Here’s my new shrub / garden monument. It doesn’t flower and while it looks like it could be a homely bench, it’s not. Its roots are visible and pretty ugly too.

The people who are specialists in planting these (you can’t just buy one and plant it yourself) are uniquely insensitive to its appearance and are apt to place it so its least appealing aspects are most visible.

Similar shrubs are springing up all over the Gulf Coast as people proudly point to them as a sort of survivalist plant. They are highly regulated, non indigenous, and require special permissions from multiple complex bureaucracies, who don’t like one another.

And write rules AT one another.

You will need to be a kind of diplomatic ambassador between these warring empires to clear multiple complex hurdles with undisclosed rules. An indication of success is being able to proudly display, in plastic sheet coverings, an array of multicolored elaborate  permission forms. These serve to attest to the pedigree of the plant.

Apparently these plants have superpowers of survival in cold and heat catastrophes and emit power that can keep you alive in Texas. Test of that feature coming up.

Some refer to them as “peace of mind” plants. That’s an exaggeration in my opinion but they cost so much it does seem like they ought to soothe your soul.