Buster's Garden of Grief

"Buster's Garden of Grief"
Season/Series:	15
Number in season:	8A
Original Airdate:	October 1, 2010 (Australia); May 24, 2012 (North America);
	Credits
Written by:	Dietrich Smith
Storyboard by:	Gerry Capelle
	Episodes
Previous; "Best Enemies"	Next; "Through the Looking Glasses"

Buster's Garden of Grief is the first half of the 8th episode of Season 15. It first aired on May 24, 2012 with "Through the Looking Glasses."

Summary

Fritz injures his ankle while staying at Shady Pines Retirement Home and asks Buster to takes over the community garden for a while. He finds out that it is a big responsibility, but he can handle it. All is going well until he finds out that him and his mother are going camping.

Plot

Opening

Arthur talks to the audience about how much time and care you have to give a plant in order for it to grow. It's then he scolds Buster, who cannot hold the camera still or on Arthur. Eventually Arthur takes the camera and moves it, but Buster accidentally knocks over the camera in the process of coming back. Then finally Buster bumps the Camera going to get Ice Cream...

Episode

One day Buster receives a letter from someone and goes to the retirement home to visit Fritz and asks him what happened to his leg. He explains that Buster is the only person he knows who could be responsible enough to take care of the Community Garden. Arthur and Muffy assumed he's been taking care of it already, but Buster informs them that he was only helping, and nobody else seems to enjoy gardening so he was put in charge.

The three seem a bit unsure, when Buster begins to worry about the responsibility that comes with tending to a garden. Leading him to imagine himself ignoring the weeds in order to eat a lot of Ice Cream. Making him have to hurry and pull the weeds and vines away from the plants. They begin to scold, yell, and vanish and Buster soon snaps out of it while in bed.

Early the next morning Buster tries to figure out how he can tell Fritz that he cannot take care of the garden out of fear that he is not responsible enough. Suddenly hearing noise, Buster rushes to the sight to see that others are discussing that they turn the Community Garden into a paved area, due to the garden just becoming an "eyesore" now that Fritz won't be working there. Buster, not going to let this happen then leaves and prepares while Muffy and Francine simply make bets as to when Buster will fail this challenge during baseball practice.

And so, over the course of time Buster tends to the vegetables, flowers, and plants, while also doing his homework and house chores. Bitzi notices how tired he seems to be getting lately, but Buster keeps up anyway, eventually showing Fritz how well he's been doing.

Muffy and Francine keep changing their bets, noticing Buster is still gardening and eventually the area just springs to life! Bitzi eventually begins to discuss how proud she is of Buster, then tells him to pick out some clothing he wishes to take on Vacation and reminds him that they were going to go camping. Buster seems worried, but Bitzi suggest that someone else can water it for a week. And so, he goes to Arthur, Muffy, and Francine, but they do not want to do it until Buster promises he will do what they asked of him.

After two weeks Buster returns to see all of the plants dead. He confronts his friends, but they deny it until they admit that they all put the responsibility on each other and Buster just asks them if anybody watered it, at all, and they all say no...

That night Buster is laying in bed playing his game. Bitzi talks to Buster and he does not wish to do his homework anymore. Convinced that he's just irresponsible. Bitzi tells him that it wasn't Buster's fault for the Garden being ruined. But he won't listen and Buster rushes back to the Garden when he hears noise and worries that the Garden is being ruined! Suddenly showing up, he realizes that the others are there trying to fix the garden! They decided that since he decided to become responsible then they should have also and from then on they all help Buster with his Garden. While he responds to a letter sent to him from Fritz and the episode ends...