Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Il Faut Cultiver Notre Jardin: A Day for Tending to Grass (and Weeds That Grow Lush as Green Grass Grows Lush)



I think I'll take care of my yard today.


With the perfect storm of hot and wet weather we've had much of the summer, the yard has grown rank, lush, and beautiful.

Unfortunately, where beautiful grass likes to grow, so do weeds. From nowhere, they spring up overnight, and nothing the yard-keeper does deters them from seeding themselves and proliferating.

The very same conditions that produce the wonderful crop of green grass produce the noxious weeds. Combat the weeds, and you combat the grass. Spray the weeds with herbicide, and you will likely daunt the green grass. 

Pull up the weeds, and along with them come rootlings of grass.

So I think that, rather than blogging today, I'll take a leaf from Voltaire and cultivate my own yard, which sorely needs attention.

My yard: I'm talking about my yard, you understand.

Surely nothing else could prove so vexatious as a yard, with weeds springing forth due to the very conditions that produce beautiful grass, such that the yard-keeper confronts the quandary of knowing how to encourage the growth of grass while also controlling the weeds — and such that she often decides simply to mow the whole shebang, since weeds are green and, when mown down, they look pretty much like grass, anyway.

You do understand: I'm talking about my yard here. What else could I be talking about as I share these musings?

The .gif file of grass growing is by Animaldetector, who uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons for sharing.

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