<\/p>\n
BND columnist Wally Spiers<\/p>\n
Normally I\u2019m a pretty laid-back kind of person. Live and let live, I say.<\/p>\n
But right now I\u2019m a madman, seething with fury because the rain has kept me from working in my yard \u2014 and there\u2019s much that needs doing.<\/p>\n
I know that every second I sit here typing, weeds are taking advantage of me and doing a heck of a job taking over the yard.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re relentless. They don\u2019t sleep. They don\u2019t pause for meals. Their entire being is focused on defeating me so they can bloom and spread even more of themselves. It\u2019s what they\u2019ve evolved to do, and they\u2019re good at it.<\/p>\n
I know there will be other sunny days for digging, but I feel I need every minute to rip out the worst of my enemies \u2014 which, ironically, is a flower, and a pretty little thing at that. It even has a nice name: Star of Bethlehem. They\u2019re the prettiest and the most annoying. They\u2019re perennials, sprouting from bulbs deep in the dirt each spring, with small white flowers that last a week or so.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t remember planting these things, but I might have. Or they may have grown from seeds tossed around by the wind. Anyway, there were just a few, and the flowers were beautiful. After they finished blooming, the vegetation dried up and disappeared.<\/p>\n
After a few years, though, the vegetation still disappeared \u2014 but it left behind large gaps where it had crowded out other plants. When the stars covered almost the entire yard, this became a problem.<\/p>\n
While there are scores of posts on the internet trying to sell these flowers, none mentions the spreading problem. But there are some sites where homeowners rail against them and suggest ways to kill them.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m digging and pulling as hard as I can \u2014 which, unfortunately, isn\u2019t very hard \u2014 but it\u2019s easy to fall behind. A couple of days of rain and everything seems to grow a foot. It\u2019s not that bad if you have a regular lawn with grass. But I have a lot of flowers, and some weeds look a lot like flowers when they\u2019re young.<\/p>\n
Herbicides are not the answer. Some are recommended by horticultural sites, but if I tried using them, it would probably be a disaster. I might end up killing everything within a mile radius. My neighbors would not like losing all their grass, I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, in other neglected parts of the yard, a vine I\u2019ve spent years digging up has reappeared and is spreading. And a Rose of Sharon bush that I planted has apparently decided it needs to populate the entire yard with sprouts.<\/p>\n
Why can\u2019t they be like the daffodils \u2014 come up, bloom with pretty yellow flowers and then die back? Sure, they spread, but slowly enough that I can keep up.<\/p>\n
I will survive, if not persevere. Weeding is a dirty job, but someone has to do it.<\/p>\n