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Plant personals ads
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| A lone sagebrush grows wild near some Seattle railroad tracks. Sagebrushes are among the West's most common plants. Their warm aroma and silvery-gray color are ubiquitous over millions of dryland acres. But when maritime Northwest gardeners try to grow sagebrush, the effort usually fails because it loathes our cloudy skies and soggy soils. Railroads are conduits for many seeds, including both "paying passengers" such as corn, wheat and oats, and illegal hitchhikers such as the waif sagebrush. |
| Few plants survive along tracks where herbicides are doused. But along abandoned lines, or where poisons are not so extensively sprayed, thriving plant life can occur. Thinking about the sagebrush, truly a stranger in a strange land, I imagined what kind of personals ad it would compose. Then I visualized more plants seeking sites ads. |
| SAGEBRUSH: Homesick in Seattle, suffering rainforest blues. Please, someone, anyone, give me a home where the skies are not so cloudy and gray. Let's do Utah --or at least eastern Washington! I seek full, unmitigated sun, let it be ever so windy or dry. |
| MADRONA: Curvaceous beauty in red tights ISO a place in the sun. My lustrous evergreen looks and sexy red berries can ignite your site. Must be well-drained soil, uncompacted, preferably on a windswept, open bluff with groundcovers of salal, pink honeysuckle, or even poison oak. Birds okay. No dog pee, bark carvers, summer irrigation, or root-cutting. |
| HIMALAYA BLACKBERRY: Athletic, vigorous Type A personality seeks room to run freely in; is impatient with narrow confines. Fearless, adaptable; accomplished in martial arts. Fruitfully not only secure but bountiful. You are: any sort of soil except waterlogged or pure saltwater sand. Sun or shade okay. No watering needed. I'm easy. I'll grow on you. |
| HYBRID TEA ROSE: World's most beloved flower wants a place not only in your heart, but in your garden. Let my sweet fragrance transport you into heaven on earth, my lovely blossoms bring lively color into your life. Don't mind my thorns and I'll not notice your flaws. Must have rich soil, full or nearly full sun, regular fertilizing, pruning, grooming and watering. Please no crowding, fungus, aphids, leafminers, etc. |
CATTAIL: I am cosmopolitan and universally known. Won't you let me make your place my home? Waterfront property a must. I feature restfully swaying elegant foliage, I attract wildlife, control erosion, and weavers as well as wild edible plant fans value me. Please, no choking stands of purple loosestrife or yellow iris, no deep shade.
(originally published in The Seattle Weekly, August 1996)
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