Common Garden Pests

At the recent Righteous Fest in Norwich I met a guy distributing the Permaculture and Seed Newsletter. That may not sound like the most thrilling tome in the world, but it did contain the article below, which is hilarious, and I make no apology for stealing.

Common Garden Pests

Ancient Elder Tory Bigger Tree
(Bilious Tebbitus)
A species from prehistoric times, surviving the mass extinction of the createous period, outliving most of the dinosaurs, literally a living fossil. Bears sharp, bitter, acidic and poisonous fruit in spiky casing, dry scaly leaves; thorny gnarled, twisted, viscious bark.
Deep roots and widespread branches, thriving on rotten, nutrient media, adapted to harsh environment, long periods of dormancy and hibernation. In spring and autumn produces thick, corrosive, poisonous ooze from trunk - irritant toxic, lethal to wildlife, destructive to environment, kills lawns and most surrounding vegetation. Repeated discharges attract fungal infestation, causing putrid decay and rot to set in.

Lesser Tory Dickspurt
(Etronious Pratus) "Little David", "Snot Toss", "Camelon Weed" "Slime Wort".
Appears suddenly and unexpectedly as distant offshoots from decaying specimens of Bilious Tebittus in new and more fertile ground, exploiting green areas. Adopts a bright, gaudy sheen to camoflague and blend in with surroundings, putting out suckers to feed.
Rapidly springing up and spreading everywhere, profusely gushing and oozing a lot of sugary sap, slippery and slimy, irritating, sickly, rapidly turning sour, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth and a naseous hangover. After rapid and vigorous growth and spread, prone to wilting and rot.

Phoney Tony Rosy
(Blairus Rosa)
A new hybrid species, a freak mutation which should not survive in a natural environment, intially propagated and maintained in tightly controlled, rarified and artificial conditions.
Thought to have originated from GM/Biotech warfare, corporate military laboratories introduced and released amongst the general population, rapidly going to seed and running wild. Spreading with increased chemical and radioactive pollution, thrives on toxic dumps. Rate of expansion faciliated by global warming, colonising many areas to the north previously too hostile to support it.
A choking, parasitic weed, feeding heavily on manure, bone, blood, sweat and tears, along with the death and decay or organic community, ideals, culture and tradition. Encouraged and spread by The Sun.
A creeping, opportunistic species, spreading out clasping tendrils and feelers, latching onto support wherever it can to climb upwards, surrounding itself with dense, tangled, almost inpenetrable thorny barrier to smother, choke and suppress grassroots and base growth and life on the ground.
Recently formed symbiotic relationship with Americana Imperialist Republicus.

Neo Conservative Spreading Bush
(Americana Imperialist Republicus) "Stars and Stripes", "Creeping George".
A highly adaptive, vibrant and prolific weed, invasive, aggressively spreading and colonising new areas, easily taking root in bomb sites and scorched earth.
Smothers, competes, suppresses and chokes native and local species elsewhere, sends underground shoots and runners to stimulate growth and spread of similarly virilent, toxic and aggressive species which prepare ground, then also usually supressed and destroyed in turn by this parasite when they are no longer of use or threaten and hinder its further growth and expansion.
It can adapt to virtually any environment, from tropical rainforest in South and Central America and South East Asia to desert, such as the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Frequently associated with the coca bush and opium poppy, continually threatens global domination, deadly to native wildlife, culture, community and envionment.
Thrives on very well decayed organic matter, attracted to tar pits, asphalt lakes, coal mines, oil wells. Sends out deep, thrusting, penetrating and spreading roots, breaking up the land in endless search for mineral elements and nutrients such as iron, copper, cobalt, manganese, chromium, zinc, gold, silver, platinum, iridium, uranium, plotonium etc
Distinguised by whitish stem with gaudy blood red bluish leaf clusters dotted with pointed white blossoms giving off a heady cola scented/flavoured saccharin rich nectar: toxic, poisonous, carcinogenic. Pushes out phallic stamens, seed clusters carried over long distances by buzzing insects, causing devestation wherever they are dropped.
N.B. Fortunately attempts at inter-breeding and cross-pollination between Americana Imperialist Republica and Blairus Rosa have so far proved unsuccesful.

Devils Blue Lamps
(Phallus Bastardus) "Old Bill", "Stinking Willies", Bell Ends", "Lesser Pigweed", "Dirty Dicks".
Found in conspicuous and prominent groupings in symbiotic association with many other garden pests and horticultural predators, such as those illustrated here. Indeed appears suddenly in huge numbers in dense formations, surrounding and packed beneath and at the base of these various parasitic species, effectively serving to protect their presence and existance, facilitating and assisting their growth, spread and expansion. At ground level pushes back, poisons, chokes and suppresses strong healthy grassroots growth, increasingly breaking up and limiting it to smaller limited spaces, and restricted life and existance. Associates with selected species of poisonous weeds and grasses.
Most prominent around the foundations of rotten, decaying old houses, infested by vermin and supporting parasitic colonies and populations of these common garden pests, their dense blue cover provides a cover and facade, deceiving many, hiding the filth, rot and putrification from immediate sight, their feeble scent does little however to mask the choking, nauseous, overpowering all pervading stench of corruption and decay, upon which it feeds and thrives.

British Nauseous Puffball
(Rabida Brittanica Vulgaris) "Old Nick", "Griffins Guffbag".
After many years of apparently terminal decline, this deadly species of fungus is becoming steadily more common place and visible. Like all funghi, it is saprophytic i.e. feeding off death and decay, especially favours rotten, putrid media, taking root in dank, dark, filthy, diseased nutrient and oxygen poor environments: old cesspits, bogs, privvies, bloked sewers, manure heaps, heads of Sun readers.
Spores highly infectious, flesh rancid, bitter and poisonous, causing sickness, nausea, vomiting, fever, stomach upsets, diahorrea, hallucinations, delusions, madness, delirium, death.

You can contact Permaculture and Seed Newsletter c/o Westmead, Green Street, Little Hadham, Nr Ware, Herts. SG11 2EE.