Happy April 1st, and I wish this were a joke, alas it is not. Meet Fincaria Verna, better known as "Lesser Celandine", also known as "Pilewort", also known as the bane of Cookie's existence.
This vile little plant is everywhere in Maryland and is considered an intrusive species. This crap starts pushing up thick, waxy, vivid green leaves at the end of February and can choke out native plants. The flower is a Yellow daisy like thing. It's toxic to animals that eat it, and once it gets established, good luck getting rid of it.
Worse still, when it gets into a yard, it chokes out the lawn grasses, THEN when it dies back (by the end of May) it exposes bald patches perfect for spread of weed grasses like crab grass, Running Bermuda Grass, etc.
And how does it get established? When someone buys it "herbal properties" as a topical treatment for external piles, aka hemorrhoids. But if you don't get on it immediately, it will spread.
Only two things get rid of it. 1) Is a ton of round up, applied constantly until the tubers are dead, or 2) you dig up the top soil, remove it, and put down new sterilized soil. This year we are trying to smother it with a ton of much.
Cookie wants to try a third method, a flame thrower. None to worry, they are illegal and I am not about to do anything that will result in me heading to a local jail.
Still, it makes me pine for the noble dandelion, a weed that could be eaten if need be. This stuff, seriously, it will kill you.
The dottery old people who owned the house before us let this crap get established, and every time I go out into the fenced part of the yard, I curse their very names.
Other than that, not much new here.
April is my favorite month - one that holds the promise for warmer days, greener trees and bluer skies.
People always say that they want to see the Cherry Blossom Trees when they bloom and I tell them not to waste their money. The Mid-Atlantic really shines in the weeks after the cherry trees bloom, but before the humidity settles in. The Azalea and Rhododendron show out here is beyond words fabulous, and it can, with the right weather, last for weeks. Baltimore and Washington are at their most beautiful then.
This year I promise to take pictures. They don't do justice to the spectacular color, but I will try and shoot some photos.
Celandines are really pretty, for all their insidious, invasive behaviour over there Stateside - here they, alongside daffodils, Forsythia, Magnolias and wild garlic, are seen as the harbingers of Spring. Apparently they don't like dry acid soils, so pine bark mulch is probably a very good idea as a deterrent. And speaking of acid soils, there is probably nothing quite so fabulous a spectacle as Rhododendrons in full glorious bloom (despite the fact that R. ponticus is equally invasive and, in some parts of the UK, a far bigger problem than any little Celandine could be). We probably will have to wait a few weeks for that to begin in earnest - and even then, it's only in certain parts of the UK where acid soils are prevalent that Rhododendrons and Azaleas really are at their best...
ReplyDeleteI love Springtime! Jx
I will have to ramp up the acidity in the soil!
DeleteI don't even have daffys yet. :(
ReplyDeleteInvasive plants are odd things. When I was growing up in Cleveland, you would occasionally find garlic mustard in the fields, an import from England, probably from the 18th century. In more recent years, it has suddenly taken off, and entire fields consist of nothing else. I have found garlic mustard, a field plant, growing even in formerly impossible terrain, such as deep, shaded woods. A true Frankenstein (or Sorcerer's Apprentice broom) of a plant!
ReplyDelete--Jim
This, apparently, makes great pesto! Jx
DeleteThe other vile being is thta damned Bradford Pear. They are not sterile, and it is a Drag King name.
ReplyDeleteI had to look them up - apparently they smell of fish! However, their wood is highly prized for making woodwind instruments - so encourage your local oboe manufacturers by chopping the buggers down! Jx
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