GARDEN THIEVES

 GARDEN THIEVES

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

20/VII/2023

 

Surprises don’t seem to end in the garden. We had been looking for a thief. A ‘leaf-thief’. Silently and little by little, he was eating hibiscus leaves. We found slugs sitting on the edges but they were not the thieves we were looking for.

 

There was another one who was carving the edges of leaves in semi-circles, converting it into a new designer kind of leaf. The sight of ‘half eaten’ leaves was not very pleasing to the eyes. We snipped them away. Still, this thief was at bay. Who could it be and where could he be hiding?

 

A ‘thief hunt’ was launched in real earnest. But leaves were still being eaten continuously. He would change pots like militants change hides. The bandit had to be caught somehow. There was no trap we could lay or think of. This clever guy had to be eliminated by laying an ambush. Time of this ambush had to be different from our routine morning and evening visits to the garden. He probably lays doggo when we are in the garden.

 

While looking for this thief I found another plant wilting. It is a creeper we call the ‘African lady’. It spreads like puffed curly hair on their heads. This creeper balloons into a beautiful decorative hanging piece. It needed immediate attention before we lost it. Most probably, it needed replanting in fresh soil. Why did this plant lose all its leaves, leaving just the stems exposed?

 

Our first ‘shaq’ was on our invisible thief. ‘Bad se Badnam Bura’ they say. From a flourishing pot, it had turned bald. Even caterpillars left it alone.

 

I hoed the pot and overturned it to see if the drainage hole was blocked. The plant appeared to be choking because of stagnant water. Culprit was a ‘different thief’ instead. They were not thieves but destroyers of a deadly kind.

 

A cluster of black ants had laid their eggs in this pot. When I watered it thoroughly, water seeped in through the hoed soil. Their nest got inundated. Ants ran to safety carrying their eggs and larvae in their front pincers at breakneck speed.

 

Ant nests are acidic in nature which damages the roots. They build their nests with their saliva-mud mix, which stops water from percolating down, inhibiting excess water to drain. From the outside, everything looks normal but from inside there is a mesh of ‘ant tunnels’. The soil turns to rock solid, holding water above their colony. A ‘loop hole’ is kept by the ants at the bottom as an escape route during emergencies.

 

It was in the nick of time these ants were forced to abandon ship or else we would have kept wondering what the heck happened to our healthy African lady.

 

The leaf eating thief was still absconding. It was close to dusk, when I saw mealybugs on one of the hibiscus plants with eaten leaves. One had to spray immediately to get rid of them. Mealy bugs can destroy the healthiest of plants.

 

The pungent spray got something to move. It was a ‘Grasshopper’. Hello sir, I have caught you red handed. You just moved away from the leaf you were eating. I saw you with my own eyes. Like a guilty thief, Grasshopper could not look me in the eye and hid behind a stem. I issued a stern warning to him to move away, lest he is taken to task.

 

Thieves do meet a gory end most of the time. Before I said ‘Jack…’ it panicked and jettisoned itself towards the road. A passing car squished it to pulp. I didn’t want it to end that way but he met his destiny. Was it a coincidence? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© ® NOEL ELLIS