Phantom weeder - revealed!

This morning as I was surveying the lie of the land, the mystery weeder was revealed to me! While I won't give his exact identity (I don't know, maybe he wants to out himself?) let's just say he is actually a staunch supporter of P. Garden! A nice person! Who thought he was doing us a favor!

The way he put it, he was actually pulling out weeds. And what can I say? He was! Poppies, Blue-Eyed Grass and Corn Marigolds are in fact weeds to some people... we cannot fault his logic - they grow wild! (How the Ceanothus came to be pulled is still a slight mystery)

So I showed him how some small, baby plants are very hard to distinguish from weeds at that age. Take, for example, the baby Gaillardias, which even I would pull out except that I know what they are. And I told him we're growing some California natives because they don't need much water, have pretty flowers, and the local wildlife appreciates it. Which brings up the interesting definition of what a weed is to different people. And what a flower bed should look like: neat rows, or a mass of colors?

Happily, he's offered to "weed between the lines" - in other words, anything growing in the paths is a weed for sure. I am really grateful for the help there!

For one, I now think it's hilarious because he really was trying to do us a favor (let's face it, we do have weed-weeds!) and for two, I am very relieved that there isn't some nutter on the loose ripping up plants in the night. Thirdly, I'm very grateful that he told me about his nighttime gardening, otherwise I'd have been stressing and worrying and restless about it all (see yesterday's post for general angst.) And finally, I have to say "thank you" because he was doing some well-intentioned dirty work for P. Garden. You cannot fault a man like that.

Top: Pineapple Mint (Mentha suaveolens variegata) growing well, and a red Watsonia (not an orange Crocosmia as we thought when we planted it!)