Things to not do before you die ...
Posted by Pat Detmer on Mar 25th, 2008
(If You Can Possibly Help It)
Tired of seeing all the books filled with lists of things to do before you die, I'm taking the opposite tack and presenting you with things to not do, thus saving you all kinds of time and heartache.
Here's something to not do:
No matter how empty your yard looks, no matter how cheap the plant in question may be, do not plant anything that has the word "Weed" in its common name.
"Bishop's Weed" sounds benevolent. Peaceful. Religious.
Don't let that fool you.
I had fond memories of it being in my grandfather's yard where it had filled the area between the driveway and the house. (Note carefully the words "filled the area between." This is very important.) At my grandfather's house, the range of the Bishop's Weed was limited by the space between the "driveway" and the "house." Without proper enclosure such as this, you will find that Bishop's Weed will fill the space between "The Sea of Cortez" and "the Yukon Territories."
I paid a gardener to come in last year and eradicate my sea of Bishop's Weed. He and his small army pulled it out by the roots as I stood on the deck and watched them with a drink in my hand, laughing like a madman right out of a 1940s potboiler. Be gone! Ha ha ha ha!
Then we covered the area with a bark mulch that was so deep that worms crawling out of the topsoil died of dehydration before they could ever get to the surface.
And what did I see last weekend when I glanced at my naked garden, wondering idly what I should plant? Bishop's Weed, or at least the little ferny tip-tops of them, pushing up through mulch that had stopped all other growing things in their tracks.
Once again I stood on the deck with a drink in my hand, this time weeping, this time wondering if the local Ace Hardware loans out flame-throwers.
Learn from my mistake. Don't do, I tell you. Don't do it.
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