A SPIRAL OF SNAILS

Deer would love these blooms

Skulking in our front yard in the dark with my flashlight on, I capture another snail and wonder if our neighbors think I'm crazy, well, at least a little goofy. Last weekend I planted two six-packs of daisies and the snails found them immediately. This is Spring at our house. I like to garden and to have flowers, but they become an open invitation for all the wildlife in our neighborhood. The birds, snails, deer, and squirrels love our tender greens. My memory doesn't seem to last from one Spring to the next. I am outfoxed once again as my new plants start to disappear in a trail of slime.

Snails have an interesting relationship with humans in other ways besides the garden. Some people love escargot, some consider snail's mucus beneficial to our skin and include mucus in cosmetics. Many cultures include snails as part of their creation stories. Snails have long been symbols of fertility, perseverance, and laziness. In Ancient Greece, their presence indicated harvest time.

Writers, such as Charlotte Mendelson, Eudora Welty, and Beverley Nichols, spent time gardening and wrote about their travails with snails and other uninvited guests, as well as the traffic near their garden. Traffic includes vehicles and their exhaust fumes and people who help themselves to cuttings, which is not usually a problem unless the gardener has been nursing that plant along. Digging in the dirt and watching the slow process of growth gives these writers time to reflect on what they have learned about life while tending plants. 

I look at the peach tree in the backyard which is covered in small peaches that I know we will never get a chance to eat. The squirrels are ingenious at getting through our defenses and by the time the peaches are ripe, there are none to be had. Last fall I found a 2-foot seedling shooting up in another part of our yard. I knew that a squirrel had buried the seed in expectation of more fruit.

I almost trip over the life-like facsimile of a dead crow near the feeder. Last year the crows spent time in our trees mourning the dead bird and then flew away from our yard. This year, they don't seem to notice their counterfeit as they chase away other birds from the feeder.

Plants and flowers fill our backyard. I also placed a couple of outdoor umbrellas into the ground and pushed another into a large pot. They aren't there to provide shade for us, but for the new tender plants that wilt in the heat. And did I mention trees? Leaves, seeds, and pollen dust cover our yard all year long. We love the shade, but trees are a lot of work. With all the chores to do, I am glad when it is early evening and it is cool and I can sit under the trees after a hot day.

Gardeners are quirky people, aren't they?

Want to know more about snails?  https://factsaboutsnails.com/snails-in-human-culture/ 

Read Leah Dearborn:   https://litreactor.com/columns/what-writers-can-learn-from-gardening

These books can be found at https://bookshop.org, which supports local booksellers with every purchase:

Charlene Mendelson: Rhapsody in Green: a Novelist, an Obsession, and a Laughably Small Excuse for a Vegetable Garden

Eudora Welty:  Tell Me About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty's Gardening Letters 

Beverley Nichols: Down the Garden Path

Jane Garmey: The Writer in the Garden

And don't miss:

Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, who has a poet's lyrical style.