Call me a ground-gazer, (hey - I’m trying not to trip), but I cannot walk around in life without seeing weeds. These alien plants gone rogue (redundant, because plants are aliens) are everywhere - in the Target parking lot, the local college campus, in the flowerpots of the local pizza place, and creeping out of every concrete crevice not previously attended to by a person wielding poison spray. A low hum of a murmur goes off in my brain at the barest glimpse, saying “Weed! Weed! Get it! Kill it!” If my hands are free, I don’t care who is watching - I pluck it out to die.
However, since the ones that grow up out of cracks in the concrete - the “rebel weeds” - worked so hard to be there, I tend to leave them alone. All the others in my sight are done for.
Gardeners commit plant homicide on the non-weeds as well. I often say to Steve, my gardening-mentor, “move or kill?” Moving any plant from point A to point B risks potential casualties. We all know that cutting a rose from the bush merely gives a stay of execution to the bloom. Even whilst watering newly sown grass seed, your clodhopping feet are killing half of them while you stand there with the hose.
Do not think the plants refrain from fighting back. If not readily able to poison you, they will cleverly hide your tools for days, weeks, or forever. Somewhere in the vast bee-and-butterfly garden, we are currently missing the Hori-Hori knife and a brand-new pair of clippers. Barely two weeks later, Steve lost the other pair of clippers at the zoo, where he kills and moves plants on Fridays. The search for the missing tools has created an unprecedented plant killing spree in the back plot, aptly known as the “Thug-bed,” with multiple sacrifices of brown-eyed Susan plants. At week three with the tools missing, a metal detector might be needed.
By mid-November, I will be on my way to kill and move plants in Northwestern Ireland. More accurately though, we will be encouraging future (alien) plant life by planting bulbs for their Spring bloom. I guess you could say winter involves preparing plant life for Spring, and Summer preparing plant life for its death - or long winter’s nap.
Spotify: Thinking About
Love & Blessings & Happy Halloween,
