JARLATH'S GREEN THUMB - PRUNING [3/3]

Once again, Hops was the second one out to the garden, finding Jarlath already working away on the plants. Not only that, but he had three different shears, one already in his hand and two sitting next to him. Hops had brought her own, but only the one. Jarlath looked really focused, giving her the confidence to sit next to him and hope she wasn't noticed. Of course, it didn't turn out that way. As soon as she started trimming, she heard the male's voice ring in her ears. "Make sure to only use those on growing stems, if you find drying parts or your hand starts to hurt let me know, you don't need to use the bypass for all of them."

 

She was confused almost immediately, only on growing stems? Bypass? Thankfully, it seemed like Jarlath noticed her confusion, moving the two shears he had at his side between them, and motioning for Hops to look at them. He pointed to one marked with a blue piece of tape. "That's the anvil pruner, use that one for dry stems." He then pointed to the other one, marked with green. "That's the ratchet pruner, it's slower, cuts in stages, but it's good if your wrist or hand start to hurt using the other two." Hops nodded, she didn't understand all of it, but she understood enough- especially thanks to the colored tape that Jarlath had put on them. When she had originally asked Jarlath for help, she certainly wasn't expecting to actually learn about gardening, and most certainly not to this extent. 

 

"Is it really okay that I use your tools?" Hops asked, and watched as Jarlath shrugged. "Don't want you getting hurt or doing things the hard way, 'specially since we'll be doing this multiple times before the full bloom. If you break my tools, it's my fault for trusting you, so I won't get mad about it." She... honestly didn't know how to react to that, she smiled, of course, she had to knowing that he trusted her enough to use his tools and also promised not to yell at her if she broke them. 

 

At least this time, it seemed that the tools were too strong (or too easy to use) that Hops didn't break them, though she did get corrected a few times on the right way to hold them, but that was more so that she didn't injure her hand. She made a good effort of it too, she didn't go as fast as Jarlath did of course, but she got a good bit of the garden done by herself, enough to where Jarlath even complimented her efficiency! She didn't know if it was just to boost her confidence or if he really meant it, but she hoped it was the latter. 

 

Once they were done, both of them had worked up a bit of a sweat. Turns out, actually putting muscle behind cutting things away was a lot more effort than digging or turning on a sprinkler system. However, they both seemed satisfied with the way the garden looked, and that was what mattered. Hops looked over to Jarlath, a smile on her face as she asked, hopefully, the last question for the day.

 

"So, where did you get those other shears?"