A Horticultural Conundrum

by Greg Duncan  

dandelion and burdock

Rabbit sat back in his chair and took a puff at his pipe. "You say you're growing weeds?"

"Yes," chirped back Mouse. "I was growing flowers but the weeds were doing better and had some lovely blooms so I decided to take out all the flowers and now I'm making a great garden just of weeds."

"Mmmm." Rabbit took another puff at his pipe. "You know you can't do that," he said.

Mouse responded indignantly. "Why not? I am and it looks beautiful."

"You may think you are, but since a weed by definition is an unwanted plant it is logically impossible to cultivate weeds. Your weeds are now flowers and your flowers have become weeds."

Mouse furrowed his eyebrows, crinkled his whiskers and tried hard to think, but summer was not a good time for logic or thinking. So with barely a goodbye, he scurried off back to his garden to water his weeds - or as Rabbit had put it - his flowers which had been weeds until he liked them.

And then he looked at the lovely white blossom on the bindwe... bind . . . bind . . . bindflower?

It was all far too confusing for a little mouse.