h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I spent an hour hugging a large willow a mile from my house, telling it all my innermost secrets, and I found we got on as well as a man and a tree could expect on a first date. I went to the shop to buy some moisturising cream (that bark is so rough against my stubble) and now I discover it's run away with a Scots Pine and my heart is broken. That's the last time I take advice from you, Goblin.

am I to literal minded ?

when I saw the entry I assumed it meant picking people up with trees,

not (obviously) picking people up with trees, forget it I'm obviously too old to live live life at this pace.

I will just go and sit quietly in the corner with my pet camel ( Humphrey) and watch.

I like watching !

It was clearly about picking people up with trees, not picking people UP with trees.

In any event, I hadn't expected to fall in love with a tree. These things just happen. SOB!

Have you read "A Melon for ecstasy"? It's a novel about a young man, his brace-and-bit, and his affection for trees. Can't remeber the author's name.

JTG, your breadth of reading is breathtaking! Naive question, possibly, but what were the brace and bit for?

Reconciling differences of anatomical compatability.

Her bark was worse than his bit, eh?

You two are obviously more demented than I .

I prefer sitting in trees, but the tips on up picking are appreciated.

by the bye John,

what do you garden ?

I do my gardening (most of it) for the great unwashed masses in municipal parks. Most of what I do is with flowering shrubs. I plant a lot of annual flower beds (about 15,000 plants... too many). But what I am having the most fun with, at the present is more naturalistic displays using direct sown wild-flowers, tall prairie grasses and Buddleia.

Buddelia, the butterfly bush bush, one of my favourites, but I'm a lazy gardener and prefer shrubs and edibles.

Have you been to CAT ?

Edibles can be pretty demanding; especially if you're keen on reserving the eating to yourself.

I am very partial to Butterfly Bush, too. It puts on a fantastic show at this time of year. It attracts Monarch butterflies by the hundreds; which in turn gives a garden an added dimension. And it's easy - and cheap -to grow in large quantities.

I don't think I've been to CAT. I don't know what that is, to be honest.

JTG

CAT is the centre for alternative technology at Machylynnyeth (don't know if thats spelt right )in Wales. It's a pretty cool place to visit and has a fair bit of organic garden, with other stuff like composting toilets, different types and styles of compost bin and wind and solar power etc. Possibly the best thing is the pool with fish in it that is at the end of the reed bed sewage system,, or it might be the water powered railway, you get the idea.

U r all as demented as eachother, almost stooping to my levels of mental derangity.the best way to pick people up using trees is to curl up in one of the braches where everyone can see you, boring people will ignore u ,but interesting ones will talk to or join you, and doing it in a tree is alot of fun!

Well, I've been trying this for several weeks now, and all I've got to show for it is a streaming cold and quizzical looks from my wife.

Have you read about Julia 'Butterfly' Hill, who lived in a tree in Northern California for two years?

http://www.h2g2.com/A237881?section=%27Butterfly%27

JTG

The trees up there are big enough for entire hotels...

Just dropping by.

Yeah, I thought that too. I was looking forward to seeing some helpful tree-lever person lifting mechanisms..... ah well.

I have always found sitting and talking in trees very romantic. I was proposed to in a tree.

...But did you say yes?