Gardening Club

       Dear Little Prince, Greetings from an amateur gardener. I have heard a lot about your Rose, so I would like to have a similar flower, beautiful and caring. Unfortunately, I am not a great connosieur of flowers, and an advice or two from a professional rose-keeper would be most appreciated. First of all, where do you obtain flowers from? Do they evolve from moisture, dust, or sunshine? Or should you merely coil and stare at one point on the ground until a sprout appears? With best regards, Anonymous amateur gardener       *** Hello friend! Not everyone has their own flower, but if you put in effort, patience, and love, you will succeed! And flowers grow out of seeds brought by the winds from other places. But you’ll have to wait and see if a seed becomes a baobab or a pretty flower; they all look the same in the beginning. Oh, my Rose wants to add that new plants can grow out of an offshoot, or a twig, or a root. Almost any part of a big plant will do. Good luck! The Little Prince *** Hello once again, Little Prince, Thank you for the useful information. Unfortunately, my planet is quite far away, winds from other celestial bodies do not reach it, and I had to venture out to a greener world to fetch some seeds. Planet Earth turned up, some tropical forest near its equator. It’s so noisy there! And if you happen to find a place where no bacteria munch and chat around the corner, there are no plants either. So, I dug out a piece of some root and returned home, into precious darkness, silence, drought, and comfort. I am most sure the flower will like my place much better than its native stinky jungle. Could you tell me when to expect the flower to be out and blooming? I have been staring at its soil patch for ages, it seems (here I do not have sun, moon, or other nonsense to measure time), and the plant still has not sprouted a leaf. Best regards, Anonymous amateur gardener *** Hello, dear gardener, and stop reading and run to water that poor piece of root right now! Get back to reading the letter later. Er, you’ve watered it now, right? I hope. Y’see, flowers are very sensitive to their surroundings. If you take it from a humid, hot, shaded place, it will grow only in the same conditions. And by _shaded_, I mean shaded and not pitch-dark like a coal cellar. Plants never grow without light! I see, you really know nothing about flowers. So, let me tell you right from the start: you need to nourish the soil, but not too much. You need to protect a flower from caterpillars, weeds, and draughts. At the same time, sometimes a flower likes to stand in the wind, watch a sunset or starscape. You should talk to it and listen to it so that it doesn’t grow all wild, but don’t take its words too seriously. Words are the source of misunderstandings. A rose can be prickly and snarky to hide her fragility, but once you breathe her fragrance, you understand how much she loves you… Oh, sorry, I’ve gotten carried away. In brief, take care of your flower. Feel free to write me if you have any other questions! The Little Prince *** Good evening, it’s me, the anonymous amateur gardener. It worked! Your advice, I mean. My scrap of a root sprouted some tiny, thin roots on one side and some leaves on the other side. When I first got the idea of having my own flower, I imagined it to be like your Rose. But the real thing has altogether different leaves, and it’s much more interesting than some trivial rose. Those leaves are rolled into a thin tube at first, and then they unfold and stand up like tiny cobras. I was a little bit anxious if I found common ground with it, but now I am most certain that we are soulmates. And my next question is, when will it be able to talk? Best regards, Anonymous amateur gardener *** Hello, noname (though I have some guesses now), I’m glad you’ve managed to get the flower growing. I can’t tell when it decides to bloom, it’s up to it. Flowers are whimsical and like to make others wait, but not out of spite, that’s just their way to flirt. Keep patient, and meanwhile, look out that your dumb black neighbours do not break the flower. With suspicions Bye, The Little Prince *** She’s awake! Holy promordial darkness, she is even more beautiful than I could imagine. That flower is the colour of the universe before the Big Bang. Her bracts stretch out like bat wings. She has tiny-button perianths like spider’s eyes. Also, she has a bunch of whisker/tail/tentacle things. Once I knew a writer named Lovecraft from Earth, I was consulting him on the forms of extraterrestrial life and indescribable horrors… So, some of the monsters in his books seem to portray her. When she first peeped out from her flower bud, all Gloomi- my neighbours fled away, and a couple of them self-annihilated with terror. Not a big deal, I can make any number of them. And her character! . It’s so independent, bitchy, and snarky! Once I asked her if she felt alright, and then we were foiling questions with questions for half an eternity. Excuse me, but compared to her, roses are bland and pathetic. Alright, I must go water her. Though sometimes I can’t stand a temptation and delay her lunch. The way she swears is priceless. She still has not used any invective twice. Best regards, Anonymous amateur gardener P.S. I assure you, your guesses are wrong. *** Hello, noname (if you prefer to be called that), I’m glad to hear that. I hope that your flower (what’s her name, by the way?) takes up all your attention so that you don’t have time to roam over other planets and wreak havoc. With best regards to the flower, The Little Prince       *** Good afternoon, Little Prince. I have no idea what you mean by “wreaking havoc.” On the contrary, I was always assisting people in reaching out to their dreams and wishes. It was you who always made them feel guilty, wrong, and stupid, thrusting them into the dishes of their mistakes. Okay, I do not have time for others' wishes indeed, my Tacca has more than enough whims. Oh, right, her name is Tacca. Their name is, as there are already three of them because my Tacca has grown two offsets. And all three of them are her, the one and only person. It seems to me that I’ve found a too-close soul, and she also wants to conquer the world, starting on my own planet. Then I showed her that I can be in different places at the same time, too; we had a quarrel, to our mutual pleasure, and then she switched to a sad mood, and she said she was tired of vegetative reproduction and wanted to create a new life together with the closest being, that is, me. I was taken aback at first because I am not into creating new life; the existing one is too much. And she had never told me anything nice before. It’s so… nice. So I agreed. You did mention seeds, but didn’t tell where they come from. It didn’t matter; me and Tacca are grown-up, erm, creatures, we figured it out after some experimentation. It appears that my tongue is thin and flexible enough for pollination. I have no idea how you and Rose cope without such a useful organ or what you do at all. Or maybe… maybe she does not love you so much as to ask you to take part in reproduction? I will be delighted to have a piece of advice from an experienced gardener. Best regards, Anonymous amateur gardener       *** NOW LISTEN HERE, YOU OVERGROWN VERMIN! JUST YOU DARE TO WRITE ANYTHING OF THAT KIND TO MY PRINCE AGAIN, AND I SWEAR I’LL GET TO YOU AND TIE YOUR VILE TONGUE TO YOUR TAIL! MY PRINCE IS ABOVE THAT CRAP! WE ARE FINE AS WE ARE, A DEUX. (THE FOX DOESN’T COUNT.) REPRODUCE YOUR TUCK, AND LET A THOUSAND OF HER COPIES TEAR YOU APART! DON’T BOTHER TO WRITE TO THE PRINCE AGAIN, EVER. FROM NOW ON, I WILL CATCH AND BURN ANY SUSPICIOUS LETTERS IN A VOLCANO WITHOUT READING THEM. WITH INDOGNATION, THE ROSE