Tag Archives: garden maintenance

Garden Mystery: A Worm In A Knot

06/01/2025 svseekins 1 Comment

Gardening includes a fair amount of digging around in the dirt. It’s my happy place. Along with that joy, though, come various encounters with garden inhabitants.

Sometimes, I come home with a spider in my hair– it’s happened so often that I’ve become quite blasé about it.

Once, while trying to remove an unusually deep-rooted rhododendron, I disturbed a bumblebee. I hadn’t realized they nested underground.
Since then, I’ve found others in the dry duff beneath evergreen trees. Now, knowing it’s someone’s home, I try to be careful around that area.

Finding worms is remarkably common. Usually, I’m just glad to see them because their presence tells me they’re busy improving & aerating the soil. Whenever I find one, I carefully shift him to the nearest shady space so he can continue his good works.

Recently, I uncovered a worm tied in a knot.
Strange, eh?
I’ve NEVER seen this before. Have you?

How does one travel through the soil while one is tied in a knot? Wouldn’t squeezing through that tunnel make the knot tighter??
What’s this guy up to?
So, naturally, I had to Google it.

There are a few photos of a worm tied in a knot online.
There is chatter.
And lots of questions…

Some speculate that it might have something to do with drought conditions (although the soil was evenly moist where this worm lives).

Others figure it must have something to do with mating…
Can a single worm mate with itself?
Nope! (I googled again.)
Some worms have the superpower to gender shift, but every worm needs a friend to reproduce.

It’s a garden mystery to me.
If you can bring some light to the subject, that would be super cool. 🙂

-30-

garden chores, garden visits, months 04-06: spring, Uncategorized

Embracing Weeds: The Beauty of Wild Pansies

05/19/2025 svseekins 1 Comment

Typically, any plant growing between slabs of paving would be considered a weed, wouldn’t it?
My penchant for tidiness insists it is.
But perhaps I’m wrong.

violets, pansy, viola tricolor, wild pansy, johnny jump up, heartsease, heart's delight, love in idleness, come and cuddle me, tickle my fancy, garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

On our regular morning walk, I spotted some tiny violets growing in such a place. Instead of reaching for my scraping tool, I approached the ‘weeds’ with delight in my heart.

Wild pansy! 🙂

They were likely self-seeded from a long-gone hanging basket.

I hope the maintenance crew will let them be.
Would you?

-30-

evergreens, urban deer

Monkey Puzzle Envy

10/30/2021 svseekins 1 Comment

Half a block along our street grows a tree I admire.

It’s evergreen.
It’s super tidy & symmetrical.
And it’s just so FUNKY looking.

monkey puzzle tree, Araucaria araucana, monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree, piñonero, pewen, Chilean pine, garden Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC, Pacific Northwest — photo by SVSeekins

The Monkey Puzzle Tree, Araucaria araucana, is the national tree of Chile but seems to grow happily all along the coast of the Pacific Northwest.

That said, I reckon there’s no danger of it overwhelming the gardens hereabouts. That beautiful symmetry is created by triangular leaves spiralling around the branches and even along the trunk. The rigid leaf edges are sharp & the tips are severe needles.

It’s downright dangerous.

Even still, I NEEDED one in our garden.

No gardener of sound mind would position a Monkey Puzzle Tree near a high traffic area — nor underplant with high maintenance perennials.

Ever so carefully, I installed a Monkey Puzzle in an out-of-the-way section of our yard. I mulched from the trunk to the dripline. The very first season, a large buck attacked it with his antlers. I watched in amazement. I’ll bet the deer walked away with a migraine. The poor sapling survived with only 1 broken branch.

The Araucaria lasted maybe 3 or 4 years before it had sliced C one too many times.
He disappeared it. 😦
It hadn’t had the opportunity to grow to more than 3 feet.
So sad, but I understood.

The neighbour’s Araucaria was here when we arrived in the ‘hood. Over 15 years, it’s grown from a sturdy 6 ft. to an impressive 30 ft tall. (It takes patience to grow a Monkey Puzzle). They’ve limbed up the branches so whoever mows the lawn is much safer.

One day soon, I’m hoping it’ll be mature enough to produce cones. Can you imagine how pre-historic they’ll look, too?

I’ll happily admire it from afar.

-30-