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.

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. 🙂


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.)

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.
How’s this for an exercise regimen:
- get fit
- roar like a guerilla
- AND conquer an invasive!
Why not?
-30-
© SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life, 2014