Midnight in the Garden of Wood and Evil

Have a question? Need some advice? Ignored by everyone else? Send us your questions via email. The Non-Expert handles all subjects and is updated on Fridays, and is written by a member of The Morning News staff.
 

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Question: Dear TMN: I’m an inexpert gardener myself and enjoy Jessica Francis Kane’s Notes From the Lawn series. Sometimes, though, I wonder about the poor plants, the laboratory mice of our dallying in the garden. How do they feel? A friend of mine talks to her plants. Should I be worried?
 
 Possibly guilty of garden torture,
 Ann B.
 
 Answer: Dear Ann: Thanks for writing! I worry, too. My grandmother used to pet her plants, but she also wore nylons in the summer, so she was obviously given to extremes. I thought everything was probably okay—until recently. Two weeks ago I found the following letter in my mailbox:

It would be bad enough enduring correspondence from my privet. But then, a few days later, I received this:

Aside from the fact that one might have guessed the rose hybrid would have more facility with spelling and grammar than Ligustrum Vulgare (common privet), it’s alarming to think of them working in unison. It’s true I’ve always found time to prune the roses, but that is because they will bloom twice—once in early summer and then again in late summer—if you trim them back. Pruning the privet, in contrast, is merely a Sisyphean task.
 
 I didn’t respond. Then, a few nights ago, I was awoken by a strange sound, an insistent rustling I thought at first was rain. I got out of bed and went downstairs, following the sound to the front of the house. When I stepped off the porch, I had quite a shock. The azaleas, a bank beneath my study window that is the pride and joy of my spring garden, seemed to be…rearranging themselves. With absolutely no consideration for color! I was horrified, particularly as I had just paid a professional to prune them. (Like forsythia, azaleas are notoriously difficult. You should never take a hedge clipper to them.)
 
 The betrayal was painful to bear, and, indeed, the next morning there was another note:

Ann, I offer all this as a cautionary tale. Take heed! The plants are craftier than we think, and, let’s not forget, mobile. The privet, in fact, appears to be encroaching on the house. My husband says I’m imagining it, he says the heat and humidity are just getting to me, the way they do every summer about this time. But I don’t think so. The shadow of the privet seems to reach just a bit closer each morning and yesterday I found an unusually long thorn laid conspicuously across the front mat. This explains the clicking I’ve heard from the rose garden at dusk—unmistakably the sharpening of points. I’m going out this morning to look around. If after several days you’ve heard nothing from me, you will know the truth.
 
 My best,
 Jessica