A Nip In The Rosebud

Parting Glances

“No garden without a pansy,” is this spring’s slogan of the American Perennial Association, last week proudly announcing its alliance of over 55,000 blooming horticulturalists and 6,500 hothouse caretakers with millions of LGBT gardeners and floral caregivers worldwide.
Action taken by the APA also calls for state laws that permit display of roses, hollyhocks, and gladiolas in public places to also include restrictions to eliminate straight neighbors plucking, cross pollinating, or insecticiding LGBT displays without expressed permission.
“If state legislatures support APA recommendations it will mean that for the first time since the flower power days of the 1960s, gays and lesbians will have the right to be called landscape artists and not second class tillers of the soil,” says APA President Nance Vineyard (who has a gay son who raises orchids as a hobby).
Adds Vineyard, “Census 2010 shows that there are some 9 million LGBT homes where covert gardening of perennials is practiced. Whether we straights like it or not, we’re not the only ones with green thumbs. Many rainbow gardens are worthy of House Beautiful or Town & Country magazines publicity.
“I’ve seen candid floral snapshots that would make Butch Bob’s snapdragons hiss with envy. While we straights certainly know our fertilizers and how to lay it on thick, fair’s fair. I personally have a gay neighbor whose roses won prizes four years running in Southern Baptist competitions. Poor guy had to remain closeted at the award ceremonies.
“It’s sad to think he goes to altar confessions afterwards, blue ribbon in back pocket. ‘Love the flower. Hate the florist’.”
As expected, opposition to the APA was voiced by Lou Selfish [editor’s note: should read Shellfish] of the American Deflower Association. Said Shellfish – known for his cacti and rock gardens – at a recent press conference, held in the potted plant sanctuary of the Hope For Hay Fever Recovery Conservatory, Topelulu, Ala., “I’m sure Americans will not be taken in by the APA and the gay agenda. The only things gays can grow are cockleburs and weeds.
“It’s time people realize that the source of weeds (and aphids, too) in our gardens is from so-called lgbt – let’s garden better together – neighbors. It’s gospel that if you have weeds in your Garden of Eden you have a sod planting neighbor next door.
“Under no circumstances exchange bulbs, transplants, or tool baskets. Pray for them, but don’t implant for them.”
David Crakthorn, president of the Institute for American Shrinking Violets, shoveled his own verbal manure on the subject of LGBT florist inclusivity, “We’ve all heard how gays give pansies a bad name. I, for one, never look at a lavender flower without blushing. And, the less said about daisy chains the better. Please! I don’t want my kids to grow up to be florists.”
The news of the APA support is welcomed by Traverse City gay covert gardener Tom Trowel, who spent five years in prison for growing pre-op orchids in a straight neighborhood, while secretly feeding wingless flies to his Dionaea muscipula. He comments succinctly, “It’s nobody’s damned business where and how I sew my Burpee seed.”

(Just don’t spill it on the ground near Adam & Steve’s petunias.)