July 10, 2023
Real Toads in Real Gardens
Sometimes (always?) in the garden, there is blood. I have three hemlocks. Every other year I prune them back, severely. I work fast; it is the only way for the aging gardener to manage a large garden. But rapid pruning can be dangerous. With sharpened clippers I attack, snipping here, snipping there, snipping me. I take a break, clean the cut, put on a band-aid, and get back to work. Or sometimes I just keep working, much to Sara’s distress.
I don’t mind my wounds. My trees “bleed” a bit where I have pruned them, and I bleed a bit where they have scratched me or I have cut myself. I pretend we have signed a covenant to flourish this season, each with our own blood, each in our own way.
But one spring, raking out dead leaves from under the ‘Annabelle’ Hydrangeas, I felt something move, just a little, under my rake. I got down on my knees and gently sifted through the leaves. A large toad, exactly the color of the leaves I was raking, sat there looking up at me. I picked her up, then noticed she was bleeding. I had cut her with my rake. The sight of her blood filled me with remorse. If there had been an Urgent Care for toads, I would have dropped my rake and taken her there.
Instead I covered her up with leaves and said a prayer for her forgiveness. But now, whenever I rake out under shrubs in the early spring, I work first with my hands. If I find a toad still half asleep, I put her in a safe place before I pick up my rake. I don’t want any more toad blood on my hands.
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“I, too, dislike it.”
By “it,” the poet Marianne Moore, writing in 1919, meant the genre she practiced. I resonated with her dislike, sharing it with her. This led me to read further.
One must make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry,
nor till the autocrats among us can be
“literalists of
the imagination”—above
insolence and triviality and can present
for inspection, imaginary gardens with real toads in them, shall we have
it.
I, too, liked toads and so thought I might like the modernist poetry that was fashionable during my college years. I enrolled in a course, failed spectacularly, self-sabotaging my chances for admission to most graduate schools. Imaginary gardens did me in.
Real gardens, of course, are now my source of life. And when they contain real toads, my joy is complete.
Working on Friday, Kevin shouted, “Here’s a toad,” and I raced over to admire. We gently pushed back the wet leaves so that we could watch her pump her abdomen in and out in slow measured calming breathing, designed to fool us into thinking she wasn’t alive. We admired her speckled bumpy back and strong back legs. We immersed ourselves in the pattern made by the gray and brown and green shards of color on her back. We tried to catch her prominent eye to thank her for being in our garden. Then we covered her up with wet leaves.
Later we found two tiny toads and only high-fives could express our delight.
So why this excitement over a toad. Why would a recent Washington Post article claim, “Toads are the garden’s heroes”? Because, the article explains, “When it comes to pest control, toads are nature’s Orkin men. They can quickly plow through bug populations, eating just about any insect, larvae, snail or slug they can get into their mouths.” Truth be told, larger toads, it seems, may attempt to eat anything that moves, as long as it fits into their mouths. This can include small snakes, baby birds, and mice.
In addition to their function as pest controllers, toads in the garden are also a sign of a healthy-balanced environment. Toads have permeable skin through which they absorb oxygen – and toxins. As a result they are extremely sensitive to changes in the quality of air and water. They are often the first animals to be affected by pesticide use in or near their ecosystems. Toad health is a bellwether for the health of other species in the same ecosystem. If I have toads, then, I can imagine as well that other creatures are thriving.
This season I have witnessed a bumper crop of toads in my garden. I dream of an ecosystem slowly returning to health. The only toxin I bring into the garden is copper hydroxide which I have sprayed on the blue spruces to control the rhizosphaera fungus that is defoliating them. But in my brief research on toads, I have read that the common cane toad (Bufo bufo) is rather sensitive to copper. I suspect this is also the case for the American toad (Anaxyrus americanus.) I think it may be time to give up on the spruces.
I love the name Bufo bufo. Though ‘bufo’ does not mean “clown” in Latin, it has that meaning in Spanish, my only other language. I find it to be a perfect name for a creature that looks a bit like a clown yet does really important work. However, though all toads secrete toxins that are potentially harmful to animals that bite or feed on them, including native animals and domestic pets, the cane toad appears to be more aggressive, outcompeting native species for resources like food and breeding habitat.
So I hope my toad is the common American toad. I think she is. The American toad is 2 to 3.5 inches long, with short legs, a stout body and thick warty skin. Brown is the most common skin color but, according to National Geographic, skin color is highly variable and can also be red, olive or gray. We saw short legs, stout body, and thick warty skin. We saw red and gray and olive green as well as brown. I think we saw Anaxyrus americanus.
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Though a lesbian, I do like princes, and am lucky to have many such men in my life. But I am grateful that, if I could kiss my toad, whether boy or girl, it would still stay a toad. I doubt if Anaxyrus would let me kiss her, though. That’s ok. It is enough just to stare in wonder.
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