A labyrinth is meant to increase peace and serenity. What a lovely shift in perspectives.
It looks like creeping thyme is a fine choice for separating the pathway. It’s tidy, low growing, deer resistant & smells lovely when disturbed. I think it’ll be striking in bloom. The bees should love that.
Certainly it’s the talk of gardeners in Brentwood Bay & Saanichton.
Now the mystery is solved. Paul, the gardener, was in attendance when we drove past the other day, so I stopped to chat with him.
He says it’s just a regular heather that started to climb the ground wires of the utility pole. He thought that looked kinda cool, so he encouraged it along by tieing the heather further & further up as it grew. The ties wear out & fall off about the same time as the new branches mature enough to hold themselves in place.
It’s famous, says Paul. The local newspaper reporter also stopped by for the photo-op. Pretty cool, eh?
It’s a fabulous season for finding my inner guerilla. On my morning walk I noticed a bunch of healthy daphne / spurge-laurel beside a wooded trail.
I have a paradoxical relationship with daphne. I like it because its evergreen, drought tolerant, and deer resistant…
BUT the Coastal Invasive Species Committee call it invasive.
AND daphne has poisonous berries & wicked toxic sap that irritates eyes & skin.
BESIDES that – – there are less offensive options to replace daphne.
photo by SVSeekins
The rainy season & my mood convinced me that today I didn’t like it. So I decided to pull some daphne closest to the trail edge & my gloved hands.
I braced my feet,
bent my knees,
gripped the main stalk,
and PULLED.
Lo & behold the daphne slipped out of the ground easily! Roots and all! Woo hoo!
I felt like pounding my chest & letting out a guerilla roar!
I moved to another… and another. 🙂
photo by SVSeekinsphoto by SVSeekins
A young daphne has one primary root, so in winter’s wet soil it pulls out readily. If it’s a couple of years older, it has more developed roots securing it in the ground . Even so, it comes out without much trouble at all!
In about 10 minutes I pulled 86 daphne!
(Seriously!! I counted.)
photo by SVSeekins
There were more still standing beside the trail but I had places to go…
so I left those behind for another day.
This is certainly the best time of year to conquer daphne.
I reckon I’ll add a little daphne pulling to my morning walk.
Garden Variety Life 