In a fight against nature, bet on nature
It’s fun to learn a new word. As a fairly well-read person, I am always delighted to come across a word I hadn’t read or heard.
The new word of the day is thrip.
I happened upon it while googling about lilac blossoms. While bicycling recently, I was in a wooded area and was drawn to some purple flowers by the sweet fragrance. It was a small lilac bush, hidden among weeds and trees.
I thought about picking a few, but then I remembered the terror that lives in those blossoms.
Some years ago, I brought a bunch of lilacs into the house and made a big bouquet. I’ve always thought that no kitchen counter looks right without a vase of flowers. And because I think artificial blooms of any kind are just wrong – and because I don’t always want to spend money on fresh flowers – I am not above picking a few dandelions and some wild violets from the yard, making a little bouquet and putting it in a juice glass.
The lilacs that day were a rare treat. The combination of the purple blooms and the shiny green leaves looked like something from a magazine. I enjoyed the fragrance each time I passed by.
And then it happened. One minute the bouquet was sitting there doing its job of being and smelling nice, and the next, it was the mother ship of bugs.
The flowers delivered dozens of them, tiny brown and pale gray things that frittered about the countertop. I smacked them with my hand, and then got out the vacuum and sucked the rest up.
Back then, I called the smallest ones spiders, because they were wispy and had multiple legs. But in my recent research I’ve learned they were aphids – teensy buglets that when organized can cause a great deal of damage to plants. Further research brought me to photos of the brown, larger bugs. They were thrips.
Thrips are weird looking, with long bodies and pincher heads. And the word itself is weird to say – like pronouncing “trip” after having Novocain injected into my tongue.
Thrips feed on plant juices, burying themselves deep inside the blossoms where they can poke around and drink. They do most of their damage before the plants have fully bloomed; by then, most of the nutrients have been used to create all that color and that sweet smell.
After that, I guess the aphids and thrips remain inside the blossoms, their bellies round and full of nectar, feeling sluggish and unmotivated.
Nature is more tenacious than we are and always will be. Last week, the farmer built tall, tall cages around our tomato plants, to keep the deer away as the plants grow high.
“Nature will always win if we let it,” I said. He nodded as he added another foot of netting around the top.
There are more of them than there are of us, and they have nothing to lose. The deer, aphids, the thrips – all of them are laughing at our calculated domesticity.
“Oh, there’s a big raccoon living under the deck,” the farmer said, almost as an afterthought.
That’s a topic for another column. For now, I can’t get the feeling of those crawly bugs out of my mind. And yet, I eagerly await the next social event where talk will turn to gardening. I will impress everybody with my knowledge of lilac bugs.
“Thrips!” I will say.
Speaking of which, the thrips and the aphids won the battle in the kitchen. After just a few hours of enjoying the bouquet, I’d had enough. I tossed the blossoms into the yard. Maybe the deer would enjoy them.
Nature had won, as it always does.
Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.