The Triffid

Lem has an amusing line about triffids and the excess of the Anglo-American science fictional imagination.

Lawns are to be avoided as too water intensive in Oregon as well as Arizona.

But the basic point that yard and garden are not synonymous and frequently coexist near the same house is completely valid. In fact, we’ve spent much of the afternoon planning how best to put a garden in our yard. The fund-raising garden tour from the local community college always does that, plus a daughter who wants to grow herbs.

How long before someone suggests that scourge of liberals, DDT?

Try eating it!

I’m guessing Datura (maybe Datura inoxia).

Actually, I’ve seen large specimens in Bisbee that were quite attractive. Maybe more refined, i.e. the flowers were a bit more developed. One of a couple of nicotianas that grow around Tucson; the other is a small (20-24″)native called desert tobacco (Nicotiana obtusifolia) Yours is a South American native, an illegal immagrant I guess.

I think slocum’s wrong (but I’m just going from observed use, so I may be wrong). This is how I’ve always understood it:

Garden (UK and, I imagine, Irish English) = Yard (US English) = Lawn + Garden (UK English).

(ie, Garden, in UK English, has two meanings).

I think slocum’s wrong (but I’m just going from observed use, so I may be wrong). This is how I’ve always understood it.

Maybe my formula was too terse. In the U.S., the whole bit of property behind your house is the back yard. It may be entirely lawn or, rarely, it may be entirely garden, but usually it is some combination (mostly lawn with patches of flower and vegetable garden here and there). Other options that might take up bits of your yard would be ‘water gardens’ and even ‘rock gardens’. A garden is planted, harvested, weeded, etc — a lawn is just mowed.

And ‘yard work’ (meaning lawn and bushes) is more often a male task, whereas gardening is female. Fancy riding lawnmowers and hedge trimmers and weed-whackers (the more power the better) are advertised to men on sports shows. Fancy gardening clogs and trowels and gloves and potting benches are advertised to women…in the mass of catalogs that clog our mailbox every April.

So Kieran is fitting right in — in the U.S., it would ordinarily be a male task to get rid of a poisonous, invasive tree (preferably with a chain-saw).

I was hoping it would turn out to be Giant Hogweed.

re: update

1. it always amazes me that established bloggers don’t use google to answer inuitively obvious posed questions – yours: “plants of tucson” + images

2. instant internet qratification – from the UA, go north on campbell 3 miles, turn east just before you hit the rillito river, and you get to UA extension. bring a sample of the triffid with you. there you will find experts who will tell you exactly what you have and what do do about it. you will feel a sense of accomplishment and become a better person for it :)

By the way, what is the Latin for “giant noxious weed?” Or is the plant/weed distinction characteristic of certain cultures or eras and not others?

P O’Neill, an insecticide on a plant? Well, I don’t doubt the DDT nuts would try…

Jeff, has image search progressed to the point that you can submit an image of a plant and get the name? I spent hours googling for a programming something called “twill”, which I couldn’t remember the name of. No luck. Asked at the Python newsgroup, answer within minutes.

…Tree Tobacco, Nicotiana Glauca…

When ATF agents show up and shoot your dog, get down on the ground, hands behind your head. Do not speak unless ordered to.

Had a similar experience with _solanum crispum_ , another South American climber. Bits of it are still hanging off the upper storey of my house because I don’t have a ladder long enough.

Smoke it?

it disturbs me that anything so ugly could grow quite so big, quite so fast. (I feel the same way about Phoenix.)

You’ve done an great job adapting to Tucson. That’s a superb example of trash talk about the Valley.

I’d guess that even in Tucson A/C units dribble a little condensation.

In fact, given the swamp coolers that add vital humidity, it’s more accurate to say “especially in Tucson.” And hasn’t there been a bit more rain than usual down that way? I’m surprised that southeastern Arizona isn’t engulfed in swiftly-growing mutant plants.

What’s the creationist take on weeds? Did Nicotiana Glauca etc flourish in the Garden (paradise) of Eden, and if so what kept them under control? Or were weeds, like Guinea worms, GM’d by Satan after the fall?

I was wishing Google had an image match search just this weekend for a similar problem. I can imagine how difficult it would be to write something like that, but boy howdy would it be useful.

Ours turned out to be an African tulip (we think; tree guy is coming tomorrow to confirm).

Day of the Triffids gave me my only repeating nightmares as a kid. No chainsaws, it will kill you! Shhhhhh….

In the U.S., the whole bit of property behind your house is the back yard.

And since it hasn’t been clarified, the British ‘yard’ (esp. back yard) is an area without planted greenery of any kind.

Get rid of it and plant something nicer. You can ask the people at Native Seeds on 4th Av. Or plant bougainvillea – it’s not native to the Sonoran desert, but it grows well, likes a lot of sun, doesn’t need much water, provides some shade, and is attractive, unlike triffids. I have some alongside my house in Tucson and it does very well. It looked dead after the winter frost, but after being cut back to the roots, is now growing back very enthusiastically.