Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" This is not your grandfather's Oldsmobile nor his garden. This is faerie, faerie, quite contrary ... how does your garden glow?

This year I decided to plant some flowers. The groundhog kept eating my tomatoes, so what was the point?

My grandmother was the queen of flower gardening and quite proud of her zinnias. With Grandma in mind, I set out to purchase a few zinnias for my brand new flower garden.

Just like everything else, though, these modern, 21st century zinnias have been genetically engineered to have blooms as big as apples and as bright as clown suits. Even the snapdragons I planted are suspiciously vibrant in their hues. Grandma would be astonished by these hyper-plants.

Have you ever read that H.P. Lovecraft story called "The Colour out of Space?" If you have, you will understand my qualms about these plants I just put in the ground. They're too pretty. Too perfect. Too large. Where are the spindly little zinnias of yesteryear?

These flowers don't look real. It's like I've spent my lifetime playing with mutts, and someone just gave me a Great Dane with a big red bow around its neck.

My usual way of dealing with this dilemma would be to let the aggressive flora in the rest of my yard just gnaw into those leafy marvels of enhanced DNA. But it's kind of nice having some neon flowers near the back door. So today I began my Very Marvelous Cheesy Garden Project.

This project will combine flea market ceramic houses, a handful of Rat Finks, and whatever other weird stuff I can find, with the too-perfect blossoms. My quest is to create a miniature village that will turn the sublime into the subliminal.

I don't know about you, but I think this is a swell idea. Why doesn't everyone mix flowers and cheap ceramics? It's all colorful, and at least the ceramics won't need to gorge themselves with Miracle-Gro.

If I get enough weird ceramic stuff, next year I might not buy any flowers at all. Just think! A garden that grows all year long, never needs water, and keeps the neighbors at bay. Perfect!