When we moved here twenty years ago and remodeled a little brown cabin into a year-round home, I wanted to separate the area around the house from the forest and fields surounding it. Being twenty years younger than I now am, with lots of energy, my own knees and a love of moving rocks and planting things, (and being of apparently  unsound mind) I hauled rocks, laid out a somewhat formal garden behind the house, built stone walls and outlined planting areas with more rocks and bark. Hmm. Maybe that’s why my knees went.

The entire area around the house was finally finished, with only a small area of grass. The rest consisted of perennials: herbs, lilacs, mock orange and a little lavender, with some annuals here and there.

                                                           And a few weeds.

Along the outer edge of the more structured  gardens north of the house I planted eight lavender plants. I put one on the west side. Between the ones in the row of eight I transplanted the calendulas which had popped up like weeds in all the planting areas (remnants from previous owner).  I received my first lesson in deer and gardens when I quickly learned that deer love calendulas, and neatly nipped out the newly formed buds from each plant.  No calendulas now grow in my gardens.

                                                     But the deer ignored the weeds.

I had saved every pot from every plant I bought those first couple of years, not foreseeing future need, but because I am a saver. One never knows …..

Soon I began to better understand  Carl Sandburg’s poem “Grass.”  Vegetation of all kinds, if left to itself, will cover  all areas which have enough moisture to support it. Never mind my neat rows, my carefully laid-out areas separated by gravel paths. I found lavender, oregano, mint, thyme, winter savory, ladies’ mantle, hardy salvia, coreopsis, campanula, anchusa and scores of others sprouting up in places I deemed undesirable. The battle was on.

                                                      And of course there were weeds.

At last I had a use for all those pots. I dug up and potted seedlings by the dozen, for I couldn’t bear to toss them out like weeds. I advertised, took them to the Wenatchee Farmer’s Market at 8 a.m. each Saturday, and gave them away. Many of them escaped my trowel and took root in my own gardens, which is why lavender now thrives in all areas surrounding the entire house. 

                                                             As do the weeds.

In one area separated from the rest by driveway and a wall, lupine appeared a few springs ago. Now, annually, the lilacs on that slope are surrounded by a mass of purple lupine. In other places, one quince has become a mass, a lone Oriental poppy has multiplied into a Van Gogh of deep orange, and purple catmint surrounds the rose-red peonies. Creeping thyme carpets much of the bark paths and golden yarrow blooms when the blue flax is finished.  And everywhere is lavender.

                                         And the weeds fill the spaces between.

 I never wonder what will happen here should there ever be Life Without People .  As Sandburg said, I am the grass; I cover all.

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