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Random Thoughts on Gardening

© Howard Deutch

   The Datura is poisonous in all of its parts. So why do striped cucumber beetles dine on their leaves with impunity? Not only with impunity, but with great glee. I try to sneak up on them and finish them off. They watch me coming and dart behind a leaf. I grab a handful and crush. Sometimes I do catch one to my great glee. These beetles seem to leave all the surrounding plants alone. Even the adjacent Brugmansia which is similar in its toxicity. They specialize in cucumbers and, seemingly, in Datura.

   This year I gave up to the deer and other predators and did not plant any tomatoes. In their place I broadcast a collection of flower seeds including Datura metel. To my surprise, when these plants were relatively small, their tops were eaten off. Whoever sampled them soon gave up and they eventually flowered. It must have been a young, inexperienced deer. I only hope the hallucinations the meal provided were of mountain lions and wolves. To compensate for the bad meal they cropped the Portulaca to prevent flowering. They must like these plants as they keep returning to insure that they never do get a chance to flower. Do they do this to show their mastery over my garden? I have already abdicated in favor of all the creatures that use it as their fast food restaurant. The exceptions to this are the cucumber beetles and the Japanese beetles. The latter were not as numerous this year as they have been in the past. This morning I only got a ménage à trois that were on the Thunbergia that climbs the post with the dusk to dawn light near the front door. Japanese beetles have no shame in exhibiting their sexual proclivities.

    In contrast to much of the rest of the country, we have had an extraordinary amount of rain for August. It has been accompanied by a bit too much heat for us. The rain has brought about a surge in the weeds. Oxalis is sprouting everywhere. The kind I do not care for. We have Oxalis as both houseplants and in containers for summering outdoors. Indoors we have a mixture of dark leaved and green leaved plants. I like the contrast between them. We combine the two shades in a single plant for the outdoor containers. These are not hardy and come indoors to hibernate over the winter as do the

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