Thursday, June 14, 2012

A Weed By Any Other Name

or Happy Accidents

No one likes goats heads.  I don't mean the heads of actual goats.  Most people don't get worked up about those one way or the other (unless they've lived with actual goats, and then they might have some pungent words to say).  No, I'm talking about that scourge of bare feet, that bane of bicycle tires, that painful thorn in the flesh, Tribulus terrestris, aka puncture vine, aka caltrop, aka goats head.  It is a weed.  It is a menace.  It is a trouble and a vexation, come to torment us.
 
Photo credit Steve Hurst @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

When my parents were newlyweds and had started their first vegetable garden, they found an unknown but charming plant coming up in it, and cherished it like a wildflower.  (It wasn't goats heads.  They knew better than that!)  They made space around it, watered it, mulched it, and let it grow, until my grandpa, who'd grown up a farmer, came to visit and said, "Why on earth are you growing wild lettuce?"
 

Not wild lettuce.

The thing with wisdom passed on from previous generations, is that mostly it's reactive rather than proactive.  If Grandpa had said, "Beware the wild lettuce, my children.  It looks like thus-and-so," my parents would never have grown it.  But you can't anticipate everything, so Grandpa never thought to warn my parents and instead waited until they already had grown wild lettuce, and then said, "Why did you do that?"  I think he assumed that genetic osmosis worked, and that my parents must already know what he knew.  He was mighty entertained when they didn't.

My parents told me how silly they felt to have grown wild lettuce, but they've never told me what it looks like.  So I know not to grow it, if only I knew what it was, which I don't.


All to say, weeds are an adventure around here.  I don't actually have many, thanks to our dry climate (and a lot of mulch).  Even if we have enough moisture in spring to encourage weeds to sprout, the seedlings don't usually make it past early June, when the sun gets to Smiting strength.  With the survivors, I like to tempt fate and see what happens.  (Unless they're goats heads.  I know better than that!)   It's my own way of living dangerously.  What wild lettuce equivalent will I cherish and then be embarrassed about?  Last year's Weed of Note was a common evening primrose (Oenothera biennis).  This year's seems to be...




even more attractive.  It's certainly a member of the mint family, with that square, chiseled stem, like a cowboy's jawline, only longer.  (And greener.)  My guess is scarlet hedgenettle (Stachys coccinea), but I don't know for sure.  I sure did enjoy wondering about it as it grew taller and those tantalizing buds started to form, and I sure enjoy it now, when dusk turns it to embers beside gaura's bright sparks.


 
Nothing teaches you how to set priorities, to see what's important and what isn't, like weeds.  They're not all the same, you know.  Some are goats heads—noxious irritants, with few redeeming features.  They are the kinds of things grandfathers warn children about, and that no one makes the mistake of growing twice (or even once, because they've been warned).   You rip them up as soon as you see them, because otherwise you'll be ripping up a lot—painfully.

Then again, some weeds are wild lettuces—harmless enough, but not worth wasting resources on.  You don't need to rush to pull them, but you sure don't need to bother mulching them, either.  The only price you'll pay for them is a little embarrassment, so why stress about the wild lettuces in your life?  (Unless Grandpa's coming over, of course.)  And some... Well, some are happy accidents, aren't they?  Scarlet hedgenettles that you would never discover if you didn't let a few weeds grow now and then, if you didn't allow a little room for surprise.  As long as the weeds you let grow aren't goats heads.

We all know better than that!

20 comments:

  1. weeds. How about mullien. They are left in my garden.

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    1. Maybe plant a bed around them, Greggo, and call them flowers? That might not be less effort than weeding, though, come to think of it...

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  2. Is wild lettuce edible? Or just a name?
    I once nurtured an evening primrose, till the flower showed up as an invasive roadside weed.

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    1. Diana, I'm not sure whether wild lettuce is edible or what plant it really even is--a Google search suggests it's just a name, though.

      Weeds are such clever masters of disguise when they're young...

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  3. Stacy - even your weeds look beautiful. It's not fair!

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    1. And here I've always thought your own weeds were perfectly charming, b-a-g! I definitely struck the jackpot with this one, though.

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  4. I let a few weeds go to flower. I like many of them. I am not good identifying most, but just took images of the weeds along the Niagara Gorge. So many have very interesting form and color. I am with you, and see then quite differently than most.

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    1. Donna, some of the weeds are so pretty it's hard to know why they aren't garden flowers, like chicory and Queen Anne's lace. Maybe they just don't grow well in kindly garden conditions!

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  5. I can only think about your idea of genetic osmosis! What a great idea that is! If only we could figure out a way to get it to work! My, my - we would have no more terrible two-year-olds, or unruly teenagers, or well, weeds in our gardens! :)

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    1. Holley, imagine how much less trouble we would have gotten into as children if we already knew not to put our elbows on the table! Of course, if genetic osmosis worked we might also pick up/pass down some good ideas about how to GET into mischief...

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  6. Having never heard of puncture vine (what a name), I wouldn't have known not to grow it - had I heard of it. Sometimes I let unknown seedlings grow only to be left foolish when it turns out to be something obviously weedy. Duh. Other times, I'm left with a pretty flower that I certainly didn't introduce but must've been in the gardens once and left dormant seeds - polemoniums for example. Perhaps, somewhere, there is a Grandpa who would say, "Why on earth are you growing polemoniums." Perhaps. Dave

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    1. Dave, you are so lucky never to have encountered puncture vine! I feel like I've just written a useful post, now, in warning you away from it. In the US it grows everywhere except New England, Alaska, West Virginia, Alabama, and Georgia--just about the only thing that particular set of states has in common. With all the land you have to tend and big garden beds to fill, it's very kind of pretty flowers to present themselves for free now and then. I can't imagine Grandpas anywhere rolling their eyes at polemoniums. Maybe some day decades down the road you can be the first.

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  7. I frequently let my weeds flower because I can never get to them all...still fighting the wild area here...but so many are lovely that I just don't mind even though I know I will regret it next spring...but there are some I rip out immediately...common teasel is one...ruining my garden....love that weed you have there

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    1. Teasel's another painful one, Donna! Way back when, my great-grandfather's family used to pick the cultivated teasels to be used in making wool felt. I don't know how they managed to use their hands at the end of the day. The bees and butterflies are probably happy with you for letting some of those weeds flower--not that they're at any risk of going hungry in your garden!

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  8. I hate goat heads. They reseed all over my yard and I can't pull them out soon enough. There is nothing like stepping on one with bare feet. Ouch! I have a globe mallow that I can't get myself to pull out. The flowers are so delicate and pretty. I keep hoping they'll naturalize. They seem like harmless weed.

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    1. GirlSprout, I don't think I've stepped on one in bare feet since I was a kid. Ouch is right! Luther used to get them stuck in his feet, and then when I took them out they'd stick in my fingers. What awful plants. I've actually tried to grow globe mallow from seed a couple of times and had no luck, so I'm totally envious that you have one coming up just like that! A house I drive by every day has had some naturalize, and they're really beautiful. Hope yours makes itself at home.

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  9. Hilarious! I doubt there's a gardener among us who hasn't been found protecting and watering some unknown 'seedling' only to discover that we've been tending a super-invasive monster. Consider me guilty.

    I'm not familiar with goats heads but we have plenty of other horrors in the PNW.

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    1. Karen, you're so right! The problem with gardeners is that we like plants... They have to prove themselves guilty before we'll stop giving them the benefit of the doubt.

      I'd think goats heads would be happier in the eastern part of Washington than on the Seattle side. The PNW always looks so soft and green--it's hard to imagine horrors there at all!

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  10. I have often let something grow just to see what it was. Most of the time I pull it out, but I like learning about something new.

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    1. That's really the draw, isn't it, Michelle? We want to learn about the things coming up in our garden, whether we're the ones who planted them or not!

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