Tuesday 22 March 2011

On seeing my first Dandelion

They have in fact been up and about for more than a month but right now they are at their best, or, according to taste, their worst. Objectively there could hardly be a more attractive plant: a vibrant yellow flower, an interesting leaf form, having the additional virtue of being very good in a salad, and seed heads which have given countless pleasure to children as they try to tell the time by them. Why then do we spend so much of our time in the garden trying to eradicate them? And is it possible to have a more beautiful yellow than that of the buttercup, and yet again we spend an aweful lot of time and energy pulling them out. Recently I have been thinking rather a lot about weeds, and how we define them, this because I have declarded war on Oenothera speciosa. This form of evening primrose, readily available in most garden centres, usually pink - Pink Petticoats and Siskiyou are some of the named varieties - though there are white forms, is in flower, like the dandelion, a very attractive plant, so attractive indeed that when it first appeared on the English garden scene - it seemingly hails from California - it was almost a 'must have plant'. Like many others I too succumbed to its charms, and in previous gardens I have been pleased enough with it, though fairly early on I became aware that it was a death trap to our delightful Hummingbird moths who have great difficulty in extracting their long tongues or proboscis from the neck of the flower. Here, to my despair, it has completely taken over, and thus virtually destroyed my so-called gravel garden, and I seriously doubt if I will ever be able completely to eradicate it. Does this make it a weed?

Recently I have been planting Erigeron karvinskianus, while at the same time eradicating Bellis perennis. The latter is the common daisy, the former is a look-alike. So why favour one over the other, especially when in my eyes at any rate the flower of the common daisy, a bright white with in bud red tips to the petals is more attractive than dingier white of the erigeron? I suppose that the erigeron's flowering period is longer, indeed once it gets underway sometime in April it is virtually continuous, while the daisy, I think though having never thought about it before I will need to verify this, is Spring flowering. What I am more certain about is that that the erigeron will put up with much meaner conditions including secheresse, so if you want groundcover in dry places, it is the ideal plant. That said between the two it is a very near thing and an objective comparison does not very satisfactorily explain why one is 'out' and the other 'in'. Maybe it is just habit. The Englishman's liking for the perfect lawn ment that the daisy was virtually the enemy number one, and though now perfect lawns are 'out', the daisy really has not become 'in'.

Both incidentally are invasive, this supposedly a virtue in the erigeron, but if one definition of a weed is that the plant is invasive, like for instance the buttercup, then we should be eradicating the erigeron. Both however are invasive by reseeding, which makes them much easier to remove than those plants that invasive by questing roots, such as for instance my hated oenothera. A better known example would be couch grass, and not even the most enthusiatic fan of 'grasses' has ever made a case for the retention of this plant, so I think that we can call it a weed. One of my most difficult weeds here is the what I call the wild potentilla, potentilla hirta. Again a case could be made for it; interesting leaf and pretty yellow flowers, and of course there are plenty of potentillas, whether herbaceous or shrubby, that are much desired garden plants. But its capacity to creep all over the place is unrivalled, and though,rather as with the strawberry runner, the babies are quite easy to remove, the so-called parent plant has a woody tap root that often defies eradication. And do not be fooled by the wild nepeta, whose botanical names escapes me. A long time ago in Hampshire, I was so taken by its blue flowers, which I discovered in many different shades, that I decided to introduce it into the garden. It was so delighted to be given slightly better growing conditions that it proceeded to smother everything in sight. So, no delight for me.

And what about Hypericum calycinum, or more commonly the Rose of Sharon, this one of my most hated plants? The Hillier's entry is as follows:

"A dwarf evergreen shrub with large leaves and large, golden flowers. Excellent as ground cover in dry and shaded places, but if left unchecked can become a weed."

Indeed, and one of the most difficult weeds to eradicate that I have ever come across. Still, I know of one person who has planted a hillside with what one could call clouds of Rose of Sharon interspersed with mown grass to make admittedly attractive patterns, which only goes to show that one man's weed can be another's favourite plant. Meanwhile the dandelions on the roadsides are looking particularly beautiful this year, so that perhaps in future I should not be pulling them out.