"Earth Day" turned into "Attack Your Garden Day" around here. The Genus Allium includes onions, garlic and shallots, and also a big family of pretty ornamental flowers. I planted some many years ago and they've gradually spread and smothered big swaths in the spring garden.
After they bloom, the foliage dies back and the lazy gardener can ignore them again. Well, up to a point, that is. The self-propagated ones were mostly leaves, and hogging up too much prime real estate.
Digging them out is a dirty, thankless job. About half the time the stem snaps off, leaving the bulb deep in the ground, which means you get to do the same thing again next year.
There's also the possibility of collateral damage. The poor lilies are just sticking their dainty heads up while you're stomping around with a shovel. Sometimes, there's no nice way to do things in the garden.
After two mornings of of work, I filled the entire yard waste bin with alliums, but lucky for the bees, we'll never be entirely rid of them.
The garden can actually breath a bit now. It was so choked with vegetation, I thought some of my favorites like the expensive Echinaceas had perished over the winter, but they were just hiding under the allium mess.
It's also a good idea to turn the soil occasionally, and what a pleasure seeing lovely worms in the dark, rich dirt after so many decades of gardening.
Onward we go. Nature abhors a vacuum, as do most gardeners. Like some sort of dahlia alcoholic, I bought "just one more" on Ebay this morning. (Is there anything you can't find on Ebay?)
Like all dahlias, this one is wonderfully garish, but the name is what really sold me. Who could resist a flower called Bohemian Spartacus Burgundy Gold?
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