Well, noone can ever say that we don't lead interesting lives at times! Last night was the preview tour for the garden tour, which went very well. Everyone seemed to like our garden, and the others on the tour were quite nice too.
However (here's where the fun starts) one of the master gardeners informed us last night that our 'hedge' of flowers along the front path were noxious weeds - commonly called Cypress Spurge - and very invasive. Oh oh. Today I got on the internet and started snooping around and found out that yes, it's on the list of noxious weeds for this area. Upon further research I found out that it's a Really Bad Plant. Double oh oh. Fine in this area for having noxious weeds is $500 and up. Big OH OH! So....Jack started digging it all out, which left us with a rather large area of dirt right at the front of the house. Panic call to the local garden centre to see how late they were open and nearly $100 and a mad planting later, we have something that doesn't look too bad. Not as nice as our spurge though! Why do the prettiest plants have to be weeds?
Part two of this fun story is that we got a phone call this afternoon from a good samaritan (!) who had read in the paper that we were harbouring milkweed in our flower bed. THAT is a noxious weed too!! If the truth be known we were aware of that and planted it anyway so we could encourage the monarch butterflies whose habitat is dwindling. We were delighted to see the butterflies hovering around it the past week or so. (By the way, did you know that milkweed flowers smell rather like a light version of lilacs?). More computer research! According to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (who must know these things) I read the following: "Milkweeds are an important componant of the native & naturalized vegetation communities of Ontario as they are an important nectaring plant for many species of Lepidoptera, such as the Monarch butterfly.....Enforcement under the Act will only accur if a common milkweed population is negatively affecting commercial or horticulture production." So the milkweed is staying in the garden, and the good samaritan (who didn't give his name) can fly a kite. So there!
Sorry, no pictures today!
LOL ... noxious, invasive ???? I picked up a brochure last week from the local conservancy assoc. about invasive species on our island ... it was only slightly hinted at, but the actual largest invasive species is we humans ! and what right do we have to say that other living things are invasive ???? I wonder about this a lot of late
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