When it comes to flowers, you need to mind your Ps and Qs

Jun 18 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

I FEAR my sweet peas are suffering an identity crisis. They are looking decidedly peaky since I caught my boyfriend calling to them “grow little tomatoes, grow” in that tone teachers have that makes you believe whatever they are saying, even though it’s anatomically impossible to have eyes in the back of your head.

They would have handled being mistaken for a fruit plant, I think, had they not already battled through the aftermath of being mistaken for vegetables.

The question “When will they be ready to eat?” was spoken by the same guilty party, and though they appeared to have come through the traumatic experience unscathed, it seems the damage went deeper than I had first anticipated.

“Sweet peas,” I explained, borrowing the authoritative voice for a moment, “are not like garden peas or even snow peas. You don’t eat them – you appreciate their flowers.”

I would have added that they attract insects beneficial to the pollination of the real vegetables I am growing, only his attention had been drawn elsewhere, to the emulsion slowly drying on our hall wall.

What are the physical symptoms of identity crises in plants? I wonder. Will realising there are other options out there besides simply being a sweet pea cause them to express themselves in new ways, or will the realisation of their own free will be so much to cope with that they shrivel up and die from the effort.

I could return home after work on Friday to discover the house wrapped in a thick twist of green stem and the chimney a riot of blossom.

Perhaps the postman will have been caught up by a winding tendril as he bent to pop a bill through the letter box, and would be hanging above the bay window with the neighbourhood’s tabby, six wheelie bins and the little girl from next door.

Will it transmogrify into a 30ft-tall Venus fly trap and drag its roots Triffid-style through the streets of Liverpool city centre, snapping off the heads of the newly-installed Superlambananas and spitting out bits of fibreglass on the Town Hall steps?

Maybe, instead, it will learn to grow tomatoes and fulfil its co-owner’s expectations. Or perhaps I am destined to find a pot of wilted stalks and a few dejected leaves?

Either way, the next few days are crucial and, short of crooning a few lullabies, there’s not much we can do except keep them on a water drip and whisper a few words of support each time we walk past.

Why do people talk to plants? Is it a conscious decision, or are some people just compelled to share everything in their heads with the nearest shrubbery while others look on shaking their heads?

I am not immune to the habit myself, although I have never gone so far as to tell them my troubles.

The occasional “all right, I know you need water. I’m sorry for forgetting” is about all I manage as I pass them on the window ledge halfway down the stairs.

I don’t derive any particular comfort from the practice, it just makes a change from talking to myself. I expect they are too busy sunning themselves to be listening.

Perhaps Prince Charles gets more of a response when he chats to the azaleas because, he says, “they respond”.

And now scientists have found that certain types of sound wave can make genes in plants more active. South Korea's National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology is investigating whether it’s possible to grow genetically modified plants which farmers could persuade to flower by playing music in their fields.

Even this isn’t as intriguing as the information that tomato plants actually “talk” to one another by releasing a chemical into the air when they are damaged that warns others of potential attack.

What they are supposed to do with this news is unclear – pick up their roots and run, adopt a karate stance, grab the nearest trowel and cry self-defence?

Maybe I will come home to find my cherry toms cowering on the roof with the postman?

lauradavis@dailypost.co.uk