To Let Be or Not To Let Be

To be or not to be may be the question of life; whether to let be is the question of the gardener on flora and fauna life. 

This year's profile photosake hibiscus - the first.

A gardener is like God in some ways; the gardener decides what stays or goes. It's a heavy responsibility. 

Of the Olsen Twins Hibiscuses rescued from the tree pit last year and resettled into the catmint planter, neither seemed to have buds all season; their foliage isn't all that much to look at through the summer, they aren't edible... the chopping block is a possibility. And then I glanced through the rain the other day and one - let's call her Mary Kate - was in full bloom! I just hadn't noticed the buds. Her companion fraternal twin - Ashley, though, might still be at risk of forcible eviction by yours truly. On the other hand, the lead hibiscus succumbed to something last Winter - wind? spotted lanternflies? So there might be space for Ashley The Hardy Hibiscus to continue in the Jardin yet.

And speaking of that planter where Mary Kate and Ashley live: Their catmint companions were exceedingly weak this year. It's one of the inherited plants from the previous tenant, so I want to hold on to it. Need to propagate it somehow. The weeds around it - those need to go - I fear they are the culprits weakening the catmints.

Bee Among The Shiso I.

The the hordes of shiso sure aren't weak. They are, as usual, the bane of the Jardin. So I was planning on neutering them, snipping all the flowers as they appeared. But the bees seem to love those same flowers, so I guess we'll let them be for the bees, but then snip them before the seeds form? Can I manage to get them at that critical juncture post-fertilization and after feeding the bees, but before the seeds are formed and viable? A shiso abortion, so to speak.

Bee Among The Shiso II.

As the bees were buzzing happily about, there was a ladybug too, and I feared scaring off the fauna friends of the Jardin with my anti-lanternfly tactics (soapy water and a fly swatter). The poor spotted lanternflies - they didn't do anything wrong; they just aren't from here (they're from where I'm from). But therefore, they have to go (not me, though - I plan to stay, extremist MAGAts be damned); I can't let them be. I don't like that responsibility at all. But I carry on, and carry them out, and snuff them out. Their red wings make it almost look like they might have blood, and their bodies are "juicy," like they have innards. It makes the act of squishing them rather gruesome. I don't like the task at all.

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Tangentially, since we are on responsibilities: That most responsible, exemplary carrier of the weight of duty, Queen Elizabeth II, passed, as surely everyone must already know. I can see how providing continuity for a nation and people could be burdensome, being in the public eye all the time truly a burden. At least she didn't have power anymore over weightier matters like executions and the like - like her predecessors (yes, I was watching "The Boleyns" on PBS). It was nice to see Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II's sense of humor in the later years, after she was fully secure in the role - the London Olympics skit, the Platinum Jubilee Paddington Bear skit - adorable, relatable. A nice touch to the close of the "second Elizabethan era," as one of the commentators coined it. (Did you catch my unintentional, but now realized, nod to the great cultural star of the first Elizabethan period in the title of this entry?)

As a kid, I was rather royals obsessed. Maybe the idea of being a princess. In fact, one of my law school admissions essays was a partial truth, and a response to my lingering interest in the royals - the question was about the last book I had read; and I had last read drivel - Andrew Morton's biography of Princess Diana, which I could not, of course, write about. I was in Queens. While pondering how to handle the law school application, I spied an old Nancy Drew, and,  on rereading it as an a college educated adult, was a bit astounded; I turned the quaint, rather racist, terms used in that work into the basis and catalyst for an essay instead, about evolving assessments of fixed text.

So, yes, I have caught some of the pomp and circumstance around the Queen's funeral, pulled up footage of William and Harry's walkabout with hopeful interest in the mending of their fraternal bond. But I do have to say, I think the full time full coverage is a bit MUCH, and a tad unseemly on this side of the Atlantic. And I get Jamaica's stance. Perhaps I've evolved in my assessment of a fixed institution. I still sometimes wish to be treated like a fairytale princess, though, even if I bought my own castle and can buy my own tiara.