Insidious

The rain of the past couple of days has made it a good time to do some weed pulling. After neating up the xeric landscape in the front, I decided to tackle the lawnful of weeds in the backyard. After two hours, I have an intrinsic understanding of the word insidious. The lush grass pictured above (taken about a month after it was planted) does not exist two years later. Now it is filled with dry, bare spots, holes (thank you dogs), crabgrass. dead grass, grubs, and numerous weeds.

I was angry enough at the dandelions that had invaded. Those sunny yellow flowers place themselves in the middle of the grass, thick taproots required extensive digging and pulling to remove them, if I am lucky enough to isolate them when surrounded by thick grass. (Why is it that the grass is only thick around the dandelions?)

A blanket of spurge (yes, I had to look it up) had spread throughout the grass, requiring me to trace its source so I could firmly grasp the main stem and root. And then, as I looked closely at the grass, I noticed the thick, branching blades of crabgrass. To add insult to injury, as I easily lifted the patches of dense, dead grass, I discovered the cause of its demise. Round, juicy, ugly grubs! (I looked this up on the Internet, too.)

I don't know if I even made a dent in removing these invaders and yes, some normal grass was sacrificed to remove these bothers. Perhaps it deserved it for harboring them.