When I moved out to Suburbia, I was all full of my righteous, organic yard/garden self. I’d easily managed doing organic in several different yards/gardens. I knew this was a bigger property, but hey, I’d read Prodigal Summer, and if that old lady with the orchard could do it, I could, right?
Wrong.
The people who lived in this house before us had a sprinkler system (long destroyed from neglect by the time we moved in) and plenty of lawn chemicals. They never planted a single tree and mowed the entire 2.67 acre yard. Oh, weren’t they silly, we said. We’ll let it all go NATURAL, we said. Oh look, aren’t the purple thistles beautiful? We mowed paths around them and I pointed them out to family and friends visiting - we can enjoy the beauty of invasive species, aren’t we cool? We decidedly did not use chemicals, and I even bought a more industrial sized dandelion popper in order to work with the, ahem, slightly larger dandelion varieties out here... We planted over 200 trees and when the deer came to destroy them (and destroy many, many of them, they did), we used the natural, nasty smelling deer spray only. We started a compost - to improve the soil and encourage “natural” strength of the healthy plants (in actuality, the compost did nothing but attract the neighborhood dogs and act as a breeding trough for mice each spring).
Neighbors eyed us suspiciously. They smiled and lightly mentioned that the thistles out here are a pretty big problem. Next door neighbor Tom asked me if I was opposed to at least putting a little Preen in the veggie garden (hello, gentle yet prophetic warning...). Absolutely, I’m opposed to using Preen! We’re going organic over here. Look how we can enjoy the dandelions in the front yard!! Our dog won’t have cancer!!! I’ve always been able to keep up with weeds in my perennial and vegetable gardens. Seriously, people. I’m 40-something years old, I know what I’m doing.
I did not know what I was doing.
Eventually, the thistles got so bad, we couldn’t really even walk out in the “prairie” without protective footwear and Carhartt coveralls. Kids fled from the garden covered in rash from the stinging nettles. The front yard, with all of its substandard “fill” soil was completely overtaken with dandelions of some mutant variety, sporting root systems up to a foot deep, leaving virtually no actual grass.
Sigh.
The embarrassed teens began to beg for lawn chemicals. You’ll thank me when you DON’T have cancer, I said, defensively. Couldn’t we just do it ONCE to kill a few of the dandelions, they whined. What happened to my little children who used to call them dandyflowers and thought that I was the smartest mom in the world, anyway?
I clung to the small victories. Like the fact that there didn’t seem to be the rabbits out here eating my garden like they did in the city. And the Creeping Charlie, plague of virtually all city & suburban yards, wasn’t present in our yard.
Until we got the raspberries. A couple years ago, when my ex-husband was still speaking to me, he said we could help ourselves to his ever-expanding raspberry bushes. I noticed he had Creeping Charlie in his yard, but I carefully selected shoots in areas without it and pulled away all the extra weeds before replanting in our yard. I think you can probably guess how this ends.
And this spring, as I prepared for my daughter’s graduation party and desperately tried to get the yard looking decent, I was out weeding the raspberries. And there it was, among the thistle, stinging nettle, clover and dandelion - the Creeping Charlie. Not on the best terms with the ex, in a haze of bug spray and overtired from a peri-menopausal poor night’s sleep, the Creeping Charlie just put me completely over the fucking edge. I mean, this whole thing has been WAAAAAY beyond anything I could even have imagined. The weeds, the invasive species... Lawn chemicals could be a start, I suppose. But I think unmanned drones and heat-seeking missiles might be the better way to go. Or straight up explosives. Fire, maybe. And there I was, preparing for a party my ex refused to help with in any way and pulling HIS Creeping Charlie out of the garden.
In retrospect, if the worst thing he gave me was Creeping Charlie, I’m probably lucky. It could have been much, much worse.
And, after over 20 years of dragging my garden around, through 5 different houses in five different cities, I’ve decided that I’m bringing NOTHING with me when I go. It’s time for a fresh start.
