Up the garden path

Okay, strictly speaking not the garden path, but the path from the house to the driveway.

Back in May, this thistle grew to a height of three feet before I finally stopped walking around it and actually pulled it up. 

Having done so, I looked up the path and found myself thinking: Wasn’t this path originally much wider? When exactly did it become so overgrown with weeds? It’s a gravel path. How is it possible for there to be so many weeds?

The answers to these various questions are: (a) yes, (b) slowly over several years and (c) nature – as became clear on closer inspection.

Down on my hands and knees to start the weeding, I realised:

-       Over the winter lots of pine needles fall

-       Lots of rain falls on the dead pine needles, turning them into a mushy pulp

-       Moss grows on the mushy pulp

-       The combination of moss and mushy pulp is all the encouragement many weeds need to sprout.

There you have it. Botany 101.

I could, of course, have simply sprayed the whole path with Roundup. (Oh, ha, ha. As if that would ever happen.)

I managed to weed (and widen) the path for about the first ten feet from the house, then Juneuary set in. Too wet and too cold for weeding.

This week I finally got back to and finished the job.

Quite the difference, n’est-ce pas?  (Roxie is clearly impressed.)

And in semi-path related news (well, the path is in the photo), a reminder while I was eating dinner last night of one of the many reasons I love living on Gabriola. I looked up from my book to see this.

Bambi eating weeds ten feet away from me? Fantastic! (Bambo rampaging through the garden? Not so much.)