Comments on: Control freaks and twiddlers

By: Richard Zatloukal

Richard Zatloukal — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:54:32 +0000

“the proscribed, text-book manner”, eh? Why is the text-book manner banned? I would have thought it recommended or prescribed!

By: Grace

Grace — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:25:54 +0000

Hi Helen~~ This is my first visit to your blog but definitely not my last. You must be a professional writer with such amusing prose. I like your style, the art (and necessity) of rose pruning without all that bossy do this, do that. Your friend might not hold the same opinion, however.

Years ago I had a ‘Cecile Brunner’ rose bush that I mistakenly “twiddled” on for far too many years. The rustic arbor my son built was beginning to collapse under the pressure. Drastic, control freak measures were imperative. Eventually with the arbor seriously and precariously leaning, on the verge of complete self-demolition, I hauled it away. Cecile went too. My fascination with her charms waned as I tired of mopping up bloody injuries inflicted by her duplicitous tentacles. Perhaps a bit too extreme but I fall in the “control freak” category. :)

By: Victoria

Victoria — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:23:52 +0000

Twiddling has its uses, if only to get me outside on a horrible day, or when I’m feeling tired and lazy. I tell myself I’ll go and have a quick twiddle with some blanketweed, say, hoping that by the time I’ve been twiddling for five minutes, the latent Control Freak inside me will burst through my gardening apron like the Incredible Hulk and I will end up overhauling the whole pond. It usually works. However, the latest twiddle-to-tyrant transformation resulted in me slicing off a bit of my finger with my Felcos, so I’m definitely back to single-handed twiddling at the moment.