Our World and Everything in It

I was looking for cures to get rid of all types of weeds in my lawn that have become prevalent in just the last couple of years like Creeping Charlie, Henbit,Violets, Wild Strawberries, etc. I’m not a fan of spraying if I don’t have to and figure I need to know why I’m getting so many of these weeds or I’ll just be dealing with it all over again year after year. Well, it seems I need to fertilize my lawn more to keep Creeping Charlie at bay. So I’ll go the natural fertilizer route or whip up a Jerry Baker concoction. But I was still curious where all these weeds are coming from. I had a pretty nice lawn not long ago.

It seems America is being inundated with imported invasive species of plants and trees that will have a terrible impact on our own native plants and trees in the near future. I had no idea that the nice maple trees in my yard are probably the invasive type called Norway Maple. As a matter of fact, one website that offered a guide to the imported/invasive plants and trees said: “Many of the plants in this guide are popular, even beloved, landscape plants, but it is now clear that they pose a threat to our environment.” It’s because these plants significantly reduce the number of plant and animal species on any site they invade. The fact that they are in our yards is a sign that over the past 100 years or more they have indeed spread.  http://www.mdflora.org/publications/invasives.htm.

I couldn’t believe all the new and different weeds popping that I have that are on that list. And the list is for the mid Atlantic region! That says something about climate change. Now I’m not about to cut down my maples and I have a sneaky suspicion they’re Norways because I have too many maples willy-nilly in my yard. But one of them shades the front of my house from the summer sun, and two are on the bank by the dock.

As for getting rid of these weeds, I found all types of natural ways to combat them on the Internet. For instance, I know enough to weed whip before weeds go to seed,  but it seems there is a magic time you can mow some weeds and they won’t come back. So, depending on the type of weed you are trying to control, you may not need any chemicals at all. Whack them at the right time in their lifecycle and kill them dead for good.

For my Creeping Charlie problem I could apply a herbicide when it flowers, but it seems this weed is sensitive to borax according to the blogsite Hobby Lawn Care. The website gives the formula to make your own borax concoction. It said: “…dissolve 8 ounces of borax in 4 ounces of water. Then dilute the solution in 2.5 gallons of water.” This is supposed to be sprayed on 1000 sq. ft. of lawn, “no more, no less.” That scares me a little. Too much borax prevents desirable plants–like grass?

http://www.hobbylawncare.com/browse/lawn-pests

And if all else fails, I can just eat my lawn. That’s right. I found a website with a recipe for Wild Weed Salad and Dressing. I have everything I need except nasturtium. I used to grow nasturtiums, but that was long ago. I think nasturtiums are just watercress. The lawn violets I have aplenty. They add a peppery taste to a salad. Dandelion greens I’ve already eaten before, but I don’t know about the lamb’s quarter. It’s a little too hairy for me. Everything else on the list of ingredients seems fine, but I just can’t imagine the taste of the added mint, with basil, with garlic. I’m thinking peppery/garlicky taste, which would be really good with the honey and apple cider vinegar dressing.

Read the recipe: http://gorhamgarden.blogspot.com/2007/06/weed-of-day-no-2-henbit.html

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As I write my 84-year-old mother, who is visiting, is occupied at my kitchen counter checking all my ballpoint pens for use. She wanted some Crazy Glue, and in my search through my junk drawer, I decided to pull the neat little organizer tray out of there. By time I stacked what had fallen out of that neat little organizer tray and piled it on top, it no longer had any semblance of an organizer tray. She volunteered (I think she’s bored) to test all the pens. None of them, so far, are dried up. Which leads me to accumulation and what many of us do with it.

I told her that maybe I could give the excess pens to a nursing home, hospital, office, etc., anything but the landfill. She replied “How about a school?” Right, how about a school? We read about underprivileged kids everywhere that don’t have the money to buy school basics. Instead of this massive waste we’re creating on earth by being a “toss and buy new society” why aren’t we doing more recycling everywhere? Do those with nothing demand brand new? I’m using used stuff all over my house and I’m not underprivileged. Sorry, no pride here. If it works, I keep it shined up and use it. My car is 8 years old. I just don’t think people who get free stuff are all that picky. I’m not talking about passing down junk, but…

Take for instance one of my biggest pet peeves, flowers, shrubs, and trees for sale everywhere this time of year. It’s appalling what happens to most of this stuff. Frank’s Nursery is out of business now, but my mom and I saw them throwing 2-3 year old trees, beautiful trees, in the garbage bin. We asked if we could have them. Nope, something about posting losses keeps nurseries like this from giving those trees away. So as a loss, they are a tax write-off. Fine, but so is donating to charity.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that all those beautiful plants that overflow everywhere, every spring end up in the garden at some nursing home, children’s play yard, and how about those subdivisions I wrote about that look like you could fry an egg on the sidewalks for lack of trees?

We need to realize when we see all this glorious growth every spring and everywhere that most of the time what took much labor, water, earth, nutrients, and as much as 5 years of time to become a substantial tree or shrub is tossed like garbage for the almighty dollar. True the losses qualify as a tax write-off but does it ever occur to anyone that maybe we should cut back on growing too much of this stuff in lieu of saving the labor, water, and earth for other things like restoration of all the forests that are burning or for more farmland for food sources instead. After all, do we really need every food market, hardware store, department store, and even gas stations selling flowers, trees, or shrubs?

 Since I saw those trees hit the garbage bin years ago, the view of all the flower markets overflowing every spring makes me about as sad as seeing all the road-kill. I’ve raised a tree from a twig. Try it sometime and see if you don’t find yourself caring for that particular tree as if it were your child. To see a twig grow to a tall, strong, glorious tree that shades my yard and me against increasingly hotter summers is not much different than raising any other living thing. We need to take notice, appreciate, and nurture all living things to include the plant kingdom. There may come a time where we will no longer be able to grow anything. We’ll miss the green things.