Glum

Lockdown’s getting me down.
Nothing particularly bad has happened – that is, nothing out of the usual extraordinary events - increasing rates of infection and death, United States aflame, South Africa’s freefalling economy….

News blues…

Sean Collins writes a good description of why the protests in the United States are different to those of the past three decades:

We have seen uprisings over racism and police brutality before, the most famous being the civil rights movement of the 1960s. There was sometimes a sense that those uprisings had brought on a great deal of progress in a short period and that the eradication of systemic racism would be a long-term project from then on out, with incremental changes ensuring the arc of the moral universe bent toward justice. The recent protest movement — though nascent — seems to reject that idea. The protesters want change now.
… protesters are demanding life itself be changed — that policing be fairer and kinder, that biases be inspected and corrected, that lasting policies be implemented that erase inequality, and that all people be able to move through the country without experiencing existential dread.
Read “Why these protests are different”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

Gardening heals the troubled heart – and raises questions.
Canna indica, the canna species I’m attempting to eradicate, originates in “North” and “South America”.
As the pile grows of discarded stems, tubers and roots, I wish I could return them to their place of origin.
But where, specifically, is their place of origin?
Would that place of origin repatriate and re-acclimate packages of canna tubers and roots if I packed them up and mailed them back?
I could address the packages:

Granddaddy of Canna indica,
c/o South America

Clearing the garden continues apace.
Last year, I eradicated about 87 percent of this garden’s invasive cat’s claw creeper - dolichandra unguis-cati. (Like canna, cat’s claw originates in “South America” – a continent vaster and more diverse than that descriptor implies.)
As I dig out canna’s tubers and roots, I discover cat’s claw making one last stand: the creepily persistent creeper thrives amongst overgrown canna.
Cat’s claw is botanically designed to proliferate: its roots have bulbs that remain in the ground after the roots and stems are pulled out; tenacious “claws” on its fast growing stems grip any surface; segments of stems quickly regenerate; each plantain-sized seedpod produces dozens of winged seeds that are borne by wind.
Cat’s claw is the only plant that I’ve ever sprayed with inorganic herbicide. And that, only after weeks studying the plant’s habits and concluding that herbicide was the practical solution despite my organics-only ideology.
Perhaps I could have packaged up and returned cat’s claw,  too?

Granddaddy of dolichandra unguis-cati
c/o South America

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