Gardner's Journal: Bermuda

I awaken around 2 to the rush of a spring storm. The heavy rain falls and I think in my pre-awaken stupor of one thing: weeds.

I know that the hard Oklahoma sun will soon bake the earth into an unmoveable clay pot, unforgiving and unyielding as May gives way to June, June to July. By August, even the hardiest of annuals and perennials are thirsting and wilting.

But not Bermuda. This spongey grass is the usual selection of most yards which face the cruel ice of winter and the heat of summer. It is heat resistent, tolerant and oh so persistent. While its beauty of a lawn can outlast other varieties, it's deadly in the garden where it inevitably makes its way. Like a great green spidery wave, it laps at my garden, threatening.

My love/hate relationship with this plant yields more towards "rage" this time of year. After weeks of carefully laying the foundation of my beloved roses, perennials each day more and more of my garden is laid in its path.

I have made counter-attacks by building borders of wood, sometimes 12 inches high. I have laid a trench of sand, covered by a rubbery length of something. I have laid rock, retaining walls as a fortress to my creations. "Stay out!" I say, each day. "Why are you here? It's not as if you don't have two other acres to fill in!" My shouting is futile, my effort seemingly worthless. It's fingers clutch at the edges of the borders, grasping for the mulch, sending itself towards the plants, overtaking all in its way.

This is its attack: Sometimes the start of one end is just a distraction...it's real root is perhaps several feet away, every few feet or so it sends its death-defying roots into the ground, anchoring itself, feeding on the healthy soil. It's a thief, this thing, keeping all the nutrients for itself, keeping others waiting, despairing, hungry for food and water.

Each day I assess the damage, weeding fork in right hand, bag in other. These are my extensions, my claws as I trudge, make my way. I stoop and kneel and begin the removal. Precision is called for, concentration needed. I point the fork into the moist ground (always better to weed after a big rain), it gives way. I push a bit more and then some more. There is a deep pleasure I feel in going deeper and deeper until the end of the root is found. Triumphantly, I push with my forked claw and I pull with my left and the intruder is removed.

Sometimes I curse at it, amazed at its persistent and strength. I believe that if I don't keep doing this work that my entire house will be a victim to its voracious appetite and strength. Drifts of it have been known to cover entire stones, eating its way through sidewalks, even walls.

Each day this is my work. I water, I weed. I water, I weed. Water, weed, water, weed. Within the counter attacks there is a certain respect I have for this persistent lodger. Its verocity and strength amaze me. I think of its qualities and I see things worthy of respect: tenacity, strength, consistency.

But Bermuda, like a malignancy runs through my yard, with its bandido ways and piracy.

Some of my friends suggest that I use weed killer and I have. But the blessed wind in Oklahoma can really be tricky with that. One small breeze and what I intended for the root of bermuda will be on my hydrangea or my begonia or worse, my roses. And if indeed the weed killer does its work, it leaves its mark with an anemic patch of yellow. Better to have the claw, I find.

My battle lines are clearly drawn, I will fight to the end. I have the same tenacity it has..I can beat this thing. So each day, I trudge, I claw, I weed.

(unfinished)....