Wikipedia defines a weed as “a plant considered by the user of the term to be a nuisance ...generally a plant in an undesired place.” I like that I get to decide what is a weed, and what is a desirable or an undesirable place in my yard and garden for it to proliferate. My lawn is a botanical wonderland of tiny yellow, white, pink, purple, and blue flowers in the spring, which is fine with me. I desire to have as many violets growing in the grass and flower beds as possible. And I don't mow down the wild phlox until it finishes blooming, even though the dwarf mondo it grows in needs a haircut. It can grow anywhere it wants to. I have even been known to move both invasive plants to other locations. On the other hand, for three years I pulled by the garbage can full the English ivy that goes for $2.99 per 3” pot at Logan’s Garden Shop. I have cut down a dozen $19 Nandinas growing in undesirable places. I am not a big fan of Nandina. The red berries provide the only spot of color some of the year, and it does have its place as a screen between my yard and the neighbor's or to fill a blank wall of house or shed, but it does not need to be in all the places it wants to grow. I do love the wisteria that grows beanstalk-like up the trees. I know it’s not good for the trees, but someone else will have to cut it down. They aren’t my trees, anyway.
There is barely a blade of grass in my yard. On the downside, the weed-lawn grows fast; on the upside, it stays green all summer. The lawn is not my priority. If I could afford to convert lawn to no-lawn, I would do it in a heartbeat. A plant I have declared a weed is carpetweed––apparently whoever named it also considered it a weed. It creeps from the lawn with its little white flowers and into the garden. I don’t mind it in the yard, except that it grows too tall not to mow; but I surely don’t want it in the garden where it chokes the flowers. When the ground is wet from the spring rains, I easily pull it by the handfuls. But when the way-too-hot-for-spring sun bakes the ground, it doesn’t come out so willingly. Heartache without tears is a lot like that. Tears cleanse my pain and pull it from my chest. There are no tears when the hurt is masked by antidepressants or denial or anger or "putting on a happy face"--whatever ones preferred avoidance method--and the pain hovers below the surface. It’s harder to pull it up and out from a dry heart.
I have learned the names of many a weed that occupies my garden; I believe even my enemies deserve that small respect. A strong contender for Worst Weed in the Garden is the catbrier. A very thin vine with good-sized leaves and tiny wicked spines, it grows through the bushes––grabbing on every inch of the way with insidious tendrils––from a woody, far-reaching root that cannot be pulled out of the ground. The best I can do is cut it off, again and again. It is a godless evil. I feel like the catbrier at work in recent weeks. I have been more assertive than either myself or others are accustomed to. (I scored very low on the assertiveness scale in an inventory taken by the staff early in the year. Apparently that is a negative thing; I am just trying to improve my score.) It is my perception that I am being perceived as prickly because I hang tenaciously onto my needs. I was asked to write down what I needed to be successful in this time of staff transitions; apparently I wasn't supposed to share it--or endeavor to make it happen. My leaves feel stripped off, like leaves strip off the catbrier vine if I stupidly try to pull it from the ground. I am afraid to speak now. The catbrier doesn't care if it is maligned for its assertiveness; for better or worse, I do.
If the catbrier is the garden devil, the passion flower is the goddess. A garden acquaintance in the next neighborhood has one growing in her curbside garden. She says if she had known how invasive it is she never would have planted it; and now she can't get rid of it. It clings to all it encounters with soft, curly tendrils, and no accompanying spines. Perhaps she categorizes it as a weed. But I fell in love with the crazy flowers and got one. Mine is different from hers, it's evergreen for one thing. It didn't bloom last year, though the vine did well. This year it is covered with buds, and the first one opened this week. The spectacular flower on mine is also different from the equally spectacular flower on Robin's. No one could make it up. I wonder how one can insist on doing their own thing in a passion flower way, rather than a catbrier way. Or maybe it is just in the eye of the beholder and has nothing to do with the persistent boat rocker.
Many new flowers begin blooming this first week in May. The buds of the foxglove and freesia open. The Japanese iris, some of which I planted from new bulbs late last fall and some that I moved from sunless spots under trees, are blooming. I read that Japanese iris excrete a substance into the soil that causes them to "lose their vigor and decline over time." They should be moved to a place where irises have not been before. I find that true of relationships; and if we keep looking for connections, either with new people or with those we have been with for some time, in the same places where we have always looked, we will end up either with nothing or with settling for a less-than-satisfying something.
The first buds of my new roses opened. One bush, that struggled from the beginning, then staged a comeback, is truly not going to survive. Try as we might, not everything thrives. We are sad and then we move on. Because we have to. The peony is blooming, a beautiful but stupid flower that can't hold its huge head up on its slender base. I know some people like that.
The hydrangea, which I never thought much of until I had one in my own garden, is beginning its season-long bloom. It is the most amazing plant to me. It springs to life from "dead" canes and the blooms grace the garden from beginning spring green to dried dusty blue before frost. Right now they are a wedding bouquet in every bloom: delicate balls with individual flowers in various stages of green, white, and blue surrounded by green leaves. They are a heavy bloom like the peony, but forming on a strong stem. I know people like that, too. And yesterday I discover the tiny green sprout of my third elephant ear caladium pushing through the dirt. Gardening is not for the impatient. It is not supposed to be a perennial, so I am thrilled that it is hanging in there with me, and not just for a season.
On Saturday, I help a friend begin to reclaim her gardens. It feels good to pull ivy and vinca up by the bushel and cut down Rose of Sharons that block a hydrangea and grow up into trees. We prune back and cut down bushes that have overgrown its intended space. Clearing space for expansion and discovery; uncovering stepping stones from a long buried path. It is her time. I am honored to be a part of her reclamation, as well as that of her gardens.
Long-awaited passion flowers bloom in my life this week as I make my hearth room window enlargement vision happen, my view to the garden. And I am accepted into the week-long writers' retreat and workshop that I applied for months ago. The catbrier meniscus tear surgery is scheduled as well. And it won't interfere with anything on my calendar. I will be glad to have a strong, working knee again. I look forward to returning to my yoga practice.
My as yet unmet blogging friend wrote this tribute to me in her blog early this spring: "Hands in faded canvas gloves, she prunes and plucks, bending now and then to sweep the soil of debris. Budding stems, the fuzzy nubs of flowers opened slightly like the lips of sleeping newborns greet her as she moves about the garden, an earth doula in green rubber boots." The garden is awake, the squeezed tight buds are unfolding, color is coming to the earth. I accept as part of life and the garden that the catbrier and the passion flower must live side-by-side. That's just how it is. And after a thirst-quenching morning rain, here comes the sun. I am headed for the garden on this Mother's Day to help it make its way in the world, and to cut catbrier down; my sometimes unruly child and always, always my teacher.
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