The Sorry Gardener

Creeping buttercup is my nemesis. As my dad says about wallpaper, “It’s easier to move than to try to get rid of it.”

In my first innocent days of home ownership, I was so thrilled to have a garden—and so clueless about the plants the previous owner had left me—that I smiled at the buttercups with their cheerful yellow flowers and thought, “Gee, those are pretty. And Stephanie must’ve really liked them because she sure planted a lot.” That was back in the day when I carefully weeded around a bindweed all summer because I thought it was a flower.

Once I realized that buttercups were actually noxious weeds, I—being a human being—set out to eradicate them, as quickly and efficiently as possible so I could get back to the chaise lounge. First, I tried weed whacking them. But that only made them more dense. Then I tried Roundup. The buttercups cheered and said, “Pour me another shot, bartender!” The remodel bulldozers knocked them back a foot or two, but it was only temporary.

So, after failing to figure it out myself after a few years, as is my gardening habit, I finally resorted to “consulting the garden literature.” Yes, Google. When I’d slogged through a bunch of crap articles that swore I’d find salvation in the stuff I’d already tried—and then got my blood pressure up about the number of people cluttering the Internet with outright lies and wrong opinions, which is largely why I never “consult the literature” in the first place—I finally stumbled upon the advice I’d been looking for.

To paraphrase, so I don’t get sued, the article warned:

Do not underestimate the extraction of buttercups. There is only one way to eradicate them. There are no shortcuts. Definitive death occurs only when they are extracted by the roots and left in the hot sun to bake. Do not attempt extraction on a cloudy day. Do not break off any part of a root during extraction. Do not put the extracted buttercups in the compost pile, even if they appear to be dead.

The author sounded a little paranoid, as if she were looking nervously over her shoulder at the pile of buttercups baking in the sun in case any of them resurrected and came after her like zombies. So I knew she knew what she was talking about when it came to creeping buttercups. And I knew I was screwed.

Having now field-tested her advice extensively, I can confirm that she was correct. The only way to get rid of buttercups is to dig them up carefully, one by one, with a hand trowel—even if you have acres of them. It’s great on the carpal tunnel and the psyche. And it’s such a slow process that you can almost feel them growing new roots from the one you missed and growing back in the areas you’ve already cleared.

In my yard, the buttercups grow en masse—as far as the eye can see—around the perimeter of the yard, where the mowing stops and the woods begins. You know, the perimeter of the yard, where I planned to build a border bed after I finished planting the beds near the house. The perimeter bed that should be fully established and needing divided by now if I weren’t still planting the bed along the front walk after five years.

And if the buttercups weren’t weeds—if I’d planted them there—I’d be thrilled with my border gardening skills. They’re thick and lush and just the right height to soften the transition from the yard to the trees. How about if I just pretend they’re not weeds? Really, let me just do that. I delude myself in so many other gardening ways, let me just embrace the freaking buttercups … at least until I get around to building that perimeter bed.