No Quick Fix

And growth is slow (except for evil Velcro burr weeds. And bamboo. Those grow quickly).

Earlier this week, I trimmed the California lilac right outside the window. Now that I’m back inside, looking at it more closely, I’m thinking that I trimmed it a little too much.

Bother.

It’s OK, though. It was getting too big for the space, and it will grow again, and hopefully fill in the patch where I cut too enthusiastically. Plants are forgiving that way.

Later, I wandered through the backyard, weed bag in hand, hoping that I wouldn’t find too many of the evil Velcro burr weeds (Their real name, my wise gardening friend tells me? Hedgeparsley. But I think that “evil Velcro burr weed” is better). Every year, I make it my mission to eradicate those pesky things. Their flowers turn to seeds that stick to my socks and to Biscuit’s fur. But so far, every year, they have come back in abundance. Maybe not as many as when we first moved here, but more than I like.

They don’t look evil when they are flowering. But just wait! Those flowers turn into small, scratchy seeds that stick to your socks and get stuck between Biscuit’s toes.

You would laugh if you could see what goes on in my head when I first venture out into the backyard, where so many of the Velcro burr weeds  have flourished. I am so hopeful! “Maybe!” I say to myself. “Maybe this year there won’t be so many!”  I take a few steps, find one or two, pull them, and still think that surely that will be all! But then I keep walking, and there are more, and more, and soon my bag is full, and I am hot and tired and grumpy.

I filled up my old birdseed bag with those, and also with that creeping morning glory weed that chokes out everything it touches (bindweed?) and that annoying, innocent looking clover plant that also sheds burr-ish seeds. I tell you, if you include the foxtails, there are far too many dangerous weeds around here, especially if you are a small furry dog.

(Interesting side note: I had a massage client years ago whose husband was a veterinarian. She told me once that foxtails put her kids through college. Enough said.)

After my weed walk, I planted the plants that my friend gave me a few weeks ago. Felt good to get them in the ground. I mixed up some fish fertilizer and gave the redbud up by the parking strip a good drink. It hasn’t come back all the way, not yet anyway, and looks a little sad. But really? In spite of the evil Velcro weeds, I’m feeling good about the yard, especially the front. When we first moved in, it was covered in vinca; that was all I could see out my front windows.  A kitchen window view that is entirely vinca? Straight up depressing. Now, eight years later, there are coreopsis and gaillardia, foxgloves and snapdragons, sweet William, daisies, poppies and columbine. There is a Japanese maple and a native dogwood bush. It is starting to look like a garden.

And the back? It was a weedy wasteland when we moved in. Not even vinca there.  It’s OK now. Slowly getting better. The poppy seeds I scattered in the fall are popping up. Later than the ones that were established already, but that’s fine. The catmint and yarrow are taking over, which is also fine, because there’s space for them. Anything that is back there needs to be tough. Mints are. Might plant more. Happy to donate that space to hardy perennials that can nourish the bees and butterflies. A few of the native daisies seem to finally be emerging. There were a lot more last year, but I’m happy for any that show up again.

I need to remember that gardening is a marathon, not a sprint. While it’s possible to hire somebody and have them come in and plant everything all at once and have it look uniform and green, I’ve loved the process of watching things emerge, leaf by leaf, year by year, one truckload of leaves worked into the barren soil at a time. I’ve planted wildflower seeds and poppy seeds by the pound. I wasn’t sure it was making a difference. But maybe it is. I think it is.