spring weeds and seeds ... and a successful astilbe

I have fought against quack grass in almost every garden.  I recognize the hearty thick blades of grass growing obstinately through cracks in the sidewalk, slipping around iris bulbs to disguise their roots, sliding under fences, squeezing between slabs of concrete, running roots back and forth along a reliable black barrier to eventually find a way under and emerge triumphantly on the flower garden side of the no longer reliable barrier.

I discovered too late the wiles of the creeping bellflower.  By late summer, or early fall when we moved to Saskatoon, I'd see an occasional beautiful stalk of a blue bellflower'ish thing growing.  I didn't pay it much attention till I had dug up most of the day lilies, and yellow iris, and there was this plant that kept coming up.  By the time I started digging around to discover the root system of this thing, I discovered that repeated picking of the stalk just strengthed the thick tap roots a few inches down.  It would bide its time, and just send out innocent looking heart-shaped leaves, and thread-like roots and keep growing.  You'd only THINK you were successful in pulling it out as the stem stretches a bit and then breaks off at the surface. and the tap root just grins and keeps growing.  Sends out innocent looking leaves regularly knowing that eventually one clump will get away on you and grow into a give away bell flower stalk.  And if you try to uproot the tap, you will always have small threads ready to start up again.  Anytime.  Anywhere.    I tried roundup but it came back just as happy as before.  Now it has crept into all sorts of beds, as I constantly move soil around.  Apparently smothering it with newspaper may work.  I'm trying it on one patch.  I'll let you know how that works.

So, defining a weed: a plant that makes itself at home in a place where you'd prefer it did not.
Like an African daisy.  It began as one plant in my wildflower garden -  the year before it had been a flower in my neighbor's front yard.  ok.  that's fine.  I enjoy plants that need little encouragement to grow.  But it seeded out into the lawn, and crossed over into another bed and began to compete with the lilies and  iris.  and lawn.  Who does that?  Pulling them out relentlessly this year.

Bleeding hearts are naturalizing in my yard.  NOT a weed.  They are very well behaved, and grow in places where nothing else is happy, competing with some plants that look like forget me nots in bloom but turn into little burrs that ride on socks and pants all around the yard.  sneaky things.  but I digress.  Bleeding hearts.  They seed out in moderation, easy to uproot if I don't like the home they have chosen.  I planted one pink one in our first year, and a friend gave me another one a year or so later.  In the meantime, some white ones found their way into the yard, and are multiplying nicely.

What else is growing spontaneously ... I pulled out a rogue clematis this spring.  Well, not really rogue but old and woody and roots infested with that creeping bellflower.  A friend gave it to me years ago and told me that it would seed out all over the place.  In all its years in my front yard it never did. Till this year.  I dug it out, and now I'm finding babies everywhere.  Not sure what I will do with them.

Columbines are some of my favorite spring flowers, and growing them seems a bit like herding kittens.  They don't really pay attention to where you plant them.  They just meander over to a place they like and hang out there for a season or two.  I planted a pink and white one, and it lasted a year or two before disappearing.  Then a purple one showed up under the spruce tree.  And had a family.  a group of them show up most years.  One sturdy plant decided to grow in the north shade of the house under my white swinging bench.  It gets stepped on and side swept and generally treated badly by accident but it stubbornly decided that this was home. Kind of like my cat on my lap when I'm trying to work on the computer.  There was a group of purple and white ones growing among the bleeding hearts for a couple of years too, but they seem to have permanently disappeared.  or migrated.

And after years of trying to satisfy the persnickety astilbe, it seems to have found a place where it is happy.  It came with a friend who found dappled sunlight in my yard, and told me that it might like it there.  Well.  It has emerged on time and healthy... as opposed to the reluctant and late and passively resistant behavior of other astilbes I've tried to welcome.  I have purchased and borrowed, planted and transplanted ... and killed many astilbes.  (What is the plural of astilbe?  Astilbi?  Astilibus?)  You know that you taste success when you are going for two.
Apparently it likes dappled sunlight.  I know.  

Ladybugs everywhere