Hostess Gifts

Old fashioned as it might be, I always like to take a gift to the hostess when I am invited to a party or dinner out. What to bring is the tricky part, especially for an annoying acquaintance. For example, the new neighbor down the street that just removed a dozen trees without permits or my relative, a world expert on everything.

A garden friend once brought me a gift of one petasides plant. “You will love it he exclaimed, “especially it’s brown flowers in late winter.” He never mentioned that five years later I’d been running for my life as a hundred plants marched up the bank to invade my woodland garden. Was he truly a garden friend or did he have a hidden agenda? Ummm!

If I was to follow his example topping my list for pesky people would be plants with a run-away metabolism, “the flowers of discontent.” They are as seemingly innocuous as a morning glory, humble as mint, sophisticated as gooseneck strife or as exotic as the Asian chameleon plant. The gift, like the Trojan horse, is appealing before it pounces.

Bringing a pot of Heavenly Blue morning glories to a hostess whose party you were forced to attend seems innocent enough. But, each gorgeous blue flower blooms for only a day before it literally goes to seed. Morning glories would, if they could, take over the earth. Since the blooms keep coming, flowering more each week than they did before, so do the numbers of seeds. The hostess, captivated by the quick growing vine and the beauty of the flowers won’t notice the seedlings accumulating at it’s feet. By my estimation, ‘Heavenly Blue’, the most popular hybrid, drops hundreds of seeds over the course of its three- to four-months of bloom. Miraculously, they all appear to sprout anywhere and everywhere they land—in the garden, between paving stones, in cracks, in gravel, in clay and in sand. It’s impossible to weed out the entire population with one swipe. The seeds keep coming all summer and fall until frost steps in. Then, any seed that hasn’t germinated waits patiently until spring to sprout.

They might be welcome if the seeds carried the beauty of their hybrid parent but they don’t. They revert back to a species with smaller flowers in softer colors. And here’s the rub—seedlings, sneaky devils that they are, crawl along the ground, hiding from view camouflaged as they twine around other plants, until they reach up and bloom and then it’s too late. They too spew seed.

Consider a gift of mint, a humble herb yet, a refreshing addition to iced tea and mint juleps. There are dozens to choose from—peppermint, spearmint, pineapple mint, apple mint, ginger mint and more. The dark side of mint is, once its been planted, there is no halting its spread. Its roots run like an underground express making regular stops every few inches to send up new shoots. Even if it’s plucked daily, it advances. The variegated golden mint, running along our shallow stream dove in and swam to the other side, whipping out all the plants in its way.

Gooseneck strife, on the other hand, makes a sophisticated present, a quiet beauty with a gracefully arching head covered in altar-boy white, starry flowers. While I admire the beauty of its softly curved blooms, especially as the sun is setting when it shimmers as if gilded, such looks are deceiving. Its true color startles. Underground the scarlet roots are the devil to dislodge. They run in all directions, sometimes several feet, before rearing into an angelic-looking plant. If the soil is moist and loamy, it is possible to apply a slow gentle pressure and pull out a foot or two at a time. If the soil is dry and crusted, a bulldozer is best. Luckily, the red runners are easy to spot at the base of each shoot when they come up for air in the spring. It is the signal for gardeners to take warning.

Hands down, the best plant for ending a friendship is the chameleon plant, Houttuynia cordata. Hyped in unscrupulous catalogs as a colorful and fragrant groundcover to prevent erosion, it will do that and more. The green heart-shaped foliage, splotched with purple, pink and red, weaves a handsome, dense carpet in sun and shade. It looks innocent enough, especially in May and June when its small white flowers appear. But, pick a flower or tear off a leaf and the stench that rises to greet you, quickly changes your mind. Reminiscent of a foot soldier’s boot or a cold miner’s armpit, it is not easily forgotten.

A friend’s husband gave her a few plants for Mother’s day and she liked them well enough before they stomped across her garden strangling the other blooms. When she pulled them up, they blasted her like a skunk with their scent. So she donned a hospital mask, nicknamed it vomit vine and redoubled her determination until she defeated them all.

Then again, a hapless hostess might leave the gift in the pot where it’ll bloom without reeking havoc or plant it in a strip of ground between a foundation and a sidewalk where it has nowhere to go. Of course, if the recipient isn’t a gardener and doesn’t have flowers, it might well turn a bare yard into a meadow. Then again if you live too close, it may come back to haunt you.