No, I will not try to trick you. Instead, in the spirit of this crazy holiday, I thought I would share some of the weirdness from my latest walk around the ‘hood.
I am continually having to talk Richard out of arborvitae. Admittedly, they are serviceable in some situations, but here is what happens when left to their own devices for too long.
Ah, country living. These people built their, um, dwelling smack in the right of way for the extension of our road. When the authorities came to evict, out came the shotguns. No further action has been taken.
At the other end of the spectrum is the neighbor who carries tidiness to extremes. Crews are in almost constant motion mulching, mowing and giving the lollipops their haircuts.
This tree is on that same property. I find it strangely wonderful. Have you ever seen anything quite like it?
Here is evil ivy at work. See how it climbs trees, then puts them in a death grip?
Is this what the Easter Bunny really looks like? I hope not! People around here seem to have a thing for these inflatable monstrosities. Wendy, over at Greenish Thumb made an excellent point about snootiness in talking about others’ gardens, and now I am feeling sheepish about this post. I will try to compensate next time by showing some of the delights, some in the very same gardens shown here. Above all, I must declare these biases to be mine alone. Yours may be different, and you may even convert me. After all, I am beginning to feel twinges of affinity to pink, thanks to Grace.
I made the trek to Joy Creek today and found myself thinking “hey…I’m in Ricki’s neighborhood!” but I don;t remember seeing any of those sights so I guess not to close to your neighborhood after all. I could go on for days about the Easter Bunny…but I’ll chose the high road and instead trek on over to check out the post you link to at Greenish Thumb.
I’m so glad that you are also into the April fool’s spirit.
My weirdness was totally overlooked. Or possibly thought to juvenile. More likely.
Now, this is important: go back to the wird and wonderful tree in the lollipop garden and find out whether that big one is a Leylandii. Really wonderful if it is, for that is what I will do ( have done) to my dreary ones. I love the bone-structure they have revealed.
Sorry. I need to have my eyes done.
For ‘wird’ read ‘weird’ and ‘to’ is ‘too’.
Have I coined a hitherto unused word?
‘wird’ looks full of possibilities. ‘curly’? ‘wild with a touch of introspection’?
Did you know that the 16th century ( 17th?) poet John Milton actually coined thousands of words? More than Shakespeare.
One of them was the word ‘terrific’, which I would have sworn was modern.
Well then Ricki, my work here is done. LOL
I read Wendy’s post too and was feeling more than sheepish–downright GUILTY. But we must retain a sense of humor about it all don’t we? I hope this is the spirit people detect in my somewhat critical observations. I definitely sense your good natured sense of humor and I love this post. People are such interesting creatures and they leave their little nuances all over. To me it’s quite entertaining to observe them and laugh and relate because I’ve done something similar.
I suppose we won’t be able to please everyone and those who are offended can read the other gazillion blogs out there. Me, I’m here and you’re stuck with me.
The Easter bunny….. OMGosh. I think monstrosity is a perfect definition–pink notwithstanding. And I detect a serious case of tarpitis in the second photo. In the first photo, Dr. Seuss’s muse.
Hah! Shotguns, really? Orygun is still the outpost of rugged individualism, I guess.
Happy April and Happy Easter!
Oh, Loree~You drove right by our road to get to Joy Creek. We’re on a dead-end lane off a dead-end road, so you don’t get here by accident, but let me know next time!
Jo~Easy to stumble over oneself while typing. Afraid I do it in person too. You know those words we have to type in to foil spammers? Some of those strike me as candidates for legitimization.
Are you talking about Leyland cypress? We have one at the corner of R’s studio. It grows like Jack’s beanstalk, but keeps its perfect conical shape. Do you top it to make it branch out?
Grace~I have always thought it would be a great project to go around the country photographing the oddball approaches people take to gardening. When we were in Union, OR, walking around the little town, I could have filled a book right there. R kind of got on my case about looking down my nose, but I said NO, no…I love it all! Funny, sure, but endearing and wonderful at the same time. People really let it all hang out when it comes to their gardens. Don’t ever stop making me laugh…please.
Jane~Happy Easter to you too! We’re real friendly out here, as long as you don’t cross us!
Oh, and Grace~ Seussian, for sure! Thanks for pointing that out!
Wendy~Actually, the house itself is a little further back, and I didn’t want to risk trespassing…but the atmosphere is the same.
I think Grace nailed it by calling the arborvitae Dr Seusse’s muse.
In fact, most of these yards have at least one pleasing feature…that’s coming up in a post soon.