Relative Something

Into the woods we headed, Cyndie with a plastic bag in hand, Asher and I tagging along randomly behind. It was a multipurpose jaunt to give Asher some free time outside, to take advantage of some welcome sunshine, and to eradicate as much invasive garlic mustard as possible.

We had just come from having pulled up a thick sheet of black plastic that had covered a poison ivy patch beside a pathway for two growing seasons. I thought we would find nothing but black dirt beneath, but there was a bleached-out layer of a dead, straw-looking mat of grasses that remained.

Since I tend to get overwhelmed when the invasives we are after show up everywhere I look, I let Cyndie focus on the garlic mustard, and I kept an eye out for vines on tree trunks. Even though I felt sure I had already scoured the area we were in for vines visible at the base of trees, I kept finding a remarkable number of cases.

During a pause in my efforts, the thought occurred to me that I should have taken a picture of what I was finding. The reason that hadn’t happened was that each time I would see vines, I jumped into action, yanking them off the tree and pulling up the other end from the dirt as far as I could before it broke. I think there is a fear that if I look away for an instant, I won’t be able to see it again when I look back.

I think vines might be shape shifters. There may be a secret technique to getting rid of them, though. It seemed to work for me. I decided to finally take that picture of them after thinking of it, and lo and behold, I wasn’t able to find a single instance of any more vines on trees in that area of our woods.

Speaking of that part of our woods, it is an area with a lot of ash trees, all of which are gradually succumbing to their inevitable demise via the emerald ash borer beetle. Have you seen what it looks like when an ash tree gets stressed?

They sprout sucker growth in a last gasp attempt to regenerate. Does this ever work for a tree? We don’t expect any of our ash trees to survive, but their demise takes a drawn-out 3-5 years. It’s an ugly thing to witness.

On a more beautiful note, the lawn of our backyard is sprinkled with more than just grass because we have little pink flowers that accent much of the slope, and the first blossoms of the year have begun to appear.

Thank goodness those little beauties haven’t been declared invasive and needing to be pulled by the roots. Our turf sports a natural look not found on sports fields and golf courses. Wildflowers are welcome here.

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