Gardens and Gardening

You just can't help but get the "gardening bug" when you travel to England.  "Garden" is practically its middle name.  Engardenland.

So, while we were on the plane, Draw and I discussed how this would be a fine opportunity for us to start that meadow garden we'd been talking about.  We'd seen a meadow garden for the first time, last year, at Great Dixter and pretty much every garden we visited this year had some part of it as a meadow garden.  Surely we'd have an amazing sprout of grass and wildflowers (weeds) in place of our lawn since we'd been gone over two weeks.

Amazingly, when I rang home once we touched down in the states, my son announced that he'd cut the lawn as a welcome home surprise.  Surprise!  So the meadow garden will have to wait a few weeks though I'm sure the neighbors did get a sneak peek at what's to come later this summer.  How excited they must be!  Finally, the Blair-Drawbridges are going to do a bit of landscaping.

So... home at last and the lawn looked pretty nice.  But what's this?  As I  peered out the kitchen window to admire the lawn.

Do you see it?  Hang on... let me give you a closer look.

Ahhh... a tree.  No, wait.  Not a tree.  It's a... WEED.  Did you realize that if you let Canadian Thistle have its way in your yard, it flowers?

I guess my son didn't notice these in the flower beds when he was cutting the lawn.  Or maybe, because they had "flowers" he figured they belonged?

There are some handy uses for these prickly pests, though.

A security gate. 

You can't get the true height of these because I'm shooting at a downward angle.  They're actually about 2 foot tall. 

And who's going to want to break into those windows, above, with Canadian Thistle standing guard?  Thank you, Canada.

Did you realize that Canadian Thistle grows to 5 feet tall?  It's true.  I measured it.

So Friday, Draw's day off, we are attacking the Canadian Thistle beds.  I have only a slight worry as this stuff is extremely hard to get rid of.  I just read an article by a guy who organically eradicated this stuff from his property and it took him FOUR years.  And he was thrilled.  Blah.   Give me chemicals and lots of 'em.  Canadian Thistle may be persistent and pernicious, but I can be a royal pain in the bum, too.

BTW, doesn't this scene look vaguely familiar?  Except for that weed I'd swear I was in Low Cloud Country.

Welcome home...

Comments

[Marg]

Thank you Gale for sharing your wonderful journey... Your photos are AMAZING, can't wait to see your new collage sheets!
Marg

[Bev]

Oh begorrah... why would you be a'callin' these thing 'Canadian' thistles?

I do have a clump of thistles in my perennial garden. They are about 4 feet tall and they have the most beautiful flowers. They do not ever overstep their boundaries and I think that I must be in a much warmer gardening zone than you are. I am in a Zone 8. What are you? Everyone thinks that Canada is all in the Arctic, but I am much closer to a California/Florida zone than anything else.