The War Of The Weeds

Weeds.

Nasty Weeds.

Noxious Weeds.

They seem to be popping up everywhere, endlessly, endeavourly resistant. If you're a Star Trek avidavo, about the only plant that could probably defy The Borg's "Resistance is Futile" ultimatum are probably weeds. Or perhaps The Borg should have used weeds as their ultimate tool of assimilation.

I could almost swear that weeds come from outer space. If you look at its behaviour it's defying logic to life. You can plug a lettuce and it will die. Do the same to your roses, and it will die to. Pluck off weed, and for some reason they are still lurking underneath. Look at spiky weeds. Compare it to cacti. Cacti and succulent plants need spikes to protect its water content within its body. But what are weeds protecting against? They're not succulet but yet they have spikes on them. If NASA scientists decided to revegetate Mars, I would suggest use these weeds. I'm sure they would flourish nicely like the botanical garden out there.

Not sure if you live anywhere else on the earth with hardly any weeds, weeds seem to be a part of western Melburnians suburb scenery. No matter how you pull it out carefully, there's always a chance of one of its nasty roots to have broken off during the extraction process, lurking 6 inches below the ground, conjuring evil and carefully planning its next attack of all plant live on the surface of the earth. No weed mats seem to be able to deter their existence completely.

I ventured off on a crusade to eradicate weed that has been taking over our nature strip, front yard, and some in the backyard. The constant southern wind blowing all the evil offsprings of weed across the creek and various areas around has culminated on our nature strip.

Time for "Roundup" - weed killer - superhero, or so, from my local hardware store. I had a go, spraying every single weed in front of my front yard, with victory gleaming in my eyes... not quite yet....

The weather change, apparently a conspiracy with the weed society, or perhaps the witch doctor of the weed tribe is really potent in calling up the rain. Rain just basically wash away all the weed killer solution and the weeds are laughing back at me, merrily shooting out new sprouts and blossoming its noxious spring flower. I'm not finished yet...

Then came the draught...... out early on a predicted sunny day, I made my second attempt at attacking those nasty vegetation... I looked like a nuthead going around my front yard with a yellow spray gun in my hand spraying at everything in sight, broad leave weed, carpet weed, oxallis, spiky weeds, Spike the neighbour's dog... no just kidding... only the weeds.

Then I waited.

The afternoon was hot. There you go, I thought, let the sulfur solution burn the leaves of the weeds.

I waited still.

Second day the weeds are really there, but I could see some battle scars. Leaves start drying up.

I waited...

Third day almost half of the nature strip turned brown. I'm looking at a winning battle at last.

By a full week the whole nature strip has turned from weedy green to twiggy brown. Probably not the best sight compared to the leavy green weed it used to be, but hey, I won. And that feels good. And if anyone asked, why I got so much dried out plants on my front yard I'll just say, "Hey it's the water restriction 3a".

Is it a winning battle? Perhaps.

I get to comfortable into the winning feeling, merrily going along my own way, doing other stuffs and not paying attention. Then the last days of summer arriving soon... a couple of rains...

oh well, nothing.... so I slept another day.

The next day coming back from work I've noticed a horrible, familiar look upon my front yard.

The weeds are back!

They've gone up through the weedmats in my front yard, sporadically shooting up everywhere.

Can't they just please stay dead?

So here I am spending whole sunday morning cleaning up and pulling weeds again on my front yard. The battle is on again.

And as always, a couple of weed roots broke off during extraction, like before.

Lurking 6 inches below the ground, conjuring evil and carefully planning its next attack of all plant live above the surface...

and then the battle continues on...

again, and again...

The War of The Weeds...

by: Rianto