RANGE: Wherever paper seed packs, faded to indecipherability, look down from weathered popsicle sticks upon rows of deeply disturbed topsoil; near window boxes enriched by alkaline pigeon droppings, roof gardens watered by acid rain, and where elderly but energetic horticulturists minister to necrotic carrots in stony vacant lots, there strolls the Gardengoyle. HABITS: Summer after summer, pest and pestilences descend on the backyard gardens of America: rabbits with the destructive abilities of warthog troops, for example, or moldy blights that wither green and growing things like a blast of the midsummer sun on Serengeti. Yet spring after spring, Americans root up foul-smelling compost heaps, break fork tines on adamantine topsoil, and wear out countless layers of epidermis plying absurd backward hoes allegedly designed to make the work go easier. And it is the Gardengoyle who wickedly inspires these people to believe that this year will at last mean success for their little garden because whatever the Gardengoyle did to it last year is simply too horrible to occur twice in the same patch on the same planet in the same century. The Gardengoyle is a master of blights and a smut monger. He is adept at the distribution of cutworms and beetles. Where the gypsy moth pitches its tent, you may find the Gardengoyle, seeking shelter from the hail storm he has just caused to beat sprouting produce into mouldering ratatouille. HISTORY: The Gardengoyle hails from the region of North Africa formerly known as the Saharan Garden, now more widely known as the Sahara Desert. He helped out in the New World Garden at the Plymouth Colony, where yearly crop failures made the poor Puritans so hungry that even turkey tasted good to them. Later, the Gardengoyle took a special interest in Oklahoma and the surrounding states, where a succession of disastrous droughts gave the simple religious folk of the region an abiding taste for water, which many are hard put to understand. SPOTTER’S TIPS: The careful hoe-towing seeker of the Gardengoyle may have some luck as he is a large, frisky green spirit resembling an ambulatory shock of corn and is to be found most often amongst the small, withered brownish rust-slighted vegetables in his charge. *The Gardengoyle is an agro-vation from Omaha to Miami.
棲息地 あたり一面にごみの散
らかった地面, アルカリ性の鳩
のフンで栄養を補給された窓際
の鉢、酸性の雨で水分を補給され
れた屋上の庭, 年老いてはいる
がエネルギッシュな園芸家の石
がごろごろしているあき地、こ
うしたところを園芸の精はうろ
ついている。
習性 夏がめぐってくるたびに
家庭には疫病が舞い降りる。 そ
のくせ、毎年春になると、悪臭
のする堆肥の山をかきまわすの
だ。
こういう人びとに, 今年こそ
は自分の庭は緑あざやかに美し
くなるにちがいないと思いこま
せるのが, 園芸の精なのである。
というのも、去年はどうであれ、
同じ地球上の同じ庭に、同じ災
難がふりかかるわけはない,と
信じこませるからなのだ。
ところが,そうはいかない。
観葉植物をならべたり、 自家菜
園をつくったりするようなナウ
イ生活がいかにはかないもので
あるか 園芸の精はよく知って
いて、つねに人びとに警告を発
しているのである。 このこと
は、園芸の精の棲息地を考えれ
ば、だれにでもわかることだ。
自然の緑は、ファッションの
なかからは育たないものなので
ある。
歴史 園芸の精は,かつてはサ
ハラ庭園と呼ばれ, いまではサ
ハラ砂漠として全世界に知られ
ている北アフリカの出身であ
る。
世界じゅうに広まった彼ら
は、いわば道楽で植物をもって
いる人に狙いをさだめて活躍し
ているのだ。
私立探偵の情報 観葉植物をた
くさん飾っている人びとの家,
とくに茶色に枯れた葉が多いと
ころに見られる。
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Habitat
Litter-strewn ground, windowsill pots nourished by alkaline pigeon droppings, rooftop gardens watered by acid rain, rocky vacant lots tended by elderly but energetic gardeners — the gardening sprite wanders all these places.
Behavior
Every summer a plague descends on households. And yet every spring, people go back to turning over foul-smelling compost heaps.
What makes these people believe that this year their garden will surely bloom green and beautiful — that’s the gardening sprite’s doing. Because it convinces them that whatever happened last year, the same disaster couldn’t possibly strike the same garden on the same earth twice.
But it does.
How fleeting the fashionable life of arranging houseplants and cultivating home vegetable gardens truly is — the gardening sprite knows this well and is always issuing warnings to people. Anyone can understand this simply by considering where the gardening sprite actually lives.
Natural greenery cannot grow from within fashion.
History
The gardening sprite originates from North Africa — once known as the Saharan Garden, now known to the entire world as the Sahara Desert.
Having spread across the world, they set their sights specifically on people who keep plants purely as a hobby.
Field Intelligence
Found in homes with many decorative houseplants — particularly where a high proportion of the leaves have turned brown and died.
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