Cousin Itt
Do you remember The Munsters TV show? It only aired for two seasons (1964 – 1966, but a hefty 70 episodes that ran successfully for years in syndication) and like its competitor series, The Addams Family, they probably left an indelible mark on our youthful memories. The Munster show was produced by the team that brought us Leave It To Beaver and was similarly written to mimic suburban life, only with a macabre angle that was all the rage in those mid-60’s. The Addams Family came directly from the Charles Addams cartoons from The New Yorker. The Munster house that was the set was not so very different than what was used on The Addams Family, but the characters were both different and alike in their quirkiness. There was the Frankenstein’s monster father, Herman, who appropriately worked in a funeral parlor. That was quite different from Gomez Addams, who was a Castilian lawyer with a strong romantic streak. Herman’s wife, Lily was a slinky vampire, which was more alike than not from Morticia Addams, who was an aristocratic beauty who raised carnivorous plants. The kids were the kids with Eddie Munster, the werewolf and Wednesday and Pugley Addams, the precocious yet strange Addams children. But the relatives and household servants were especially unique. The Munster household had Grandpa Count Dracula and Spot, the pet dragon, but the Addams household had the most unique set of oddities. There was the servant Lurch, who had a somewhat Herman Munster-like way about him, but Thing, the hand that crawled around the tabletop on its own was particularly creepy and Uncle Fester with his bald head and floor-length cassock were upstaged by Cousin Itt, Gomez’s cousin who was just a bundle of hair with a bowler hat on top that muttered away unintelligibly.
That was all happening in TV-land sixty years ago and while syndication gave it all some added legs, its still amazing the impact it continues to have on my generation. Just yesterday Kim and I went with Gary and Oswaldo, who are here for a few days, for a fun Taco Tuesday lunch at one of the lovely wineries in Temecula. On the way back I suggested that we stop at Waterwise Botanicals, one of the more interesting nurseries in the area. It was really just a casual visit with no real purchasing agenda, but I know from experience that no visit ends without some new plant acquisition. On my side table in the living room I have three books on succulents by Jeff Moore, a local horticultural specialist. These books capture much of the breadth of array of fantastic and wondrous varieties of succulents that exist from the many versions of agaves, aloes and euphorbias to all the cacti and spiny succulents that form an endless list of possible variations on the colorful spectrum. But succulents only form part (although a very big part) of the flora that thrives out here in San Diego. The weather is so mild that many different species from Southeast Asia and Africa have found their way here and into the nurseries. My theory is that the wide diversity and interest in succulents and cacti make landscapers and gardeners more open to and interested in diversity in their plantings, diversity that logically experts beyond the succulent family.
My garden is both highly diverse, but also very old and well established. There is something particularly interesting to me about having very large specimen plantings. Our record-setting Queensland Bottle Tree sets the mark, but things like my giant candelabra euphorbias and aloes also stand out, as do our three fan allow plants that always catch the eye of visitors. When you read about the growth limits of fan aloes, you see that our three specimens easily reach those very limits. I think the same can be said of our various tree Yuccas that are scattered around out property. We have several large Dracaena Marginatas (Dragon Trees), but I am envious of the much larger ones I see in my Jeff Moore books. One of the things I like about visiting specialty nurseries like Waterwise Botanicals is that they never lack for exotic plants that I haven’t seen before. Any chance to expand on my diversity theme is always too hard to avoid.
On this visit, I stumbled on a set of plants in large 18”x15” tubs. I had not seen the look of them before. It was not a succulent, but rather more of a coniferous variety that was not at all tree-like. It was a Causarina, or what is known as an Australian she-oak, despite being a member of the pine family found mostly in Australia, SE Asia and Eastern Africa. That made it not unlike my bottle tree in origin and just as unusual in looks, only considerably smaller. When I first spotted the plant and looked at the label stake, I was confused. It had two names that seemed very similar. It said “Causarina – Cousin”. Then, when I turned the label a bit further I saw that it was actually “Causarina – Cousin It”. Despite being a TV child of the 60’s and being very familiar with The Munsters and The Addams Family, I didn’t make the immediate connection. They were calling the plant Cousin It because it looked like a big hairball that could easily pass for Cousin Itt, only without his bowler and black spectacles….and more correctly named Itt rather than It. This all made me chuckle to myself and emit a short mumble in honor of Cousin Itt’s regular commentary on anything. I bought the best of the plants and once I had put it into the truck along with a few other plants I purchased, I mentioned to Kim and Gary & Oswaldo that they should look at Cousin Itt. Recognition dawned along age lines. Oswaldo, the youngest, was most familiar with Cousin Itt and got 100% on the impromptu quiz I gave the three about which characters belonged to which of the two sitcoms. Then Kim, who is two years older than Oswaldo, picked right up on the Addams Family character reference as well. Gary, however, who was busy being a serious college student in the mid-60’s, took a while longer to make the connection, but then finally acknowledged that he remembered Cousin Itt and could see the resemblance.
The Causarina completely fills the 18” tub and cascades over the edges, particularly on one side. That makes it ideal for a front and center display specimen than needs to sit up from the ground level so that it can do its full cascading routine. Using the old “thrill, fill or spill” classification, this plant is a spiller of the ultimate order. That caused me to decide to leave it in its broad black PVC tub that it came in and just dig that into the mulch and topsoil so that it sits up in all its Cousin Itt-like manner. I considered getting a nice colorful pot for it (and may still yet), but think it looks pretty good as is since the thickness of the foliage mostly obscures the pot in any case.
Pop culture and especially old media influences from TV or songs stay with us and blend into our view and remembrance of the world we grew up in. Cousin Itt was not part of the original Charles Addams New Yorker cartoons, but was presumably just the brainchild of some young TV writer sitting in a room with a hyperactive imagination. It’s strange to think that such a random thought would still be with so many of us all these 60 years later and should remind us to never underestimate the value of humor in our everyday lives. Cousin Itt on my front roadside will probably bring a smile to many people’s faces when they come to visit.