By Shalom Auslander 4/17/12 5:55pm

Thorns With Occasional Roses

Illo: Andrew DeGraff

Houseplant, C’est Moi: A Bad Seed in the Garden

I’m not much of a gardener, but I’m an obsessive anthropomorphizer, and so I garden primarily out of guilt. In the autumn, I shudder to hear the leaves scream as they fall to their deaths; in winter, my heart breaks for the trees, trembling in the cold and wind.

Why? the trees ask. Why?

But I have no answer.

Which brings me to my houseplant—I’ll call her Flannery—a corn plant. I’ve never liked houseplants, I don’t know why. They make me angry. I am, however, a man of much irrational hatred, and only realized why houseplants infuriate me so much this past weekend, when Flannery died.

I took her in a year ago. I was in my local nursery when I saw Flannery there, in a corner beside the door, in a pathetic plastic pot, and she called out to me:

I’m young, Mister, and frightened; please don’t leave me here … Read More

By Shalom Auslander 3/21/12 9:00am

Thorns With Occasional Roses

Illo: Peter Arkle

What We Can Learn From Our Friends, the Flowers

You know what I hate? Flowers. I was at a dinner party recently when the conversation turned to gardening; the warm winter has people anxious to begin planting, and with spring, the beloved “Season of Birth,” just around the corner, my friend Allison (she’s not really my friend) expressed concern that the petunias around her home’s foundation would once again fail to thrive.

“Do you think,” she asked me, “it might be a soil-preparation issue?”

Well, I said to her, yes and no. Some years ago, I explained, my wife and I moved to the country, full of hope and joy at the prospect of returning to the land, of filling ourselves with that which was pure and good and natural. Of course, the very first thing we did was to get a dog. She was a beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback pup, with dark brown eyes and adorable white feet. We named her Harley, and watched with amazement as she bonded with our young son, playing in the yard with him or just curling up, a boy and his dog, on the couch in front of the crackling fire.

The second thing we did was to get a bird feeder. Read More