Weed Eating

Weather: Afternoon temperatures have remained in the 80s, and humidity has fallen below 10% in Santa Fé and Los Alamos. However, the sun isn’t as intense as it is after the solstice, and so the heat hasn’t bothered plants as much as it will in summer.

Last snow: 4/13. Week’s low: 33 degrees F. Week’s high: 85 degrees F in the shade.

What’s blooming in the area: Austrian copper and Persian yellow roses, yellow-flowered potentilla, spirea, snowball, bearded iris, blue flax, snow-in-summer, Jupiter’s beard, golden spur columbine

What’s blooming beyond the walls and fences: Tamarix, alfilerillo, western stickseeds, tumble mustard, fern leaf globe mallow, green leaf five-eyes, phacelia, flea bane, goat’s beard, common and native dandelions, June, needle, rice, cheat, brome, and three-awn grasses

What’s blooming in my yard: Woods rose, beauty bush, chives, star of Bethlehem, vinca, coral bells, Bath pinks, winecup mallow, pink evening primrose, wintered-over pansy

What’s emerging: Roses of Sharon, desert willow, tree of heaven, Russian sage.

It’s the time when the seeds I planted haven’t germinated, but all the weed seeds that were in the bed are coming up, especially alfalfa, white sweet clover, and Queen Anne’s lace.

Bedding and house plants: Snapdragons, zonal geraniums

Tasks: Cheat grass is in seed. I’ve been trying different ways to remove it, including pulling it from beds and mowing it down in open areas.

Animal sightings: Calico cat, two rabbits, chickadees, house wrens, quail, gecko, bumble bees, hornets, crickets, sidewalk ants.

Outside cats don’t do anything to discourage birds or rabbits. They only help with the mice if that’s their hobby. The calico is too well fed to bother. The one animal they seem to scare is the ground squirrel.

Weekly update: When I was a child, my father used to complain about a neighbor who mowed his lawn on Sunday mornings. He wasn’t concerned with the violation of the Sabbath, but with the noise from the electric motor. Today, weed eaters, or string trimmers as competitors would say, are even louder.

I’ve always scoffed at them as a way to do more than cosmetic improvements. People always wait until weeds are tall and in seed, before they attack them. While they may create a level green appearance, they also plant those seeds, and thus insure people will be back the next season doing the same thing.

Last year I bought one that was battery powered. Not only was it lighter-weight than an electric one I had had years ago, but the design was better. The cord didn’t bind as often, and I was able to repair it myself. Before, I had to beg for help to get mine tool back in operation.

My purpose was cutting down the alfalfa that I planted around the crab apples to keep down the winterfat. This was one of those "set a thief to catch a thief" scenarios. The alfalfa did keep down the competition, but it needed cutting to keep it from overpowering the trees.

Since I don’t cut it by hand anymore, the stems are taller. They turn woody when they dry, and have created great clumps that are resistant to the nylon string. A lawn mower would work better, because its steel blades would cut through those stems. But, of course, that’s not possible.

I doubt the cut alfalfa is doing much to improve the nitrogen levels of the soil, because I don’t trowel the cuttings into the soil. If I had time and energy to do that, I wouldn’t need a power tool.

This year I thought, since the trimmer works so well, maybe I can use it to control some of the volunteers in my driveway. Pulling cheat grass by hand is the only way to remove it, but it’s so prolific nothing is going to eradicate it. It grows back quickly after I cut it, but in places I’ve been able to keep it low.

The problem with using the tool in my driveway is the gravel. One doesn’t want to get it so low the string kicks up stones. However, I only want to keep the tahoka daisies and purple asters so low their woody stems don’t rub the bottom of my car. This may be better than a herbacide that leaves dead stems to be cut down.

As for that childhood neighbor with the lawnmower, I wonder now if the noise wasn’t part of the allure. It was the 1950s, and he was divorced and remarried. Perhaps announcing he wasn’t in church was another way of defying the conventions of the small town.

Notes on photographs: All taken 10 May 2020.
1. Snow ball (Viburnus opulus).
2. Goldstar Potentilla fruticosa.
3. Spirea vanhouttei.