B E B E R E

On one of my recent walks home from work, I decided to pick up a couple Honey Locust pods. Figured I'd try growing my own as a project over the winter. We have a lot of them in my neighborhood, and I've grown to love them in all their thorny glory. In the spring, they give us beautiful white-wisteria-looking flowers whose scent could never be bottled. In summer, sunshine filtering through the lacy-patterned compound leaves illustrates the term "sun dappled" perfectly for me. In fall, those same leaves turn the color of school buses before falling off - a nice change from the drabber yellows of the Norway Maple and Ailanthus. In the wintertime, the spiked varieties look a little bit like characters from a Tim Burton story; kind of sad and grotesque at the same time. It's always a relief to see them bud again come spring.

Karen, who spends a good amount of her gardening time battling the seedlings, told me that they're very prolific and they grow fast. Guess I'll have to choose wisely where I plant, then. (Maybe will give Pablo's backyard a present. We'll see.)