Sunday, April 23, 2006

Blog Stuff: Those with greener thumbs than I...

Ben at Tomato7 needs help identifying this flower.

Unfortunately, having a brown thumb, I was forced to explain to him that in my world: "If you don't mow it, can't eat it, and can't stand in its shade, it's a Hygrangeum."

"Hygrangeum" is my all-purpose catchall name for plants that I have no clue as to the proper name for. Seeing as I can't tell a nasturtium from a night-blooming cereus, those plants are legion. When tourist folks here in the springtime South ask me "Oh, those are pretty! What are they?", unless they're dogwoods, I answer "Hygrangeums." (Much like the days when I used to wear a stopped watch and answer anyone enquiring as to the time with "Quarter to four," any answer delivered in a confident, self-assured tone of voice seems to make them happy.)

I wonder how many New Yorkers are right now gushing to their kinfolk back home "We drove through the Smoky Mountains and all the blooming hygrangeums were so pretty!"?

2 comments:

BobG said...

Sounds familiar; any flower my wife can't identify she refers to as a "posey".

phlegmfatale said...

hygrangeum - I LOVE that - you're so clever! And I 'specially love the ideer of yankees going home and raving about them. tee hee.

I'm a green thumb person - lots of that in my family. I figure if everthing ever goes to pot, I'll make an arrangement with the marksmen in my acquaintance that I'll grow the veggies if they'll kill the meat and drag it back to the commune.