My Backyard is an eclectic collection of growing things. I have a very hard time discriminating against any non-weed fauna applying for residency. My friend, Vera, a Master Gardener, is always offering me new specimens. "Oh, don't forget! I saved that holly seedling for you!"
Of course, what is clearly a lavishly tended and fully mature specimen in Vera's Babylonian garden looks like a sad little lump of pokey gizzard in mine. But I have big dreams, and one day that little gizzard of a holly will grow from a pokey sapling into a.... well, anyway, that's another story.
One gift from Vera's garden that is not a pathetically lesser version of its vibrant original is "Nearly". Nearly is a rosebush. Her full name is Nearly Wild - a perfectly suitable name for a rosebush in my possession, because a girl in pink has to hold her own in my backyard. But Nearly is special. Bequeathed to me (so Vera claimed) because there wasn't enough air in her current bed, she became my very first rosebush.
I never planned to have a rose. A pretty, pointless flower I always thought. Untouchable, and yet so touchy. Alluringly fragrant and beautiful, and yet so prone to.... well, mildew, fungus, and mold.
But I accepted Nearly. She promised to be low-maintenance, but more importantly, she represented a legacy. You see, she had been Vera's first rose, too. Now, she was mine. And for the first time, I would plant something from Vera's garden into my own and it would be happier and healthier than before.
At first, Nearly was in shock from the move. But she recovered. It made my heart smile to see the blooms bursting from her every branch. I thought about Vera. I hoped that Nearly's new happiness, her growth and her greenery, her velvety-pink petals falling around her like rain... I hoped she would bring some of that new life back into my friend.
Vera has cancer. Lymphoma. It is aggressive and has spread quickly through her strong, little body. It saps that strength. Still, Vera goes on, moving through her garden, coaxing life to flourish. I wanted to do that for her, too.
But one steamy morning, as I went out to check on Nearly and the others in the backyard, something caught my attention. Nearly's fresh new leaves were disappearing. No, not disappearing... being devoured! The culprit was nowhere in sight. I searched her top to bottom - with gloves - and only scared-up a tiny, needly-looking excuse for a caterpillar who, if he WAS a guilty party, certainly wasn't the glutton who had left globulous black bug turds over ever remaining inch of Nearly's foliage. Even I know that energy cannot be destroyed - only converted - and there was no way that little thing had converted all those leaves into all that poo without growing so much as a millimeter.
The irony of the situation is hard to miss. My flourishing rosebush, slowly and nightly ravaged by a mysterious killer, certainly sounds a literary note. So, what is a young gardener's apprentice to do? Much hangs in the balance. Now is the time for action. My feelings for my friend aside, I can't keep rinsing caterpillar poo off my rosebush until there's nothing left but stem. And perhaps a butterfly.
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