Yarrow Is Not My Friend

Several years ago I scattered California native wildflower seeds in our front flower bed.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn’t easy getting to the place where I could do that, though.  First, I had to free my front yard from the sea of vinca that grew there.

Vinca is an invasive, spreading groundcover that is very common here in our small town, abounding in front yards and on undeveloped land, too. Apparently, lots of people love it. True, it blooms with pretty purple flowers in the spring. It’s also better than the wild blackberries that cover entire hillsides with thorns so ferocious that they pierce all but the heaviest work gloves.

In a battle between  blackberries and vinca, I  have to side with vinca.

But it is invasive and it crowds out native plants, and it’s boring and, basically, I hated it.

I especially hated that it covered our entire front yard.

So a few months after we moved in, one of my best friends arrived with her two strong sons. We had a vinca destruction party. We ripped and tore and pulled and dug. As we worked, we discovered large, lovely accent rocks that had been buried beneath the vines. The clearing process was therapeutic and exhilarating.  It was also a little smelly, because that’s how vinca is.  Mostly, though, it was exhausting. Vinca is tough.  But after a few hours of toil, the ground was clear. I was excited to start over and eventually planted a mix of native California wildflower seeds that came from the local native plant society sale.

That first spring after the vinca removal, there was a minor setback, when the fellow who helped us with weed eating mistakenly mowed down my new wildflower bed. It took me the entire growing season to get over that. But the next year came, and the wildflowers came back. Up grew a few poppies. A lupine or two. A few yarrow.  At first there was a nice mix. Except, as the years passed, I noticed that the composition of the area was changing. Less poppies. No lupine. More yarrow. Lots and lots of it.  Yarrow everywhere.

Note to self: just because it’s a native California plant doesn’t mean I will like it.

The yarrow killed my creeping thyme plant. It choked out my lavender. It was a lush green carpet of sameness. It was like having that terrible vinca all over again, except this time, I had planted it myself.

So, I did what any good gardener would do.

I tore it out.

Fortunately, it wasn’t as ingrained as the vinca had been  and was confined to just half of the yard. It took a day or so. Then I went to a local nursery that has a wonderful selection of California native plants and other lovelies that are not native but which just make me happy. I planted these where the yarrow had been

End of story?

I wish it was that easy.

Because the stupid yarrow is strong, too.  It may be even tougher than vinca. Not surprisingly, it is trying to make a come back. Every few days, I have to go out with my garden gloves and shovel and dig it up again. It has deep roots and spreads.

I am sure that I will be fighting this battle for awhile.

Here’s the thing, though. I am committed to a yarrow free yard. I will pull and dig and do whatever it takes to keep it out of my front flower bed. If I miss a few sprouts, and they grow into full fledged plants? That’s OK. I will rip them out again. In the battle of me versus the yarrow, the yarrow doesn’t stand a chance, as long as I remember to keep looking for it.

It’s tempting to make some kind of deep spiritual analogy here: that sometimes we sow seeds, and bad things grow up, or things that we don’t expect. And we need to be ruthless with them! Pull them out by the roots!  That may be true. It’s also true, though, that often things don’t go the way we plan, even when we have the best of intentions.

When this happens, in the garden or anywhere in my life, I just need to give myself grace.

So I keep showing up in the garden.  I keep digging and pulling. Planting, too. It’s time to put in daffodils, and it would be nice to sow some more wildflower seeds. No more yarrow, though. This time, poppies will be enough.