Chasing a Hollyhock

Jack Deatherage

 2-b: a process of degradation or running down
or a trend to disorder -Merriam-Webster

(3/2021) 'Creme de Cassis' hollyhock lept into an online catalog shopping cart so quickly I wondered who put it there. Does Pinetree Garden Seeds have a hacker whose job it is to fill my cart while I'm distracted? Seed Savers Exchange might also have someone doing that type of work as a recent order confirmation email informs me I bought two packets of 'Romanesco' cauliflower seeds when I only needed one. What the Hecuba is going on with these seed companies? Are things so bad in the industry?

Perhaps. I know I'm finding more seed catalogs gone from the interwebs every time I search Dave's Garden Watchdog for company reviews before placing orders. The trend seems to be "gone out of business", or "have been absorbed by" other seed catalog companies- the reviews for such collectives are almost always negative! Toss in warnings of slower than usual service due to the communist China flu and I'm open to the idea of company hackers adding stuff to my orders. But I approve each order! So how are they getting these additions by me?

I'm currently reading the Jane Hawk series by Dean Koontz. Psychopathic sociopaths, known as Techno Arcadians (TAs), use nanotechnology to enslave non-TAs for the purpose of creating a utopia- for the TAs, not the enslaved. I recall first reading about nanotechnology back in the late 80s/early 90s. One science fiction magazine editor claimed her genre was usually ten years behind where the science actually was. While I hope she is wrong I'm still pondering some mega multinational corporation, or a politically totalitarian ideology, slipping mind controlling nanobots into my brain. Seems like such a waste of technology.

More likely, though maybe not- at least not yet, the seed companies are using Google or Amazon ordering platforms? Those two corporations, along with Facebook and the gods know how many other online entities have artificial intelligence (AI) programs tracking, recording and analyzing everything we Non-Techno Arca- urr peasants- urr user/customers are doing. People, who go deeper into the cyberworld than I have any desire to, tell me the AI programs have long ago passed the ability to predict what I am likely to read, eat, wear, or buy for my amusement. The programs are now to where they are telling me what I will like and buy.

I suppose that would be possible if I didn't flit about the interwebs, changing interests without warning or apparent reason. Poor Amazon's AI hasn't placed anything of interest in front of me in decades. Facebook ads seldom come close to my interests and when they do it's because I deliberately choose to mess with their algorithms. So I can pretty much rule out some corporate AI slipping those seed packets into the order baskets.

While I'm pondering the infinite conspiracy possibilities that rattle around in my head, William of Ockham (1287 – 1347) comes to the fore, though only the gods know why! William advised, more or less- the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

Leave it to some long discorporated English Franciscan friar to derail my convoluted reasoning! Now I gots to backtrack to the moments when I was studying the online catalogs for possible candidates for next year's gardening experiments.

I'm on the Seed Savers Exchange weblink ordering seeds for two gardens when I happen upon 'Romanesco' cauliflower. A memory of a long ago garden comes out of the mishmash and I vividly see the seven plants towering above the rest of the garden. Two of the stalks have black rot- no flower heads, just black, slimy holes going down to the roots I'm guessing. Three other plants don't head up at all, but the two that do! Oh my. There hasn't been another cauliflower come close to those two in flavor or texture! Certainly not the hybrid, flavorless crap I've occasionally found in markets.

I remember putting one seed packet in the cart, then thinking, "Is the flavor worth the space and expense of growing the plant given the odds of actually getting anything fit to eat?" I removed the packet. Then thought some more and put it back. I evidently hadn't removed it all. So, fond memory is likely to overrule current practicality?

Chasing back further to the hollyhock seeds, I'd have to say, "Yes. Yes it does."

Hollyhocks, the single blossomed ones (I've no use for the doubles) have fascinated me since I was 3 or 4 years old. The plants towered over me as I marveled at blossoms that looked like ballroom gowns ladies might have worn a coupla hundred years before I was born. Bees worked the flowers, probably as much for their pollen, which littered the lower petals, as for any nectar. Mom, being an actual wonder woman before I ever heard of the comic book character, would pinch off a dozen flowers. Her super power was ignoring the bees! She'd then show me and First Sister how to use the flowers as dancers on a stage- the concrete slab that secured the hand-pump above the hand-dug well that provided water for the flowers and kitchen garden in those days.

I'm online looking at the cultivars 'Nigra' and 'Black Watchman'. I remember growing 'Nigra' years and years ago and saving seeds, but not realizing hollyhock have fans other than a 4 year old boy and a 40 something would-be seed saver. A type of weevil lays its eggs on the seed clusters and the eventual grubs, maggots, whatever that hatch out eat the insides out of the seeds. (Freezing the seed clusters after they've dried kills the grubs. Something I learned after losing the saved seeds.)

As much as I admire the beauty of the 'Nigra' cultivar I'm thinking it might not be the one I want to grow as a potential project in the youth garden, or in front of the house in buckets where passersby might ask the name of the flower and take umbrage when I tell them. Such is the insanity of the world I find myself in that I have to consider 'Black Watchman' as likely to offend someone as easily as 'Nigra'.

So while I'm considering hollyhocks that might standout with a red brick wall as a backdrop, 'Creme de Cassis'- blooming the year it is sown (hopefully), with double, semi-double and singles on the same stem (not the single I'd have preferred), having a deep wine colored flower with a pink fringe that catches my eye- evidently puts itself in the cart while I'm lost in memories of childhood gardens on Grandfather Cool's farm. At least I won't have to deal with ignorant asses calling me a racist because of the flowers I grow.

I guess it's a good thing the only watermelon seeds I ordered were 'Crimson Sweet' and 'Orangeglo'. All hell might've broken loose had I purchased 'Congo'.

Gods! It just occurred to me. I don't know what "creme de cassis" translates to in English!

Okay, I'm good. It's French for "black currant cream"... Wait! Is using 'black' as a prefix disallowed now?

Hmm... maybe a nanobot controlled population wouldn't be such a bad idea- so long as people I agree with are in control?