It was exactly 18 years ago, on April 1, 2004, when I was sitting at my computer straining my brain to come up with a timely subject upon which to pontificate. It occurred to me that my column was going to appear exactly on the first of April — a day that traditionally has been set aside for enjoying a practical joke or two. At that same time, my advertising department needed something to feature for the upcoming week’s ad. It didn’t take me long to realize that this was an opportunity that just couldn’t be passed up, and thus the “Wonder Shrub” was born.
It all seemed like such a great idea at the time. My wife and I grabbed a potted evergreen, wrapped it with an artificial garland of white roses, wired on some fake berries and had the photographer take a picture of it while she stood next to it with this look that said “I’ve just found the Holy Grail.” The caption read as follows:
THE WONDER SHRUB
Only at Sunnyside Nursery!
If you are looking for the perfect plant, then stop by and ask to see the Wonder Shrub. This hardy evergreen is “too good to be true”
Blooms Year-Round
Rose-like Fragrance
Produces Sweet Edible Berries
Drought Tolerant
In the meantime, I carefully crafted my weekly column to coincide with the ad. Titled “Wonder Shrub Has It All,” I proceeded in great detail to explain how this fake scientific marvel was created. I wrote about how phony geneticists had painstakingly spliced together the “rapid growth gene” from a Leyland Cypress and a “growth retardant enzyme” so that the Wonder Shrub would grow to 6 feet tall in one season and then stop, thus never needing pruning. I continued on about how genes from the Rugosa Rose and Rock Daphne were added for continuous bloom and intense fragrance and the Pyrethrum Daisy contributed a gene containing a natural insecticide so the Wonder Shrub would never be bothered by bugs.
Added to this hoax genetic cocktail were genes from the common garden pea, known for producing its own fertilizer, chromosomes from a Tristar ever-bearing strawberry for continuous fruit, and tissues from a Burning Bush and Yellow Twig Dogwood for fall and winter interest.
This Frankenstein of the plant world now represented all the attributes that gardeners wanted in a shrub: grows fast but never needs pruning, never needs spraying, fertilizing or watering, has continuous blooms, fragrance, edible fruit and year-round interest — clearly too good of a plant to be true.
Confident that no gardener would take any of this seriously, we went ahead and ran the column and advertisement, congratulating ourselves on our little April Fool’s joke. No one could have ever predicted what happened next. The phone started ringing and customers started arriving in droves (this is usually a good thing for a retailer, except that in this case we had nothing to sell). For the next four months, customers would arrive at the nursery clutching their advertisement of my smiling wife embracing the beloved Wonder Shrub, and my retail staff would scatter like someone had just dropped a stink bomb, scared that they may upset the customer.
Realizing that I had a crisis on my hands, I quickly circled the wagons and developed the “Wonder Shrub Response Script.” The staff was instructed to thank the customer for calling or coming in and explain that we had some good news and some bad news. The bad news of course was that they were the victims of an April Fool’s joke. The good news was that they could still find some of these desired attributes in plants we had around the nursery — just not all in one. In the end we created lots of laughs and memories that are still referenced to this day, by both staff and customers alike.
So here we are, 18 years later and another opportunity is staring me in the face to pull a prank on my readers and customers. Only this time, when I ran the idea by my staff, they all threatened to give out my cell phone number and home address and destroy my computer. Sadly, I guess the Wonder Shrub will have to remain a one-off creation.
Next week I promise I will get back to reality and talk about real plants, and while they might not do “everything” like the Wonder Shrub, they will provide us with multiple seasons of interest, along with other redeeming qualities. In the meantime, stay safe, keep on gardening and don’t forget to laugh — it’s good for the soul!
Steve Smith represents Sunnyside Nursery in Marysville, and can be reached at sunnysidenursery@msn.com.
Free classes
Sunnyside Nursery will host two free classes: “Japanese Maples: The Tree For All Seasons” at 10 a.m. April 9, and “Colorful Shrubs” at 11 a.m. April 10. For more information or to sign up, visit www.sunnysidenursery.net/classes.
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