Trash into treasure: Decorating with weeds

Posted on December 15, 2014 by missinghenrymitchell

Holiday decorations from the garden delight me in ways other ornaments can’t. I’d rather have pots of forced bulbs, a Christmas cactus, or fresh garlands of mixed greenery than anything else. Well, except for a tree.

It is not in my nature to decline a free giveaway, so when the gentlemen at the tree lot offered scrap trimmings (all I could cart away!), and my spouse was preoccupied with tying the tree to the car’s roof, I grabbed an armload. I kept them in a bucket of water on the deck until I discerned a future for them.

Yesterday, armed with a paddle of florist’s wire and a pair of hand pruners, I crafted a garland for our mailbox.

It began as an 8-foot-long rope of Fraser fir (Abies fraseri), wired together from cuttings 18 inches long or so, and annotated with silver wired ribbon. But it suffered acute dullness.

Pondering what might give it some verve, I remembered the cardinal rule to add texture. And what luck; I have never, in the ten years I’ve lived here, conquered the English ivy (Hedera helix) that I inherited on closing day. So I yanked up a few yards’ worth and tucked them in amidst the fir. In the winter, the marbling of the leaves seems more pronounced.

A march around the garden yielded leaves of Magnolia grandiflora, seedlings of privet (Ligustrum) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda), and clippings of Nandina domestica‘s leaves and berries.

I uprooted an entire plant of Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ that has never done well. Off with its evergreen heads, and into the mix they went. They drooped quickly, but no one driving by will notice.

Not bad for compost-in-waiting, I think.

Wood sorrel: Turning my garden into public grazing lands?

Posted on June 26, 2014 by missinghenrymitchell

Waiting for the school bus a couple of weeks ago, my neighbor’s son wandered over to a patch of weeds and plucked up a handful.

“What are you doing?” my daughter asked. “Are you eating weeds?!”

“It’s wood sorrel,” said the boy. “It’s good. It tastes sour, kind of lemony.”

Wood sorrel, Oxalis stricta

Wood sorrel is a member of the genus Oxalis. It is edible, if you go for that sort of thing. The leaves, seed pods, and flowers are all safe to eat raw or cooked. My neighbor’s son likes the seed pods especially: “We call them sour bananas.”

The plant is high in vitamin C. It also has diuretic properties and is high in potassium oxalate and oxalic acid. Oxalic acid is a compound also found in grapefruit, parsley, broccoli, spinach, and many other vegetables. While it’s unlikely that anyone would consume enough wood sorrel to suffer any toxic effects from the oxalic acid, people with kidney disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, and gout should avoid consuming oxalis until they consult with a medical professional.

Have I stumbled upon a new means of organic weed management? I envision herds of grazing children, replacing their favorite Sour Patch Kids with this weed that proliferates in my garden. More likely, I’ve found a new phenological cue: “When you see the children grazing, the sorrel is setting seed.” This reminds me that I had clearly better get to the weeding, unless I hope to find even more of the stuff in my garden beds next year.

By the way, my daughter knows not to eat anything in the garden without first checking with me. Encourage your kids to check with you before eating wild plants–even if their friends do it.

For more information:

Know thine enemy: Common weeds to know

Posted on April 3, 2014 by missinghenrymitchell

Here’s a terrific chart of common weeds, by the Missouri Botanical Garden. Get to know the weeds that make their homes in your garden. The more you know about them, including their life cycles and reproductive habits, the more weapons you have with which to thwart them.

spotted spurge, photo courtesy wikipedia

Spotted spurge, Euphorbia maculata

Hairy bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta

Three-seeded mercury, Acalypha virginica

hairy bittercress cardamine hirsuta weed seedling

Hairy bittercress taking over a neglected patch in my garden.

And please, avoid using chemical weed controls. They can be toxic to pollinators, including bees and butterflies, and can persist in the soil for very long periods of time. Mulch and other methods of weed control are more sustainable, and healthier for you, your family, your pets, and the environment over the long term.

Know thine enemy: Oxalis sp., or wood sorrel

Posted on January 30, 2014 by missinghenrymitchell

Continuing in my quest to learn my weeds, I am getting better acquainted with the most prolific of my weeds, Oxalis stricta, or wood sorrel.

This one is so common it’s almost difficult to see. It has a shallow taproot, but its extensive rhizome system also has lots of fibrous roots to support it. And those rhizomes go everywhere.

Unlike the other weeds I’ve examined to date, this one is a perennial. It also is apparently difficult to control with herbicides, not that I like to go that route. So the best approach to controlling it seems to be to dig it up, taproot, rhizomes, and all, and mulch heavily after digging to prevent seeds from germinating.

Growing up, we called almost anything with a three-part (tripartite–another Scrabble word) leaf a “clover.” But clover is a different plant from wood sorrel. How to tell the difference?

Oxalis leaves are heart or spade-shaped and partly folded. Their leaf margins are smooth. Clovers, on the other hand, have oval-shaped leaves with finely serrated margins and prominent veins. Oxalis species have five-petaled yellow flowers at maturity.

Red clover (Trifolium pratense) by masaki ikeda, 22 May 2010, via Wikipedia and Creative Commons 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Oxalis corniculata, or creeping woodsorrel, is a related perennial weed that grows low to the ground and roots where it establishes ground contact. Its leaves, shaped like other Oxalis species, fold downward in intense sunlight. When removing this weed, take care to dig the whole plant. If portions of the taproot or stolons are left in the ground, the plant can quickly reestablish.

Know thine enemy: The weed battles begin

Posted on January 17, 2014 by missinghenrymitchell

Last summer and fall, I endeavored to learn a bit about the weeds that persist in my garden, to better understand how to combat them effectively.

One of the worst offenders in my garden is hairy bittercress, or Cardamine hirsuta. It is a rapidly growing winter or summer annual, which begins its life innocently enough as a petite rosette of arugula-like leaves. Overnight, apparently, it sends up a flower stalk, pollinates itself, and sets tiny explosive seed capsules that spring open when they are touched, flinging seed (the average plant contains 600, by the way) for what feels like acres. If only I were so resilient.

On the way to the mailbox, I noticed a greenish mat in the midst of a stretch of mud. The knavish fellows are back, unthwarted by polar vortices, uncurbed dogs, and rapacious squirrels.

But this year, I come to the battle armed with a tiny bit of knowledge (yes, indeed, a dangerous thing!). I know not to turn my back on these wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing of the weed world, or they’ll have propagated themselves before I can say “Well, [redacted].” I’m heading out this minute to pull these impish devils (they come up quite easily). And I shall add a generous helping of mulch in case their evil little siblings are getting ideas.