Fighting the Battle

It's been a running battle in my front yard, one that I've been fighting with varying degrees of success year to year, ever since high school. It is a battle that I am determined to win this year, even if I have to drown the battlefield in non-selective, broad spectrum herbicide and wade ankle deep through the tiny dessicated corpses of my enemy.

I'm speaking, of course, of clover, yard violet, chickweed, crabgrass, and dandelions.

As I was growing up, going out in the front yard - or worse, the back yard - without shoes was a gamble. Many was the time I hopped back to the front porch after stepping into a thistle plant. My father wasn't much of a gardener, even though he spent a good deal of his pre- and post-WWII life as a farmer, and even less of a landscape artist. If it was green, he welcomed it as "yard". He was not selective as to his "yard" plants, and I never saw him reseed a dead area or, God forbid, fertilize.

This gave my childhood a front yard to play in that looked like a missle testing site.

Now that I own the property, I have babied the yard as much as time and finances would allow and now I have a space where my children can run barefoot without worry (except in the back yard where the dogs - er, run, so to speak). They enjoy a lawn that is thick, mature, and mostly soft.

It's not without its problem areas. Scotts changed their formulation - or the dandelions have been stealing state secrets from the Russians - because I put down two applications this year and the weeds laughed it off and kept coming. Clover is advancing, yard violets are taking up reinforcing positions to my rear, and pockets of chickweed are slowly emerging in my center.

Time for the big guns. I pulled out The Ortho Broadleaf  Weed and Grass Killer. I loaded my weapon of choice, an adjustable siphon sprayer, and covered the front lawn.

An hour later, it rained. Doesn't it just figure.

The poison did have time to do some damage. The chickweek is almost all dead, there's not a dandelion to be found, and the yard violets are I hope gasping their last. The clover may have survived, beaten but not broken.

It's okay. I'm patient. I have more Ortho. And next time, I'll check the weather report.

The only plant I wish I could exterminate entirely are the yard violets, since I hate the way they smell, but this is not to say that I'm going to kill every weed within my grasp. Far from it. I have put no chemicals in the back yard, and do not plan to. There are, in fact, areas of the back yard that are thick with clover that I'm going to let grow without mowing for as long as I can stand it. 

The raised bed are in, and with them comes the promise of (eventually) vegetables. I want to attract bees to my yard, and if I remember my childhood story books correctly, bees love clover. As plants go it's a good plant to have if you want healthy soil, as it adds nitrogen back in. It's also soft on the toes. Bees and nitrogen rich soil. An all around beneficial plant to have.

I'm letting the area between the redbuds go to seed as well, a combination of clover and yard grasses - fescue I think. It'll be pretty I think.

Fighting the Battle

It's been a running battle in my front yard, one that I've been fighting with varying degrees of success year to year, ever since high school. It is a battle that I am determined to win this year, even if I have to drown the battlefield in non-selective, broad spectrum herbicide and wade ankle deep through the tiny dessicated corpses of my enemy.

I'm speaking, of course, of clover, yard violet, chickweed, crabgrass, and dandelions.

As I was growing up, going out in the front yard - or worse, the back yard - without shoes was a gamble. Many was the time I hopped back to the front porch after stepping into a thistle plant. My father wasn't much of a gardener, even though he spent a good deal of his pre- and post-WWII life as a farmer, and even less of a landscape artist. If it was green, he welcomed it as "yard". He was not selective as to his "yard" plants, and I never saw him reseed a dead area or, God forbid, fertilize.

This gave my childhood a front yard to play in that looked like a missle testing site.

Now that I own the property, I have babied the yard as much as time and finances would allow and now I have a space where my children can run barefoot without worry (except in the back yard where the dogs - er, run, so to speak). They enjoy a lawn that is thick, mature, and mostly soft.

It's not without its problem areas. Scotts changed their formulation - or the dandelions have been stealing state secrets from the Russians - because I put down two applications this year and the weeds laughed it off and kept coming. Clover is advancing, yard violets are taking up reinforcing positions to my rear, and pockets of chickweed are slowly emerging in my center.

Time for the big guns. I pulled out The Ortho Broadleaf  Weed and Grass Killer. I loaded my weapon of choice, an adjustable siphon sprayer, and covered the front lawn.

An hour later, it rained. Doesn't it just figure.

The poison did have time to do some damage. The chickweek is almost all dead, there's not a dandelion to be found, and the yard violets are I hope gasping their last. The clover may have survived, beaten but not broken.

It's okay. I'm patient. I have more Ortho. And next time, I'll check the weather report.

The only plant I wish I could exterminate entirely are the yard violets, since I hate the way they smell, but this is not to say that I'm going to kill every weed within my grasp. Far from it. I have put no chemicals in the back yard, and do not plan to. There are, in fact, areas of the back yard that are thick with clover that I'm going to let grow without mowing for as long as I can stand it. 

The raised bed are in, and with them comes the promise of (eventually) vegetables. I want to attract bees to my yard, and if I remember my childhood story books correctly, bees love clover. As plants go it's a good plant to have if you want healthy soil, as it adds nitrogen back in. It's also soft on the toes. Bees and nitrogen rich soil. An all around beneficial plant to have.

I'm letting the area between the redbuds go to seed as well, a combination of clover and yard grasses - fescue I think. It'll be pretty I think.