The Ongoing Struggle With Nature

This morning, I ran outside with a cauldron of boiling water and threw it against the base of a pokeweed.

I have never felt more like a crone.

Our land backs up to a wooded area owned by the county. They sadly neglect it and hope it will just thrive on its own. Except, of course, where there is a walking/biking path that they maintain meticulously, clearing it of debris and danger.

But as the property gets close to ours, they shamefully allow buckthorn to take over and suffocate local trees. Only the fiercest of weeds survives along the edge. Years ago, an old ash dropped all its leaves. A victim of the emerald ash borer. I called the county and told them it had to go. They came out and measured and decided the tree was inches onto my property. Sorry. Your responsibility. And fine, I took care of it. But they have many other dead and dying trees because of their neglect.

But I digress.

I do my best with the wooded 5 feet that is considered my property. One neighbor planted a row of cypress against the woods. It block out a lot of light, but does keep the woods from encroaching. The other neighbor has tried numerous things…planting flowers that he eventually moved because of lack of light. And has now retreated to just adding as much lawn as possible. A few doors down, the neighbor went out with a chain saw and took down all the buckthorn he could see. He now has a bit of a clearing behind his house. And that’s great for those who are in their thirties and want to take the chance of clearing the county’s property. My husband, on the other hand, hates gardening. He hates the bugs, the plants, and the outdoors in general. He is an indoor engineer. Enough said. And I just don’t have the will and the strength to tackle wielding a chain saw out back.

So I would gladly pay someone.

But landscapers take one look and will not work on anything that is not our property. (OK, rightfully so. I just know that the county would be happy if we took out the buckthorn for them.) But at this point, no landscaper is going to honor the plants I have in the ground, including bulbs. My experience is that they carelessly trample, dig up, toss things. They are slam dancers and my garden requires the pirouette of a ballet dancer.

Back to the pokeweed. The black fly in my chardonnay. (thank you Alanis).

I’ve spent years trying to kill this off and when I’m dead it will just take over and be triumphant.

But I’m not dead yet.

It tends to grow on the very edge of the woods. Where I cannot see it emerging until it is taller than the peonies. Every part of pokeweed is poisonous. The stems. The roots. The leaves. Oh, I don’t think they will torture you like poison ivy. I’ve seen that around too. It tends to grow a little further back.

But pokeweed has a strong woody stem that is hard to cut. It has a long taproot that goes deep into the earth and is impossible to dig out. If you cut it down to the ground, it will re-emerge within weeks. If, heaven forbid, it goes to seed, the next year you will have countless of these resilient weeds. (Ask me how I know.)

All of this leads up to a crazy old woman dashing out on a Sunday morning with her pot of boiling water. I don’t know if it will actually kill the plant of just water it a bit. Obviously, I am not a fan of weed killer. I’m much more likely to dress as though I am entering a sword fight, and attack the plant myself.

But I’m not going to lie. As I age, I am losing the battle. Pokeweed, poison ivy, bittersweet nightshade, mock strawberry. All terribly invasive and just plain bad for a cultivated garden. And all much more determined and resilient than I am.

So it goes.

Men and women have struggled against nature since we decided that we would try to plant a seed ourselves and nurture it for food or beauty.

And long after I’m gone, the struggle will continue.

I only know one thing. If we permanently win, we lose.

Birds love the berries and seeds of pokeweed. The chemicals to kill plants will also kill the insects. And whether any of us know it or not, the planet can survive just fine without humans. But it cannot survive without insects.

I do battle with the best tool I have—hot water.

And if I lose, well, in the end, no matter how hard I try, I will lose. That’s inevitable.

But if I am able to come back? I’m coming back as a badass pokeberry.