Humor & Everyday Life
He Ate My Hibiscus
Green iguanas really do eat South Florida landscaping — including hibiscus, flowers, foliage, fruit and vegetables. “He Ate My Hibiscus” turns that documented homeowner headache into a lounge-pop landscaping war with a dinosaur.
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I had a lovely little patio A lovely little garden A lovely glass of wine And a lovely hibiscus Had Morning on the patio Sunlight through the palms Hibiscus by the garden wall Everything was calm Pink against the greenery Red against the white A little piece of paradise I'd gotten just right Coffee in the morning Wine at half-past five Everything was beautiful And then he arrived He ate my hibiscus Every bloom and bud He ate my hibiscus And seemed to think it good I stood there with my wineglass He looked at me like this Then took another mouthful Of my hibiscus I tried a little reasoning He didn't seem impressed I mentioned I'd been planning For the garden to look its best He blinked at me politely Or maybe that was lunch Then leaned into the flower bed Crunch Crunch Crunch He ate my hibiscus The red ones and the pink He ate my hibiscus Before I'd poured my drink No guilt No hesitation No horticultural shame He ate the landscaping And never learned my name So back I went To the nursery Determined to restore A little elegance A little color To the garden by my door The gentleman said What are you looking for? I said Something tasteful Something tropical Something beautiful Then I thought about the iguana Actually What won't he eat? Give me tough Give me leathery Give me something built to last Give me something he'll look over And politely walk right past No tender little petals No delicious leafy green Give me something that can survive This very hungry eating machine At this point? Give me something with a spine So out went the softness In came defense Every trip back to the nursery Made a little less sense Tough leaves over here Thick leaves over there Something slightly prehistoric Everywhere My lovely little garden Used to whisper Tropical retreat Now it seemed to whisper Watch your feet He ate my hibiscus So I changed the whole design He ate my hibiscus Now the tougher plants are mine I wanted lush and lovely Soft colors by the wall Now half my garden looks Ready for combat And then One lovely evening I sat down with my wine Nothing had been eaten Everything was fine No shredded leaves No missing blooms No freshly chewed debris I'd won Then I looked around me Tough leaves Thick leaves Armor everywhere Not a tender flower Left to soften up the air I had defeated the dinosaur By redesigning my garden For the Cretaceous Period I didn't want the Cretaceous I wanted bougainvillea I wanted pretty colors I wanted No We're fine This is fine Everything is thriving Nothing's being eaten This is Exactly what I wanted It is not exactly what I wanted He ate my hibiscus So I changed everything He ate my hibiscus Now every leaf is built to win I've got tough I've got leathery I've got pointed I've got spines I've got a yard a dinosaur Would recognize on sight I had color I had flowers I had elegance and grace Now my garden looks prepared For a prehistoric race I bought tough I bought leathery I bought everything they said And all I ever wanted was I just wanted a fucking flower! He ate my hibiscus He ate my hibiscus The garden's doing beautifully Thank you for asking I think I'll have A little more wine Another glass? Please And if you happen to know Where I can buy a flower Never mind He ate my hibiscus
Behind the story
Why This Song Exists
“He Ate My Hibiscus” comes straight out of a very real South Florida landscaping war. Green iguanas do not just sit in palm trees looking prehistoric. They eat landscaping — foliage, flowers, fruit, vegetables and tender new growth — and Florida wildlife guidance specifically identifies hibiscus among the kinds of plants they will happily turn into lunch. That is the factual foundation of this song. The increasingly exasperated homeowner is our comic character. She wants what plenty of South Florida homeowners want: hibiscus, color, a pretty patio, a civilized glass of wine, and a tropical garden that looks like somebody planned it. The iguana wants lunch. So she goes back to the nursery. And then back again. Each trip becomes less about choosing beautiful plants and more about asking the increasingly urgent Florida landscaping question: What WON’T an iguana eat? Give me tough. Give me leathery. Give me something that can survive. The more successfully she adapts the landscaping, the more prehistoric the entire garden becomes. That is where the comedy lives. The iguana is not plotting against her. It is simply doing what green iguanas actually do. She is the one slowly redesigning her elegant tropical paradise around a dinosaur. By the end, her patience is running on fumes. I’m leaving the last word to the song. She earned it.
Why This Sound
The comedy works because the music stays elegant while the homeowner's tropical landscaping disappears one plant at a time. The polished lounge, cha-cha and bossa flavor gives her frustration impeccable manners right up until the one perfectly earned loss of composure.
- Collection
- Chicken of the Trees
- Sound
- Lounge Pop · Cha-Cha · Bossa Nova
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