ZKV 60

WHITE SPOTS AND WORDWIDEWEBS

 

It’s nice to have a gardener your own age. To chat to about the many eccentricities of life. Today we talk about weeds and the fact that they are still flourishing in mid-October. We mention tiny clover-like plants on flights of stone stairs. Move on to ground elder and the impossibility of excavating the network of white spaghetti under the ground. ‘You can eat ground elder when the shoots are young,’ Jørgen remarks.  I run into a white spot. ‘Yes, and...?’ What are those yellow things in the lawn with jagged leaves called? I get this mental image of tumbleweed. My vocabulary is made up of synonym clusters with the words interlinked, but ground elder, bindweed and other botanical obnoxions have suddenly become unhooked from this weed. ‘You know, yellow flower, jagged leaves.’ But Jørgen has been struck down by the same fate. We stand there, trying vainly to reestablish our respective wordwidewebs. I try my next strategy. ‘Löwenzahn, leeuwetand, lövetann, dandelion – teeth like lions.’ No go. I go Swedish: ‘maskros’. We stand there gawping at each other.

‘I’ll get back to you.’ I walk away, muttering to myself ‘det var fandens!’ (the devil take it!) – and remember that the common Danish expression for the weed is the devil’s dandelion. ‘Fandens mælkebøtte’ I shout back to Jørgen. ‘Yes, and we’re two puffballs’ is his reply.