Tuesday, June 05, 2007

weeds

I remember when we decided to buy our house. It was a late May evening, and we had come for a second viewing with my parents. We were in the backyard and the golden evening sun was slitting through the new green leaves on the trees. Bees were buzzing and it felt magical and alive. It was a haven.

Later, when we had the house inspected, the inspector pointed out a young tree growing right next to the house. "When the wind blows," he said, "its branches will rub against the roof of your addition and cause damage. It's not a good place for a tree to grow so you should really have it cut down. Besides, it's a weed tree, a Manitoba maple."

Although I didn't say anything, internally I bristled.

Read more from gardenerd at mbt...

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(and Sugar D kept to his Mother's Day gift... he worked 6 hours a couple of weeks ago and moved our shed from the middle of our yard to the back. It makes the yard look SO much bigger!

The black plastic on the right side is halfway through the Great 2007 Covering of the Goutweed (read the mbt post for my rant against goutweed).

13 comments:

Mouse said...

I miss our old yard so much, both the huge open part in the back and the garden we cultivated (around the previous owner's own contributions) next to the house.

Your backyard looks serene.

N. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
N. said...

Your garden looks lovely.
What are your thoughts on Dame's Rocket? Good or bad?
And that was me above, but upon posting I spotted a horrible mental typo that would doubtless earn your good-natured scorn.

Girlplustwo said...

you know, at first glance i thought you had a creek in your backyard. and i was jealous.

i still am. it looks lovely.

Mad said...

mmmm, I haven't read your gout weed rant but I will rant right along beside you. I'm also not a fan of the Manitoba maple, truth be told. They're buggers to deal with. Bloody things have a habit of not growing up straight and then getting all topply and on top of that they propogate like bunnies.

Beck said...

Beautiful yard. Mine is huge and full of invasive goat's something-or-other. I've given up.

Christine said...

I commented over at your other post. . .

But here is a SF gal trying to get rid of a non-native plant in her yard: http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/

cinnamon gurl said...

AD, first I would never scorn you or anyone for a type-o in a comment, not even good-naturedly.

Dame's rocket... the thing about native plants is their dependence on place. Your place is far away from mine and I'm not sure exactly where Dame's Rocket is from. But I think it's probably European. And it is on the SER's list of horrible, noxious, invasive aliens. Which made me very sad when I found out because I used to love them as a teenager and associate discovering their musky smell with first love.

Mad, yes, that's the gist of my rant only I go only at much more length.

The thing about our yard is it looks lovely in photos, but in reality it's overgrown with weeds and not very nice to hang out it. It's getting better though.

metro mama said...

What a lovely big backyard.

Aliki2006 said...

It looks beautiful, c.g.--just the sort of place to sit and contemplate the world.

Suz said...

It's really lovely. We have a shaded back yard, too, but just moss rather than grass.

Run ANC said...

We just had our very large "Shed of Death" torn down and we're replacing it with a smaller one. The yard is so much bigger. Off to read your rant!

Mimi said...

Your yard looks great!

Most of my yard is taken up with Giant Garage. (The garages is so big, it has a fireplace and a rough-in for a toilet. Who needs a toilet in a garage? A garage that's 3 feet from the house?)

I'm going over to MBT to read your rant ...