Gorillas in my garden

Many years ago my former editor Fred Hatfield asked me what my weekly column was going to be about. “Gardening,” I told him. His puzzled look spoke volumes.

“It’s not going to be that type of column,” I assured him.

In our newsroom Carla Allen is the gardening genius. Her thumb is a brilliant green, whereas mine is a dull shade of nothing.

I’m not someone who finds gardening relaxing. I’d rather sit on my deck reading a book surrounded by potted plants that I brought home from a greenhouse, rather then doing planting, weeding, fertilizing, myself.

So no, I’m not the one to turn to for gardening advice.

Case in point. I have this potted tree on my back deck decorated with solar mini lights. I kept it outside over the winter, which was a big mistake. I would guess that about 45 per cent of its leaves blew off.

I mentioned to my sister that I shouldn’t have left it outside. Her response? “Only you could manage to kill a fake tree.”

That’s right, it’s not even a real tree. And I killed it. A week ago Sunday I decided to fix it. The majority of the leaves that had blown off were in a pile on my deck. I’ve seen those Gorilla Tape commercials on TV where people have something broken. Along comes a big ‘ole gorilla who slaps on some tape and things are as good as new. For my tree I figured Gorilla Glue, rather than tape, was the better option.

Seeing no gorilla in sight, I did the work myself. But even with the glue I couldn’t make the leaves stick back to the plastic branches.

Some leaves still had “stems” so I opted for Plan B and instead used Scotch tape.

If you stand back the tree looks great. Lush and green again. If you stand up close … well, I wouldn’t recommend that.

Somewhat satisfied that I had breathed new life into my fake tree, I noticed several of my fingertips now had glue on them. I ran my hands under the faucet but it didn’t get rid of the glue. Uh oh.

So I did what anyone in this situation would do – I turned to Google. Before I could finish typing the word gorilla, up came several pages of how to remove the glue from your fingers.

I took solace in knowing I wasn’t alone.

The first instruction I read had six steps.

Step 1. Exfoliate. Use a knifesharpening stone, pumice stone, or other gritty or rough material to scrub your skin. Step 2. Apply oil. Step 3. Scrape with a blunt edge. Step 4. Rub with citrus. Step 5. Scrub with a homemade mixture.

Step 6. Wait for a few days. I wasn’t too keen about Step 1. And I liked Step 6 even less. I read other advice that threw out industrial solvents, hydrogen peroxide, sandpaper, damp sand, varnish remover, pumice stones, disposable razors and WD40 as suggestions.

Finally I came across a person who said they had used cooking oil. I smothered my fingers with cooking oil and rubbed for several minutes and repeated this step about five times. It worked. Phew.

I then went back to my fake tree and decided to tape on a few more real fake leaves.

By now my fingers were so silky smooth and Teflon-like that they completely removed any stickiness from the tape.

The ability to wipe out stickiness – I almost felt as if I had some sort of superpower.

‘Gardening Woman’ I’m not, however.

Next winter the tree goes in the garage.