A Common Passion

As Dad was giving me a tour of his yard one day, I was appreciating the vivid colors, patterns, and textures of his landscaping. We were very different in our design ideas but shared a similar appreciation and love for flowers, shrubs, and trees. Often Dad would plant something with no rhyme or reason other than he liked it. 

I have always tried to temper those impulses by questioning how flowering plants, shrubs, or trees would integrate and grow with the current landscape and enhance the beauty of the home. We started the tour at the front and worked our way around the house, going counterclockwise. 

Dad liked white gravel for landscapes; I am not a big fan of it, but it did bring out the purplish hues of a wandering Jew in a way that I had never seen before. Likewise, the Ixora teeming with red blooms was enhanced by the white stones as well; though I would have preferred the red Ixora and the purple wandering Jew not to be so close in proximity to one another. 

As we stepped onto the lush carpet of newly laid St. Augustine grass from off the driveway, Dad recounted the story of the southern chinch bug (Blissus insularis) that decimated his planted sod shortly after it was established. The pale blue plumbagoes by the drainage ditch lifted my spirit after listening to the lawn fiasco. The red hibiscus was just plain fancy at the corner as it bathed in the sunlight under the azure sky. The variegated leaves of the Crotons along the wall flooded my mind with childhood memories of the Crotons where we used to live in Bonita Springs. 

Delayed by something out of place, Dad was catching up to me as I reached the backyard alone. Something caught my eye among the blades of grass near where the fronds of a coco Plumosa palm were elegantly draped and gently swaying in the breeze. It was an eastern lubber grasshopper that looked to be nearly three inches in length.

As I bent over for a closer look, resting my forearms on my thighs, I was admiring the flamboyant markings of yellow, red, and black. It was a magnificent-looking herbivorous insect. I shouted out, 

“Hey, Dad! Come and see how beautiful this grasshopper is!”

Before I could finish saying the word “is,” out of the corner of my eye I noticed a shoe bearing down upon the lubber! And with a slight twist of the foot, Dad declared with glee, 

“I’ve been looking for him; he’s been eating my plants!” 

As if a brief distraction, he continued on with the tour, pointing to another enemy— a Brazilian pepper tree in the adjacent lot infringing upon the grass line. I, on the other hand, was still bent over, frozen in place. Dumbfounded by what I had just witnessed. I gawked at the pulverized lubber. Everything was in slow motion at this point. 

Suddenly, I snapped out of it and quickly caught up with my unremorseful tour guide complaining about his lifelong adversary. It was unfortunate that the lubber did not prefer Brazilian pepper trees over Dad’s plants. It might have spared its life. For interspersed among the saw-tooth palmettos and southern pines that surrounded his house were plenty of non-friendly pepper trees to eat. Dad hated those pesky peppers.

Unchecked they could dominate a landscape, and his skin had an allergic reaction whenever he came into contact with them. He would have welcomed an ally like the lubber if it only had a penchant for Brazilian pepper trees. 

From out of the shadows of one of the pepper trees, I noticed a wild spindly lantana bush in the vacant lot beyond the plush lawn on the other side of the house. It was intent on blooming in spite of the Brazilian invasion; one cluster of flowers was reaching for sunshine. I thought about the saying, 

"Bloom where you are planted." 

The oleander bush was loaded with bright yellow flowers. Dad reminded me that in spite of their beauty, they were poisonous if eaten. I thought of how often Mom and Dad used to tell me this as if I had a hankering to consume oleanders! I just smiled and acknowledged that I was aware of its toxicity. 

Dad pointed out another coco Plumosa palm at the corner of the lot in the front yard and told me the story of why he had to relocate it there. The tour ended. 

Though Dad had lost some battles with the invading army of chinch bugs, marauding lubbers, and encroaching pepper trees, the war was far from over. I knew that he would continue to engage the enemy and hold his own until his last breath. In that, we both shared a common passion.