Clean Sweep

I've never managed to keep a  neat garden, and neighbors and walkers tell me they like my flowers. Still, I worry that the subtext is, "Your yard is an unholy mess, but at least it's colorful." Finally, old age, an arm injury still lingering after cleaning up after Irma in 2017, and my general sleaze coalesced into the proverbial "perfect storm" landscape-wise, and I had to hire somebody to clear-cut the mess.

Chaos is the Opposite of a Garden

Phyla nodiflora, "Fogfruit," makes a wonderful flowering natvie ground cover that attracts many pollinators, the lovely white peacock butterfly included. It was invading the driveway, and  had crept, kudzu-like, over a stack of paving blocks, 6 bags of mulch, and a patch of wickedly spiny agave, itself out of control even though I had been attacking it regularly.

Phyla nodiflora - Good Pollinator Plant

Sea purslane, Sesuvium portulacastrum, another desirable native ground cover,  was smothering a pot of lotus and a nice patch of Heliotropium amplexicaule. It also presented a bad tripping hazard for anybody brave enough to make a foray into the "jungle." Thickets of scorpion-tail, scattered scarlet sage, and blue porterweed competed for light. Swaths of gaillardias and mounds of dune sunflower were flopping over onto the neighbor's driveway. The gravel swale, where I had nourished the fond idea of creating a meadow of blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium), was instead a mess of moisture-loving opportunists. A dead palm tree and deformed Red Geiger, both courtesy of Hurricane Irma, completed the picture of utter surrender.

Even the rosiest of glasses couldn't mask the reality. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and I called a garden center to restore the bare bones of  the landscape. Two truckloads of debris and over a hundred bags of mulch later, we have one of the neatest and most cared-for yard on the street, which has its pluses, but is not exactly my ideal garden.

New Look for the Front Yard

Although the yard hardly is bare, the new space comes with a cost beyond what the garden center charged. For years our yard has been one of the very few landscapes in our neighborhood to offer  significant amenities of pesticide-free shelter, food and water for animals. Now in its rather barren state those amenities, especially the shelter, are much-reduced.

 However, we do not want to return to what it had become, which was by no means a garden. One thing I have learned is that the garden is as much about space as it is about plants. Without space,  there is no focal point, no rest for the eye or the soul. If the garden is neither  pleasant for walking or viewing, it is a failure, regardless of the beauty of individual plants. The very word "garden" signals the imposition of some kind of order. A  "wild garden" is a contradiction in terms.

So now, I have to recreate some of the lost habitat without losing the harmony of the space. As the old plants begin to resurface through the mulch, I have to organize them into well-defined beds, augmented perhaps with potted specimens. The self-discipline to pull out the surplus will be hard for me to maintain, but if I don't, the mess will re-establish itself quickly. That should provide motivation enough, because the yard really had become horrible and impassable.

Pots for Color

Given the fact that the yard is so small, I also need to ensure that the majority of the plants do more than one job. The agaves don't exactly fit that requirement, though dragonflies like to perch on their upright leaves, and pollinators love the flowers when they appear finally. But we both love the sculptural quality of the plants. A Red Geiger volunteer seedling will fill the space left by the agaves, and all will have enough room for the next several years. Though not a native, the Geiger will be a multi-purpose asset, and deserves its own post.

Wish me luck!

Little Daisy - Big Problem

A year or so ago I noticed a sprawling, low-growing aster relative cropping up here and there in the yard. I found it completely undistinguished and entirely without ornamental value, but I didn't make more than a half-hearted effort to get rid of it.

Like so many uninvited visitors, it has proven itself a very unwelcome guest in no hurry to leave. It has been beastly hot much of this summer, and I haven't been working in the yard as much as usual. I walked outside a few weeks back and discovered that this seemingly unassuming plant was in the process of overrunning the yard.

A quick ID session revealed it to be Tridax procumbens, or "coat buttons," a noxious weed if ever there were one. Originating in Central America, it has spread worldwide, and infests just about any location with a mild climate. It appears that the only places the weed has established itself in the United States are Florida, Puerto Rico ( I know it's a territory, not a state) and Hawaii, though there have been sporadic outbreaks in other states. However, if it is in north Florida and the Florida panhandle, it must be creeping into southern Georgia and Alabama by now.

Tridax procumbens, habit, ray floret, head

Tridax procumbens has opposite leaves which are arrow-shaped and deeply toothed. The margins (leaf edges) are fringed with tiny hairs. The top surface is felty dark green, with deeply impressed veins. If you bend a leaf to catch the light you will see glittering ranks of  short, stiff hairs that create a texture like fine-grit sandpaper.

The undersides of the leaves are a paler, grayish green with a less scabrous texture. The raised veins are very pronounced, and sport hairs of varying lengths.

The entire plant - leaves, petioles, stems, bases of the flower heads - is hairy. The stems are pale green shading into magenta-brown. The entire head is no bigger than a dime. It has numerous yellow disc flowers and a rather sparing ring of off-white or cream-colored ray florets ending in 3 teeth. (Hence the name "Tridax"). The heads produce thousands of achenes (seeds) whose chaff lets them float away on any breeze.

Leaves, Stems, Heads, Bristles

Triadax procumbens is on the Federal Noxious Weed List as well as the Noxious Weed List of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It is also on Florida's Prohibited Aquatic and Wetland Plants List. My yard is dry and sandy, but the plant evidently thrives even more given moist conditions.

It's not altogether easy to weed, especially when it is intertwined with groundcovers. It's hard sometimes to find the central point from which the stems radiate outward, especially since the stems are brittle and break easily. You've got to get the taproot, though, or the thing will just regenerate.

In Florida it is illegal to possess, transport or sell "coat buttons." I don't know whether having an infestation on your property qualifies as "possession," but I wanted to be rid of it in any case. I bagged it and disposed of it in the garbage, not the yard waste. Better buried in the landfill than further distributed in county mulch. Though I've won the first round, I am sure I am not through with the war. There must be an established seed bank in the yard by now, and the source of the original contamination likely is still churning out the achenes.

Noxious or not, the plant has medicinal and pest-fighting qualities. It is used in indigenous medicine for a variety of ailments, including wound treatment, stopping bleeding, diarrhea, backache, bronchial congestion, and worms. Dried pulerized leaves and essential oils extracted from the leaves appear to provide some control against insects, nematodes and fungi. Though not native to India, it is used in Ayurvedic medicine. It also has cancer-fighting potential.