trimming part 1

The conversation went a little like this:

Dad: So we have the grass to mow, which your brother is doing, the trees to cut, which your mom will take care of, the gutters to empty and the small bushes in front of the house to creatively trim. For you…?
Me: I was afraid you would say that. I’ll do the gutters.

(37 minutes later)
Dad: So the small bushes…
Me: I’ll do my best. (Thought: I have NO IDEA what I’m doing!)

Really I didn’t. The last time I trimmed the small bushes I thought of Edward Scissor Hands making poodles and dinosaurs out of the luscious shrubs in the quaint suburban neighborhood. But my bushes were neither that big nor luscious and the leaves had yet to pop out. (I guess that means the timing is good.) Now it’s not out of inexperience or lack of resources that my tree-cutting ignorance is so great. I have friends that are master gardeners with raspberries, wildflowers, and other such beautiful plant specimens all over their house. I’ve even been invited to house/plant sit for them while they took an extended vacation, a job I’m sure they’ll leave to a more capable a gardener than I if they read this.
Actually this couple has loads of books are shrubs, flowers, green things in general. I content myself on books about urban/suburban collaboration and teenagers and going off on tangents…

I’ve helped my mother plant flowers and learned only by her example the care needed for the bulbs to come NEXT year and not the upcoming autumn. My grandma always had a bed full of daisies in her garden when I was young. These were beauties in my eyes until I realized their presence meant the pumpkins probably went south on extended vacation.

The only other source of planting, pruning, gardening knowledge I have comes from the Bible. I can infer a great number of things from dead branches being thrown in the fire while the good ones stay. But much of the Bible planting techniques I could remember the on this fateful day had to do with wheat or grape vines, not thorny bushes.

So off I went with the hand clippers and electric clippers (the thing that looks like a turkey breast cutter on steroids or combs that tangle rather than de-tangle one’s hair). The bushes had grown a lot since I had last seen them a year ago, and branches popped up everywhere with such length and confidence that I hated cutting off such zeal. But alas, I had to finish my role as a yard dog and arbitrarily went about trimming.

First, I looked for the dead branches (Bible Gardening 101). Unfortunately, at this time of year some of the ones look dead but are actually nice and green inside. I was pretty pumped when I could actually grab a branch it was so dead, but rarely did they fall into my hand.
Then I went after branches that seemed to be monopolizing the food source or the vanity mirror. You know, the ones that stick right out the middle to grab the lime (sun) light and attention of all passers-by:
“Oh, it’s that a lovely branch, so strong and dominating. Too bad these other branches just hide in the back and under each other. They could really show what they’re made of if they would just try and break out of the mold.”
Deep down I knew that if it was true to humans, then it had to be a close comparison with plants. The one who takes it all selfishly in hopes to shine and glisten for or in spite of the rest will actually end up killing the whole structure. There is no “I” in plant. Of course, such a malicious sentiment probably didn’t go through these particular branches, but I taught them a lesson anyway.

Finally, I went for curb-appeal as they say in the real-estate business. Good-lookin’. Fashionable yet Fruitful (the title of my first gardening book found between Vogue and Good Housekeeping) In the end, I was like a barber trying to calm the head of an unruly patch of sprigs, sprouts and branches defying the rule of convention. Instead the shrubs were going for emo meets electricity. I cut to make the contours smooth and unified.

Mission accomplished, I think.