The Discreet Charm of Prolific Self-Seeders

What to do when you have no ranunculus, peonies, dahlias, roses, irises, anemones or other floral celebrities that garner all the attention? Option 1: curse a poverty of planning, horticultural skills and/or finances. Option 2: wallow in rage and/or envy. Option 3: dare to appreciate the mocked and maligned plants. Ding, ding, ding; I’ll take option 3. Options 1 and 2 won't magically change circumstances unless you’re a wizard. I'm not a wizard...yet. That's why number 3 is the only viable option presently.

Botanical outlaws is my affectionate nickname for those mocked and maligned plants, commonly known (and condemned) as weeds. People mock plant personification but readily characterize eager self sowers as thugs and profligates. Thugs and Profligates, sounds like the title of a 1930s B movie.

Do plants deliberately defy gardeners’ laws? I don’t know; I think plants are simply genius adaptors. Again, I don’t know. I’m not a plant whisperer...yet.

So what are these laws? Plants must lack ambition to seek new frontiers and audacious biological imperatives to self seed. If the plant is beautiful or charming enough, then a modicum of defiance is tolerated. But only a modicum. Otherwise, they’re the bare soil conquerors’ covert allies. “Gardeners” with suspiciously manicured hands use this threat to native flora and fauna to denounce the misfits.

Let's engage in a round of whataboutism, native plant purists. What about milkweed vine, a North American native, that I wrestle from the upright citizen sedum ‘Autumn Joy’? (Note: sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ is the Royal Horticultural Society's Plant of the Century or Millenium or some such AND a Eurasian native). Hmmm?...because monarch butterflies? Monarch butterflies won't turn their noses up at sedums and will take their chances with laying their eggs amongst its foliage. I’ve seen it. Neighbors won’t acknowledge that the seeds of their hard to hand weed milkweed vines float on the wind into unsuspecting gardens. The next year they grow up like an enraged psychopath ready to strangle any nearby plant.

Hostas, the revered garden stalwarts from northeast Asia, are remarkably sedentary. They prefer the gardener rip off pieces from its roots rather than expend energy producing and dispersing seeds. Cardinals feast on seeds before I can collect them. Where’s my baby hostas, cardinals? Ingrates! Maybe the seeds aren’t viable after digestion.

Meanwhile, the charming black-eyed susan of the American prairie seeds survive goldfinches' digestion and have no qualms about spreading its bright yellow flowers in a carefully considered tonal pink planting. Defying composting efforts, seedlings appear wherever that compost touches ground. To conclude this brief argument/rant: biological imperatives aren’t easily controlled. Native plants aren’t the exception.

Squirrels...Gardeners' Nemesis

Got squirrels? Black walnut trees (native)? To provide means of survival for the two species, nature created a symbiotic dream team. From a gardener's viewpoint (mine), squirrels and black walnuts are a formidable crime duo. Black walnut seedlings will find a home wherever squirrels have destroyed a planting: flower beds, seedpans, or any pots without the thickest, woody or entangled roots to deter them. Maybe it's the squirrels fault or maybe the black walnut shares the blame for producing nuts that drop like cannonballs. The shells so hard only squirrels bother. Discovering seedlings with juglone emitting roots residing within juniper planters is...joyless. Perhaps the chore of removing oak seedlings brings joy to some.

Of course, the seedlings are the result of the squirrels’ haphazard memory; their unreliable memory won't stop the marauding. My ardent wish, dear reader, is that you never awaken to overturned pots, dessicated roots and the ensuing heartbreak and/or rage.

English Ivy, a Busybody and Risky Alliances

I'm a conscientious gardener. I eschew aggressive tactics: pesticides, herbicides, steroidal feeds and yet I aid and abet plants that make the list of plants so detested that biological and chemical warfare are the most suggested solutions.

I accommodate plants on horticulture's most wanted list: feverfew, dame's rocket, morning glory, foxgloves and English ivy. They’re the plants that inevitably someone will warn (nag) about it’s nonnative invasive status when a dreamy photo is posted on the internet. Do we don hazmat suits and wage chemical warfare? Pick some to display in vases to check its spread? Or reflect on our past behavior regarding plants? Perhaps consider that we may not know what a beautiful plant will do once it’s habituated on another continent? So many questions.

Here’s a story. A sturdy but unlovely wooden fence enclosed the backyard; it was a potential graffiti canvas. Wouldn’t it be brilliant if I let the errant English ivy (from next door) overtake the alley side of the fence? It blurred the boundaries of the back garden. It took some time, but eventually, it formed a green fence. I was pleased.

One day, while doing stuff indoors, I heard the persistent racket of power tools. I ignored it as it is typical of a neighborhood of lawns and foundation shrubs. Imagine my horror when I took the trash cans into the alley for collection---every leaf and stem of the ivy was gone! What happened!? A busybody happened.

A week or so later, Busybody happily informed me that she was behind the destruction. Busybody sent her lawn crew to correct my ignorance. I seriously believe she expected gratitude. What she got was a grown ass woman doing her best not to forget her upbringing. Had I been raised differently, age wouldn’t save busybody from a thorough cussing out.

How does the disdain for ivy become more important than respecting a neighbor’s property? It must be noted that this was not a next door neighbor. Busybody lived in the house next to my neighbors (of the same ilk as Busybody). So how was the critter supporting English ivy a threat to her wood mulch garden? Now that I think about it, I wonder if it was collusion all along between people with different garden philosophies from mine. Wow. In comparison, my botanical outlaws aren’t as noxious.

Moving on...the deep-rooted are perhaps the most strong willed of the botanical outlaws. Believing you can hold your own against their arsenal of unyielding roots and masses of seeds is foolishness and backbreaking. As beautiful as they may be, I'll leave the porcelain berry, kudzu and their like minded comrades to the besieged woods and wastelands.

Confession: the blue chicory colony at the edge of the liquor store parking lot is a stirring sight. It’s chicory’s statement, “If y’all won't appreciate this space, then we will. Damn your litter!” I resist the temptation to recreate the scene in my own garden, minus the litter of course. Because that flight of fancy comes with a taproot that wants to journey to the center of the earth. Indulging in such untrammeled romanticism is unwise.

Obviously, gardener-botanical outlaw alliances are risky. A few weeks of lazy gardening will change the power dynamics, and you'll spend an unimaginable time wrangling plants attempting to take over the block. It takes fortitude (if not insanity) to invite an intrepid posse into your oasis. Proceed with caution.

Botanical Outlaws is flippant, I know. So I’m obliged to advise those living in communities with codes, homeowners' associations and yard police to ignore my insouciance. Specifically in relation to knotweed (Fallopia Japonica). Look it up. I did. Yikes!

I'd hate to subject anyone to fines and fisticuffs.