Even the war on weeds is early this year

This spring has been so warm, everything has come up and flowered at least two weeks early. You want to know what else came up two weeks early? The weeds! Black Swallow-wort, specifically. This is the weed I regard as pure evil. This is the weed that, left unchecked, fills hillsides with choking vines. This […]

Last assault on the weeds

The evil Black Swallow-wort thinks it’s so clever, dying down and hiding under the fallen leaves. Too bad for the weed it forgot that leaves falling would reveal where it’s trying to reach up into the crab apple trees and drag them down. So I plunged into the fray one last time, wielding my deadly […]

Get that ragweed!

If you don’t know what you’re looking at, ragweed is a pretty plant. Elegant lacy leaves. Demure spires of nearly invisible flowers. Spewing pollen. But this is one of my few no-tolerance plants. What really infuriates me about ragweed is that it flowers at the same time as one of the great bee-feeders — goldenrod […]

Sneaky Star-of-Bethlehem

When I first saw the spiky six petals of this little white flower, it was surprisingly hard to track down what it was. There seems to be a lot more information about its big cousin, the lily. When I finally identified it as Star-of-Bethlehem, I was a little worried, as words like “invasive” and “aggressive” […]

Mullein slain

So here’s a weed that’s a bit easier to deal with than the Evil One. Mulleins. Notice the trowel poised to remove it. Ignore the tulips and dandelions.

Oh joy, the weeds are up

I shouldn’t get too excited about the bees and the flowers. The Black Swallow-wort is sprouting too, like little green trumpets of war. This is the first one I spotted just a couple days ago. It seemed pretty isolated, but now I’m seeing it everywhere. The annual assault of weeds is on, just as I’ve […]

First maple shoot

I guess this is the first weed of the year: a maple shoot. And I’m not going have time to pull it or any others for a few days, because NERAX started tonight. Let the insanity ensue.

This is just too weird

There’s a story in Science News about brainlike properties in plant roots. There’s zillions of tendrils that connect with each other. They communicate chemically, and maybe even electrically. The article is vague about how exactly plants demonstrate behavior, but it’s more than speculation. I’ve seen what it’s talking about when digging up the evil Black […]

Weed patrol: Beggar-tick

I looked for ragweed. And didn’t find any in the spot that was infested last year. Or anywhere else. Yet. I looked for nightshade. And found plenty in the usual spots. Those bright red fruits made it easy to spot, but they plop out everywhere when you pull it up. I didn’t have to look […]

Wildflower planting for the bees

While it’s fun to plan flowers for the bees, I find the bees like even better the flowers that come unplanned, unheralded, and unasked. Especially in spring, wildflowers fill in the gaps before the “official” flowers bloom. If I had to pick a favorite wildflower, I think of fall and pick wild asters (with goldenrod […]