretty good chance that it belongs there.
