THE ROAD INTO THE GREEN

The good, the bad, and the beautiful.

The road in.  The Stella D'Oro lilies are in bloom, so it's July.

Summer so far has consisted of beautiful sunny mornings, afternoons, or evenings, the sun shining only rarely for an entire day, with the exception of the occasional two-day streak.  The rest of the time it's been raining.  (It's raining at this very moment.)  The grass has been loving it, growing so fast I can practically see it getting taller.  The garden is enthusiastic.  Everything is green.

The nasturtiums are more than happy.  They are so happy they are almost growing over their neighbors, the tomato plants.

On the other hand...

The meadows have been so wet that not even a couple of amazingly dry days were able to evaporate the wetness.  Clay soil reacts to water almost as if it was oil.  It takes ages to dry.  In a more typical summer at this time I would be seeing cracks in the ground that look like earthquake faults.  I would have to use a pick if I wanted to plant a shrub.  In a drought, maybe a jackhammer.  Now when I walk along one of the paths I mowed between the high grass, feeling happy the field is finally drying, I find a few moments later that it's squish, squish, squish most of the way.  It's raining harder now.   Only a shower.  But still.

If I hadn't kept these paths mowed, the field would be impossible to walk through  for the grass is so thick and high.

Needless to say, there has been no movement whatever on the natural pool.  [See "Coming Attractions"]  Did I mention that the meadow needs to dry out so the excavator and other heavy equipment can drive on it without churning up the ground?  That there have to be maybe three completely dry days while the hole is being dug so that the walls don't cave in?  That no water is supposed to get under the liner?  In the winter, when you're planning to build a pool in early spring, the idea of massive amounts of rain and cold in May and June and then more rain in July, doesn't really come to mind.  You imagine you'll have a pool no matter what by July.  I suppose I should consider the fact that the weather hasn't been hot either, so should I care?

The pond has been filled to the brim, even muddier than usual. It's still home to at least one muskrat, as I saw him/her swimming the other day. I'm assuming there's a family, but there's no proof so far, as I have rarely seen more than one swimming at a time.  

I let the herb garden go wild because the pool was expected to take over that area.  Eventually it actually will.  It doesn't take much to encourage wildness as anyone with a garden knows.  The wild here only awaits my temporary lack of interest to get ready to pounce.  It helps that the wild is mere feet from the tamed garden.  As I assessed the speed at which the herb garden has morphed into its new landscape form, I concluded there must be a Weed of the Year.  If you let things go in any given year, one or another particularly tough meadow plant will start to invade the garden in large numbers.  The next year this will have become a minor player and the honor will go to an entirely different plant.  My new Weed of the Year is suddenly everywhere, and enjoying sovereignty over the freshly untended herb garden.  You will find in this photo, in the foreground, members The [so-far-unidentified] Weed of 2017:

What remains of the old herb garden, now rife with lots of an unnamed plant.  Nope, not milkweed.

I could tell you about yellow nutsedge, for example, a fairly meek garden invader as it is soft to the touch and will allow itself to be pulled out.  Others, though, are mean, and resistant to being pulled.  They'll let you tear them to pieces before they will give up any ground.  Cheatgrass (looks like crabgrass, and maybe it is) is one of those, unless you sneak up on it when the ground is soft and wet and you grab every single limb before it knows what's happening.  Some weeds, like purple vetch, insinuate themselves by twining around the stems of other plants–the ones you like of course–in such devious ways that it's difficult to find where they're rooted.  Some plants take a leaf (so to speak) from that playbook and aim to hide:  interestingly, they often look a bit like the plant they're trying to hide in.  See? I'm a yarrow plant–I'm okay, really!  Don't....!

The really, truly, most annoying invader is burdock with its giant leaves that are later crowned with giant thistles that might just as well belong to the cactus family, although of course they don't.  (See below.)  You don't have to look for this weed.  It will announce itself.  The second worst annoying invader is the bull thistle, an appropriately muscular name.  I make war with them.  At them.  When full grown they look something like burdock, curly version, but if I'm on the lookout for them they will never get a chance to grow that big.  Their nasty habit is opting to grow right in the middle of ordinary grass.  On the lawn, in other words.  You can mow them down to nearly nothing, but the pathetic circle of uncut leaves that remains, should you step on it barefoot, will leave you feeling as if you just stepped on a porcupine. It doesn't concentrate all its power into the thistles  as burdock does, with bull thistle every leaf is armed with points as sharp as tiny knives.

Looks almost sweet, doesn't it?  Actually this is the early life of a monster burdock that will grow
several feet high and have ever larger leaves, and eventually grow some serious no-kidding-around thistles. 

Chicory flower

All this talk of weeds is not meant to put down all the lovely things growing in my uncut meadow.  (It is uncut, of course, because it has been too wet to mow.)  It's not just that the weeds can have such intriguing names, like dogbane, horse nettle, hoary alyssum, spotted knapweed, pokeweed, or spurge.  One person's weeds, after all, may be another's wildflowers.  Think of yellow buttercups, for example, chicory, daisies, or the orange day lilies that have emigrated from gardens to roadsides. They are all the Adam and Eves of our cultivated flowers.  They are loved.




Yet there is a gangster among this reasonably benign array of weeds and flowers.  It is the wild parsnip, an invasive species.  The name conjures innocence.  Better to call it poison parsnip.  It is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  Not an ugly plant, attractive even, it looks a bit like celery, or a yellow version of Queen Anne's Lace.  The flowers resemble my flowering dill.  But it is toxic. If you get any of its sap on any part of your body it will cause phytophotodermatitis, long lasting burn-like blisters that are worsened by sun exposure.  I cut down a number of them today that were growing next to the meadow paths, carefully, and wearing gloves.  But it's only a short term solution, for there are plenty more of them along the road and in the back of the field.  They will regrow, and there may be more of them next year.  The whole gang is just waiting to take over.

Part of the "ancient road" at the back of the field.  There is poison parsnip growing on the right hand side.

In the center, a small poison parsnip plant.  They grow up to four to six feet tall.

In the same area, part of the "ancient road" that leads to the Hustons. You can't see it in this photo,
but there's poison parsnip here too.
The road was messed up by the use of an ATV.  Long story there. Maybe next time.