Friday, August 5, 2011
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
And the Weeds Shall Inherit the Earth
By J’AMY PACHECO
We’re in jeopardy.
Forget the hackers who have, according to recent news reports, been sneaking off with our nation’s most valuable and confidential information for half a decade. Don’t worry about the fertilizer that Homeland Security wants to have regulated to deter homegrown terrorists. Heck, I don’t think we even need be concerned with earthquakes, hurricanes, plague, famine or giant asteroids obliterating our planet.
In my opinion, it’s weeds that are going to do us in.
For more than a year, my husband and I have been waging war with weeds and crabgrass in our front yard. We knew when we bought a fixer-upper in a suburban community surrounded by undeveloped, weed-covered hills that we had an uphill battle ahead. The yard of our tract home was sort of green, but we quickly realized any civilized grass had been choked out by some very aggressive crabgrass.
In fact, spring had barely sprung when the crabgrass started trying to expand its territory by sending out tendrils across the walkway to our door and the public sidewalk in front of our house as if reaching for small dogs and passing cars. We tried to keep the creepers under control by yanking them out, but like the mythological Hydra’s head, each one we pulled resulted in two more growing back.
When Hercules battled the many-headed Hydra, he used a torch to put an end to things. Although that sounds a lot like something my husband would try, he took a different approach. One day, I arrived home to find a big pile of dirt in my barren front yard.
He’d rented a rototiller, which is a power tool with giant teeth that essentially takes huge bites out of the earth. After it ate the crabgrass, he sprayed the yard with a chemical designed to kill the pesky green stuff.
We hauled in new topsoil, placed flagstones all over the front yard, and sowed not wild oats, but some wispy, meadowy-looking grass. We couldn’t wait to see our whimsical front yard.
Not long after, however, monsoon season arrived in Southern California. For days, rains battered our tender little lawn, washing sprouts, seeds and rich black earth across the sidewalk, down the gutter and into the Pacific Ocean. Somewhere, on some deserted tropical island, there’s a gentle green meadow growing.
The crabgrass somehow managed to come back. Big, ugly clumps of grass that have threatened to swallow up all of our carefully placed flagstones along with our hope for a nice-looking front yard.
A few days ago, in preparation for a block party being hosted by my next-door-neighbor, I went out to try to at least get the grass out of my flower beds. It took hours.
A neighbor dropped by to chat and offer some words of encouragement.
“You know, it’s just going to grow back twice as thick,” he said helpfully. I almost didn’t warn him when I saw a tendril reaching for his foot.
My neighbor suggested I hire somebody to bring over some industrial-strength grass killing stuff to put an end to my dilemma once and for all.
I thought maybe a rototiller and a case of green spray paint would get us through the party. And then, who knows?
One thing I do know is that this issue isn’t resolved. In fact, I have this theory. I think one of these days, the city in which I live is going to be swallowed up by crabgrass. And people driving down the freeway that runs along the side of my city will say, “Hey, whatever happened to that nice little community that used to be here? It wasn’t always just grass, was it?”
This idea is not without precedence. I remember seeing a scary television show as a child in which a bunch of plants grabbed a woman and carried her off, presumably to wherever it is that plants have dinner. In the film “Jumanji,” fast-growing plants grabbed a police car, folded it in half and dragged it off into a newly-created jungle.
I know these examples come from fiction. At least, I hope they do. But it’s been decades since I saw the television show and while I can’t remember its name, I do remember how scary the image was.
It’s been said that truth is stranger than fiction, and at the rate my front lawn is sneaking outside its boundaries…well, let’s just say I won’t be turning my back on it.
A blowtorch, maybe. But not my back.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company