Life in lawn mower land is not all sunflowers and wine.
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It can get messy, particularly when there’s some rearranging of the composition to be done.
I’ve started painting recently and while house painting is an important job it just can’t satisfy the insatiable creative itch that afflicts a visual poet.
So the callistemon in the corner just had to go.
It had enjoyed a good life, quietly squatting 10m north east of the apex of our triangular garden for 20 years obscuring a slice of our bush view and then the neighbour’s shed.
But with my new-found sense of rhythmic balance and the dynamic interplay of positive and negative space, the callistemon just wasn’t contributing to the overall creative flow.
It’s a kind of vibe thing really.
The weapon of choice was a small electric chainsaw, which I thought would do the job without calling in the big guns.
The top branches were spindly and came off easily, but the further down I got the more it resisted.
It seemed this thing was conscious and applying a defence strategy of face slapping, thigh whipping and arm stabbing.
By the time I’d got it down to three splintered and stringy white roots I was covered in scratches and stab marks.
Oh well, that’s gardening for you.
That’s why I prefer painting.
The only possible injuries are a twinge of Pollock shoulder from expressing your existential anger too vigorously, and something called squinter’s eye caused by trying to read the label on paint tubes after an extra glass of Gewürztraminer.
I left the chopped callistemon on the lawn while I pondered how to remove it.
Prince Finski stared in confusion at the pile of plant debris.
His world had changed yet again.
A week later I read that plants scream when they are hurt.
Surprisingly, I did not read this on The Daily Mail or Fox News websites.
The research comes from Israeli scientists at the University of Tel Aviv and is published in the respectable online science journal Cell, which seems a reputable enough source.
The scientists found that stressed plants emit airborne sounds that can be recorded and classified.
I thought good grief — I should really go and apologise to the callistemon or at least hold a brief memorial service with a Wordsworth poem and scattered flowers.
Then I thought how do I get flowers without causing more pain?
This throws into doubt entire systems of human thought including Buddhism and Cartesian dualism.
Furthermore, there are millions of people ignorantly causing untold suffering to plants by eating nothing but vegetables and fruit every day.
Vegetarians like the chief gardener and myself will be reduced to eking out a morally sound existence living on micro-plastics and hot dogs safe in the knowledge nothing that ever lived is in our diet.
Perhaps we could sneak in a chicken nugget for variety.
Screaming plants also present another dilemma.
As confirmed followers of science do we now ignore the evidence?
Or do we treat it as just another fringe idea until it becomes mainstream?
Life is complicated, which is why I stick to simple things like painting, wine and dogs.
However, there is now an ugly complication with harvesting screaming grapes.
I might just increase my intake of micro-plastics in a sort of carbon trade-off scheme as payment for hurting plants.
Or I could just wear earmuffs while gardening.
John Lewis is a former News journalist
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