{"id":1892,"date":"2009-06-26T00:06:11","date_gmt":"2009-06-26T07:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=1892"},"modified":"2009-06-26T00:06:11","modified_gmt":"2009-06-26T07:06:11","slug":"a-case-of-the-human-condition-i-want-to-kill-my-snapdragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-case-of-the-human-condition-i-want-to-kill-my-snapdragons\/","title":{"rendered":"A Case of the Human Condition: I Want to Kill My Snapdragons"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Maroon<\/a>
The offending snapdragons. Photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u00a0don\u2019t like the snapdragons growing in my front yard. Their color, somewhere between scarlet and maroon, gets on my nerves. I don\u2019t like scarlet. I like maroon even less.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Those plants in my front yard are innocent. They are doing what they are supposed to do. They\u2019re sending down roots, sucking up water, and shooting turgid stems toward the sky. The stems are dotted with dragon-faced blossoms that, like snapdragons everywhere and always, invite the passerby to give them a squeeze and make the dragon\u2019s mouth open in a roar.<\/span><\/p>\n

They are snapdragons being snapdragons. If I rip them out of the ground while they\u2019re still in full bloom, am I an assassin? They might be ugly, but they are alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I spotted the six-packs of baby snapdragons at the nursery,\u00a0all I could see were a few pinkish buds. They looked good to me. But now those tender buds have turned maroon on me. Their color\u00a0shouts in my face. The lavender\u00a0and bacopa, growing modestly nearby, go unseen.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Mother’s Ailing Philodendron<\/strong><\/h5>\n

My mother, who turned 92 on Wednesday, has shelves and tables of potted plants growing with fervor out on her patio. One plant, a philodendron, is not doing so well. It has only a few leaves, most of them dead or yellowing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo I throw it out?\u201d she asks. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t look very good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I think of my snapdragons. And my mother, for that matter. She doesn\u2019t look very good.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Five-Story Cypress Tree<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I think of my cypress tree. When Peter was little, we found out he was allergic to cypress. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHmm,\u201d I said to the pediatrician. \u201cWe have a cypress tree growing in our back yard a few feet from the house \u2013 and Peter\u2019s bedroom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCut it down,\u201d the doctor said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Jon and I conferred. Our cypress was massive \u2014 five stories tall \u2014\u00a0and older than both of us put together. It was a magnificent tree, timeless, a steady presence at our house. Its branches had grown over and around our deck, so that\u00a0you could go out there at any time, day or night, stand inside\u00a0that tree and forget where\u00a0you were in time and space. <\/span><\/p>\n

No way were Jon and I going to get rid of that cypress tree. Peter would have to take antihistamines. Or grow out of his allergies. Or we\u2019d move to another house.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peter outgrew the allergies. The cypress tree, as self-sufficient as ever, lives on.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the scraggly, deadish philodendron on my mother\u2019s patio, was there hope for it? My mother and I couldn\u2019t come to a decision. It lives on. <\/span><\/p>\n

But the snapdragons that so offended my eye? I ripped them out.<\/span><\/p>\n

More about the fate of those snapdragons at\u00a0what happened to the snapdragon<\/a>s.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Maroon<\/a><\/p>\n

Those maroon snapdragons in my front yard are ugly. But they’re alive. Can I rip them out? Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[287,34,288,289,55,290,82,291,292,293],"class_list":["post-1892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-cypress","tag-dont-miss","tag-elderly-mother","tag-home-gardening","tag-family-stories","tag-my-rocky-spiritual-journey-2","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-snapdragon","tag-unruly-garden","tag-unwanted-plant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}