Virginia Arthur's Blog - Posts Tagged "naturalized-weeds-in-ca"
Rage On Spring
It is a beautiful raging spring in Northern California thanks to baby Jesus (El Nino). The flowers are already blooming, including the Italian thistle (insert politically correct qualifier here: Latin name being Carduus pycnocephalus--the perils of common names--I love Italians and Italy; even lived there for a little while). Yes, where this plant is NATIVE, it is no doubt significant to the region it evolved within, but here in CA---I despise it--has well earned it's designation as a "noxious" weed--and it now dominates the lower part of my acre and is already five feet high causing me to nearly break into tears because I have worked so danm hard to get rid of it...and this year it laughs at me with all its friends, the non-native brome grasses, the obnoxious Torilis (a rare plant in Britain!), the "naturalized" geraniums--what a mess my land is. It is as if when they developed this "rural" subdivision, they seeded it with the most persistent and noxious weeds they could think of, and they did, unknowingly, with their bulldozers and backhoes that they moved around all over.
My quest to encourage the CA native plants is hopeless, nonetheless, when I am sipping my glass of red wine on the deck staring at this mess, I always end up back down there. I mumble "sht" and put on my boots and once again, find myself wacking the crap out of it all.
A few days ago, yet another weed wacker died so I grabbed the old fashioned kind, just a handle and a blade sans motor, the motor being my arms, and hacked that Italian thistle down and down...only to see it springing back up today, it's shredded stems poking back up, green (so they can photosynthesize still), and again, I wanted to break into tears.
There are those that call these weeds "naturalized" and after their glass of wine, saunter back into the kitchen to make dinner instead of standing on the deck like a mad woman, staring down at them, STILL OFFENDED they have eaten my acre of land and I cannot find a single CA native plant. HOW DARE YOU? I say under my breath, wack, wack, wack, my friend, the snotty paleobotanist calling me an "botanical sentimentalist". Yes, yes, I know. You are dealing with million year old plant fossils and these have been here for maybe two hundred years, and yes, I know they're not going anywhere now, at least in our life times. You think it's funny, watching me cuss and tear at this thistle that chokes out all the native plants...
So yes, it's been a glorious spring in Northern California, as long as I avert my gaze to the native oaks still on the horizon, refuse to look at the ground, and saunter back inside to finish cooking dinner. Hmmm..I wonder if you can fry Italian thistle?
My quest to encourage the CA native plants is hopeless, nonetheless, when I am sipping my glass of red wine on the deck staring at this mess, I always end up back down there. I mumble "sht" and put on my boots and once again, find myself wacking the crap out of it all.
A few days ago, yet another weed wacker died so I grabbed the old fashioned kind, just a handle and a blade sans motor, the motor being my arms, and hacked that Italian thistle down and down...only to see it springing back up today, it's shredded stems poking back up, green (so they can photosynthesize still), and again, I wanted to break into tears.
There are those that call these weeds "naturalized" and after their glass of wine, saunter back into the kitchen to make dinner instead of standing on the deck like a mad woman, staring down at them, STILL OFFENDED they have eaten my acre of land and I cannot find a single CA native plant. HOW DARE YOU? I say under my breath, wack, wack, wack, my friend, the snotty paleobotanist calling me an "botanical sentimentalist". Yes, yes, I know. You are dealing with million year old plant fossils and these have been here for maybe two hundred years, and yes, I know they're not going anywhere now, at least in our life times. You think it's funny, watching me cuss and tear at this thistle that chokes out all the native plants...
So yes, it's been a glorious spring in Northern California, as long as I avert my gaze to the native oaks still on the horizon, refuse to look at the ground, and saunter back inside to finish cooking dinner. Hmmm..I wonder if you can fry Italian thistle?
