Vacation surprise

My garden held a happy surprise for me on my return from vacation this week. My 'Ellen Bosanquet' crinums had started blooming in my absence.

Some of the clumps were already past their prime by the time I got to see them.

But others are just beginning, so I'll still be able to enjoy these blooms for awhile.

Normally, 'Ellen' blooming in June would not be a surprise, but I moved all the crinums this past winter, and I rather expected that they might sulk for a year before they gave me any blooms again. It just goes to prove once again you should never sell a crinum short!

On the other hand, I had some not so happy surprises in my garden as well. Namely, weeds, weeds, and, yes, more weeds! Some of them knee-high. How can they grow so fast? I've got my work cut out for me for many days to come.

Still, it's good to be back in the garden, weeds and all.

Weeds: The plants we love to hate

Richard Mabey loves weeds.  He admires their tenacity, exuberance, and ingenuity, their ability to lodge themselves in the most unlikely places (Ever seen a dandelion growing in a crack in the sidewalk pavement?) and to thrive there. Weeds are survivors and if we can get past our prejudices, Mabey thinks we might just learn a lot from them.

To help us in the process of that learning, he has written a book,  Weeds: In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants.  Since Mabey is billed as "Britain's foremost nature writer," maybe we should listen to him.

The book is a comprehensive survey of the biological and cultural history of weeds in art, folklore, literature, and medicine.  As Mabey points out, when land is stripped and shattered by natural or man-made disasters, the first colonizers to return are weeds.  They stabilize the soil and curb water loss.  They also provide shelter for other plants, as well as food and shelter for animals.  Mabey says that after the end of World War II, a survey was done of bomb craters in London and 126 different plant species were found growing in them, stabilizing the damaged soil and preventing the runoff of water.

Of course, throughout history, weeds have served as food, fuel, medicine, dyes, and building materials for humans, and, also, for a variety of other animals including insects, birds, and mammals.  Weed seeds have been spread around the world by human activity and many weeds have evolved to mimic the size, shape, height, and coloring of plants favored by humans for food, thus enhancing their chances of avoiding the hoe or the scythe or the gardener's fingers.

No matter how much gardeners and farmers may gnash their teeth and wring their hands over the presence of  weeds in their plots, the plain truth is that weeds are indomitable.  They are here to stay, and perhaps we would do well to adjust our perspective of them.  They may be considered invaders in our petunia bed, but they are, in fact, a part of the heritage and legacy of a place, and surely they deserve some respect for that.

And if you are still unimpressed, here is a philosophical take that Mabey has on his subject:  Pulling weeds from the earth builds human character!  Even in their removal and death, they possess the Zen-like ability to slow us down, give us time to meditate, and, in short, to improve human nature.  The next time I'm struggling to remove those damnable pepper vines that grow everywhere in my yard, I'll try to remember that I'm being "improved" by the process.

It's a disaster!

My garden is a disaster. A literal, green, lush disaster.

It all started about a week ago when I stood in the middle of my yard and congratulated myself on the fact that I was finally getting control of the garden. In spite of the drought, things were looking good and I felt good about how they looked.

But trouble was brewing for me in the vegetable garden where things were looking a little TOO good. All of my vegetables were getting ready for harvest at once and I needed to get busy freezing and canning and using the produce. And so I did.

For several days, I concentrated on preserving my vegetables and fruit that were ready to be picked. Through the rest of the week and the weekend, while it was miserably hot, I hardly went into the garden. Meantime, last week, my lawn service failed to come and mow my yard. By the end of the weekend, grass was higher than my ankles.

Then, on Monday, it started to rain. On both Monday and Tuesday, we got substantial amounts of rain. When I walked out into my yard today, I hardly recognized it. My well-ordered landscape of a week ago was gone. The grass, which still hasn't been mowed, is now knee high in places. All of my planting beds are overgrown and full of weeds.

I repeat, my garden is a disaster.

But amid the disaster, there are a few bright spots. I went out with the camera today to record some of them to console myself.


The 'Texas Star' hibiscus near the front door is full of buds and has finally started blooming.


The morning glories bloom among the muscadines.


Suddenly, from last summer, this little 'Tuscan Sun' heliopsis has popped up and started to bloom. It didn't do very well for me last year and disappeared early in the fall. I thought it was gone forever. Guess not.


This jatropha, which I also gave up for dead after last winter, is starting to bloom.


Nearby, this happy-faced daylily has been in bloom for weeks now.


And just starting its bloom is this tiny member of the daylily family.


The volunteer zinnias have spread all over this bed in the veggie garden, the one where I had 'Russian banana' potatoes earlier this year.


The cypress vines reseed every year, too, and always make me think of my mother from whom I got the original plants many years ago.


The volunteer Mexican sunflowers, as usual, have sprung up in several places in the yard. Unless they are in the way of something, I leave them alone because the butterflies and hummingbirds love them so.


I also planted sunflowers myself. This is one of them.


Here's another one I planted. I love the gradations of color here. It could have been painted by Van Gogh.


The plumbago has been slow to come back after last winter, but, finally, it is beginning to bloom a bit.


I have several lantanas around the garden and all of them are in bloom now.


The Phlox paniculata in the mixed border out front if full of blooms.


Tucked in next to 'Hot lips' salvia is this pretty little daylily. So how did it get there? Did I actually plant it there? I can't blame any one else. Evidently, I didn't know what color it was and didn't realize that it would clash with the salvia.


The rejuvenated 'Ponderosa' lemon tree is more than two feet tall now and getting bushier.


'Tropicanna', one of my favorite cannas, has begun its bloom.


This little banana that I got from Bananaman at our recent bloggers' meetup is coming along. I believe it is Musa acuminata, var. Sumatrana. Those orange blossoms in the pot with it are from a nearby cigar plant.


'Chi chi' ruellia which I once erroneously identified here as 'Katie' (but, of course, you knew better) loves the rain we're getting this week.


The variegated potato vine is still putting on a few blooms but its big attraction is its leaves.


'Morden's pink lythrum' has come back strong from last year.


And all around the yard, daylilies of every color and kind are in bloom now.


Including this pretty one.


Whoops! What was that? See that striped tail at the base of the tree? There's a new lizard in my yard. It's one of the racerunners and it lives up to its name. It is very quick, so quick that I couldn't get it to sit still long enough to get its whole body in a picture. It's a pretty big lizard, maybe 9 or 10 inches long and I have never, ever seen one in my yard before. I'll be on the lookout to see if it stays and its numbers increase.

So there are some things of interest in my yard this week in spite of the discouragingly rampant growth of weeds and grass. If the lawn service will just come and mow for me and if I can get into the yard the next couple of days to do some weeding, maybe, just maybe, I'll begin to feel in control again.

Weeds

Spring is weed season in my garden. Well, if I'm really truthful I would have to admit that every season is weed season in my garden. I do have a lot of weeds.

But during spring, all those weeds that have been at least a little bit discouraged by winter cold are suddenly back with a vengeance. I spend a day pulling weeds and feel really good about what I've accomplished. Then, looking around two days later, it's hard to tell I did anything.

There are several really pernicious weeds that I have to deal with and although I occasionally win a battle against them, the war continues.


I've been taking major hostile actions against this weed for more than a month now. This is henbit. It infests many of the beds in my veggie/herb garden. I pull it out by the roots wherever I find it. Fortunately, it is pretty easy to pull, but to completely eradicate it, I need to pull every single sprig of the stuff before it reseeds itself to carry on another generation, and I always fail in that effort. Some will escape my notice and so the plant perpetuates itself and the war goes on.


I don't know the name of this plant. (A reader tells me it is Carolina geranium - which seems right to me.) It's just as pernicious and hard to get rid of as the henbit and it grows in some of the same places, as well as in many of my perennial beds. It, too, is fairly easy to pull, and that's the way I deal with it, but I have every reason to believe that this army of invasion will still be marching around my yard long after I'm gone from it.



This is "sticky weed," sometimes called "sticky Willy" as well as many other names, some of them very, very bad indeed. It grows rapidly and can overrun a bed in just a few days if it is overlooked. Its most annoying characteristic is its stickiness. It sticks to everything - Muck boots, garden gloves, skin, clothes, tools. Basically, it will stick to anything that it touches and attempt to hitch a ride. Many times, I've finished my garden chores and gone inside to sit on a chair of sofa, only to find when I stand up that the sticky weed that was hitching a ride on my butt is now attached to my chair. This weed, too, is easily pulled. Just be sure to wear gloves and then good luck on extracting weed from gloves.


This is the worst of the lot, a truly dangerous weed, and, again, I don't know its name. I just call it "stingeroo." (A helpful reader says it is called stinging nettle.) If you see it, DON'T TOUCH IT! Don't let it graze your skin anywhere. It stings like fire, much worse (for me) than fire ants. It may be that I am just excessively sensitive to it, but it has caused me not a few sleepless nights because it touched my feet or ankles and set them on fire. For this weed, I deploy the "nuclear option." I use an herbicide, either Round-up or a homemade mixture with vinegar. It can be easily pulled (wearing leather gauntlets), but with my sensitivity to it, I just prefer not to get close for any reason.



The little yellow flowers and beginnings of tiny red berries belong to mock strawberry. It's actually a pretty little weed and grows in several patches of my so-called lawn. In many places, like in this picture, it is thicker than the grass. When it is in the lawn, I just leave it. When it gets into my perennial planting beds, I pull it when it's obtrusive, but, on the whole, I find this weed to be benign and I practice my live and let live philosophy with it.



This is a weed that is famous in song and Southern folklore. It is 'poke sallet'. Remember "Poke Salad Annie"? You're probably too young, but that was actually the name of a popular song many years ago about a girl named Annie who ate poke sallet. It is not exactly a gourmet dish, but in many poverty-stricken areas of the South, especially during the Great Depression, people used the leaves of this plant as greens. Eating them was an adventure because if they were not prepared properly, they could be toxic. From the tender shoots that you see in the picture, this plant grows rapidly into a rangy shrubby plant that has masses of white blooms and, in the fall, it produces blue-black berries that the birds - especially mockingbirds - go absolutely wild for. I have this clump of the stuff near my back fence. It's in nobody's way there and I leave it alone for love of the birds. The more formal name of the plant is pokeweed.

These are only a few of the weeds that are doing their best to overrun my garden in this new season, and the war is on. As some famous gardener once said (or should have), "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty from weeds!"