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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Plant life exceptional
because it flat-out
refuses to dieA new law is about to be passed that will allow people who have a state-recognized "exceptional tree" on their property to deduct up to $3,000 from their state taxes to take care of the tree.
This doesn't seem fair. To declare one type of plant "exceptional" tends to denigrate all the rest of the plants, which I'm sure are trying to be the best plants they can be.
I had to have a long talk with all of the flora at the Hale Rancho Memminger Estate after news of the "exceptional tree" law came out because they were already suffering from low self-esteem. The dieffenbachia, which had always been distracted, now is downright depressed and the hibiscus is hyperventilating. I gave them the pep talk that I usually save for my annual "State of the Yard" speech, about how anything that survives on my property not only is exceptional but has a laudable fierce will to live.
It lifted their spirits when I told them that I would lobby the Legislature to pass an "exceptional shrub" law that would allow me enough of a tax break to run a hose up to the North Forty (forty feet, that is) to water the stalwart specimens of vegetation rumored to be clinging to life up there. But I reminded them that my policy of "tough love" would have to continue for their own good.
THE FACT OF the matter is that most of the vegetation on my property falls under the horticultural classification of "special needs" plant life.
I've got a palm tree that is vertically challenged. It's not that it's not large. It is. It's probably 25 feet long. It's just that it's more horizontal than perpendicular. It always sort of stood at an angle. But after a particularly bad wind storm a few years ago, I came home and the tree was gone. I said to my wife, "Hey, where'd that tree go?"
We poked around on the side of the hill and there is was, lying on its side, just a few feet off the ground, like a park bench. And it's been like that ever since. That's pretty exceptional, when you think about it -- a horizontal palm tree. If the state could see its way to letting me have a few bucks of my taxes back, I might be able to jack up the tree into something like a respectable palm tree position, or at least to a 45-degree angle.
My bougainvillea is lethargic, the ficus finicky and the mock orange is getting damned tired of being mocked. The plumeria is pretty pathetic. It's a foot high with one tiny green leaf sticking out from one of its branches, to use the term with extreme charity. Rather than a tree, it more closely resembles a gnarly, skinny, decomposed arm sticking out of the ground with the hand (missing three fingers) trying to make a shaka sign. How it found enough gumption to produce even that one leaf is a mystery. It probably needs water or, what do they call it, fertilizer, but I'm ignoring it until its attitude improves.
Though not exceptional, my bamboo is certainly remarkable in its apparent scheme to take over the planet, starting with my hillside. I admire any plant that still thrives after you attack it with a machete.
The state may think that a plant has to be old and large, like a banyan or hau tree, to be deemed exceptional. Not so. In some yards it's exceptional just to be alive.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com