The Incredible Exploding Thistle

On a recent sunny afternoon, I noticed a mass of white gossamer fluff on the giant bull thistle that stands seven feet tall in one of the garden paths. It had not been there that morning. The mass consisted of spidery whorls of white threads, each carrying a tiny oval seed at the bottom. Some of the whorls -- "light as thistledown" because thistledown is exactly what they were -- were already lofting away on the breeze.

Uh oh.

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I pulled out a handful of fluff, marveling at how neatly and densely the seeds were packed in -- dozens wedged into one small round seed pod about an inch across. No wonder the thing burst open.

In botanical circles there is a technical term for exploding plant parts: dehiscence.

I couldn't let this particular bull thistle go on exploding. There were enough seeds in one little pod and enough pods on a seven foot plant to eventually turn the whole yard into a thick thorny forest.

Already, the floating seeds were finding resting spots in quiet corners of the yard, ready to set up shop and bring forth new generations of towering bull thistles.

Before going after the plant with pruning shears and thick gloves, I took some final photos of the magnificent purple blossoms, full blown and feathery, or wilting, fading, and folding into themselves. Thistle blossoms are sought out avidly by bees and butterflies, and thistle honey, of course, is much prized. That's one reason I let the plant live out most of its span of time.

On YouTube I found an amazing video of a swallowtail butterfly feeding greedily from a thistle blossom for a full two minutes, in a scene I have never witnessed directly but fondly hope has occurred in our backyard and will occur again.

The Umbrella Family

All over the backyard tall swaying clumps of Queen Anne's Lace are going to seed, thickened blossoms drooping earthward with their load of raspy pips.

About three years ago, along a country lane near the coast, I gathered a lot of seeds from these ubiquitous wildflowers and flung them around in our yard. They are biennials, evidently, and take some time to get going, but once established have no trouble holding their own and might even take over if not restrained.

Despite invasive tendencies they are welcome here because of their delicate lacy beauty at all stages of development and their ability to attract beneficial insects like lady bugs and tiny wasps.

Legend has it that someone named Anne known for her lace-making skill -- perhaps Good Queen Anne of England or Saint Anne, the mother of Mary and patron saint of lace-makers -- pricked her finger while making her famous lace. A single drop of blood fell on her handiwork and is memorialized in the tiny purple floret found at the center of some of the doily-like blossoms of her namesake flower.

Whatever the story may be, our wildflower "meadow" is an important part of the garden.






A close cousin of Queen Anne's Lace is the fennel that has been growing wild in this yard since before we moved in almost twenty years ago. Several stands of eight foot tall hollow stalks are bending under the weight of their airy grey-green disks of seed.






In one corner of the yard a lone parsley plant stands tall, offering up small plates of tiny brown seeds not heavy enough to bend the thin stalks.

Parsley, fennel, and Queen Anne's Lace are the current local representatives of the huge family of umbelliferae, a term derived from the same root as "umbrella" -- perhaps, and this is just a guess, because of the shape of the flowers. The family includes carrots, celery, cilantro, and the dread poison hemlock. Don't ever mistake the hemlock plant for wild carrot, children.

I plan to gather some parsley seed for planting next year and let the other plants come up where they will, within reason of course.

Weeds Gone Wild

Late rains have added a burst of energy to the already luxuriant weed growth. This photo shows the main garden path in mid-April: a jungle of arugula, mallow, henbit, burr clover, miner's lettuce, grasses, sow thistle, sticky willy, bindweed and other upstarts I haven't learned to identify yet.

I left it to grow unchecked because of the preponderance of arugula -- the tall plants with white flowers. We eat the flavorful leaves in salad almost every night so it seems a small sacrifice to have the main path, which is usually wide enough and more for a garden cart to pass, reduced to a barely visible trail through the undergrowth.




In this close-up I can see fennel, forget-me-not, gopher weed, burr clover, and what I think is Queen Ann's lace. Since reading Michael Pollen's chapter on weeds in his early book, Second Nature, I've come to have a grudging admiration for these entrepreneurial pioneers that move in wherever we gardeners disturb the soil, unwittingly creating the conditions these plants are looking for. Our common garden weeds are not representatives of wild nature into which our cultivated patches are inserted. They appear as a result of our efforts to clear and dig. It seems their job is to cover up bare ground, which Mother Nature avoids as strongly as she abhors a vacuum.

So I take a fairly laissez faire approach to the garden paths -- letting the "good" weeds grow (forget-me-nots, poppies, arugula, miner's lettuce, Queen Ann's lace) and letting the "bad" weeds grow along with them until it gets to be time to get serious about the summer garden.




In a few areas where it was mostly "bad" weeds starting to come up thickly back in February, I covered the ground with lots of folded newspaper before they got tall. Unsightly but useful, the newspaper made a good base for collecting the mounds of weeds that I did manage to pull up. (You have to keep your wits about you walking around this garden in the spring: threading through jungles, avoiding piles of decaying greenery.)

Last week, when I thought the rains might be done for the season, I pulled up the newspapers to clear the paths. Above is a scenic view of a cleared path. During the long dry season it will be a hard-packed track where only bindweed and some hardy grasses like to grow.




And here is a not-so-scenic view in the back corner: the half-composted newspapers make a good layering material for starting a new brush pile. Over several years, the pile will decompose and transform the heavy black clay beneath it into fluffy soil.

Salad Accoutrements

There is always something interesting growing in the yard to add to a salad.

Lately, one of the featured items has been calendula flowers. It's easy to pluck out the petals and sprinkle them into the bowl, where the little orange flecks make the various hues of green seem greener and more variegated. They don't contribute a noticeable flavor, but add eye appeal, and are reputed to have value as a medicinal herb with antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.




Another salad accoutrement free for the picking are the blossoms and blades of the wild onion. The little white flowers add color and they both add a subtle oniony tang, just the right amount for a hyper-sensitive person like myself who weeps when there are raw onions anywhere on the block, or so it seems. As the plants mature, the blossoms stop being delectable when hard seed pods form at their base, but the tender tips of the blades are still quite good.




These flowers and seed pods on the miner's lettuce signal that their season of perking up our salads is about over. It's been a long run, but now I will stand back and let them sow seeds for next year. The pods are forming along this stalk, like tiny green coin purses filled with a wealth of even tinier round black seeds.




Even though I regret seeing the miner's lettuce go to seed, it's a fascinating process. First the heart shaped leaves become round -- I have no idea how they manage to do it. Then they launch a sub-leaf from the center of the main leaf. This smaller version of themselves hosts the flower stalk, along which the seed pods will eventually form.


The mainstay components and added features of our salads vary from week to week and month to month. Right now the miner's lettuce, arugula, cilantro, spinach, and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce are winding down and the Red Lollo Antago lettuce is long gone. But there is plenty of Forellenschluss and Bronze Arrow lettuce, along with whatever accoutrements can be found here and there.

Spring Comes to Our Yard

We are finally getting some bloom in our own backyard -- several weeks after the neighborhood streets began to get festive with the new season. Perhaps we don't have quite enough southern exposure to allow for Valentine's Day blossoms. But the plum trees are making up for lost time, decked out in their dainty finery.

Overall, February is a back-and-forth month, mostly chilly, foggy, and rainy with a few glorious breakthrough days. Katherine Grace Endicott's Northern California Gardening gets it mostly right for our little niche: "February is a month of heavy rain and freezing temperatures in much of Northern California. The weather does not beckon gardeners outdoors. There are, however, usually one or two days of false spring -- days so gloriously bright and unseasonably warm that thoughts turn quickly to the garden."

We've certainly had the rain, if not the freezing temperatures. And we've had the glorious day or two of brightness and warmth that didn't seem false at all, and beckoned me right outside to plant a bed or two and admire whatever is in bloom.





The periwinkles are showing a bit of blue.




So are the forget-me-nots.




The arugula is growing like the weed that it is and starting to show off its white blossoms. It's still good for salads, though.

Buds Bursting, Birds Singing

Last weekend, C. and I took a walk through the nature area that runs through the center of a nearby subdivision. I was looking for signs of spring; he was running his own, mostly olfactory, survey. Here he is sniffing the breeze in the middle of a field of buttercups. If we could add little thought balloons to this picture, it would be: Me (off-camera) -- "Ooooh, buttercups. They weren't here last time we came by." C. -- "Four raccoons, six cats, and a dog who is smaller than me passed this way in the last 24 hours. Is this spot in need of marking? I think not."





The nature area is the site of a watershed restoration project. The creek is being brought back to its natural state. I was expecting lots of bloom, but perhaps these native plants have their own style, more subtle than the showy trees along neighborhood streets. Here's how the creek looks in mid-February.




The giant willow by the waterhole where the local kids like to play in warmer weather is starting to leaf out. A delicate greening is the main clue to the advancing season. I noticed lots of fat buds on several different types of trees.





After we got home, I took this photo out the back bedroom window of a robin gorging on ivy berries. There were several of them rustling around and whistling their happiness over a beautiful day in early spring.