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Spring is the season when most Texans lapse into environmental unconsciousness. (We'll ignore the large number of single-occupant vehicles on Texas roads as a symptom.) In spring, a Texas is likely to lament selling that Exxon stock after the Valdez catastrophe. For spring is the season of fossil fuel and petrochemical consumption. Lawn mowers, line trimmers (the generic term for weed eater), edgers, and blowers need oil and gas. The typical Texas lawns and gardens are atypically Texan and demand chemical additives to both promote growth and prevent growth of plant and animal life. An entry in one of those home center warehouse sale booklets advertises a fertilizer for the needs of Texas soil. When was the discovery made that soil has needs? Things that attempt to grow in Texas soil have needs. |
But the soil has no needs. Indubitably Asian grasses and plants have needs that Texas soils don't provide naturally. But the native flora gets along just fine as long as the native soil is left alone. The only reason Texans need fertilizers for their yards and flower beds is because we attempt to grow imported exotic plants instead of native ones. As a result, we need to genetically engineer humans which are suited for operating lawn sculpting equipment during the spring and summer months and retail sale equipment during the "holiday" shopping season. In Texas, one of our favorite Spring excursions is leaving our neatly pruned foreign plant specimens behind for a drive into the countryside to view the wildflowers. There are four different dandelions listed in Geyata Ajilvsgi's book Wildflowers of Texas. The State of Texas would be an entirely different environment had it chosen the dandelion as the state flower. |