Yard Fight

It has been my experience that when we have moved into a new house with an old yard, there is always something that makes me question the prior owners' choices of landscaping.  Like why did you cram a crepe myrtle next to the house so that I am constantly trimming it off the roof or why did you plant a bay leaf magnolia over the back patio so that leaves are so thick in the fall they are ankle deep? Or why in the name of all that is good and decent did you let hundreds and I do mean hundreds (I had trapped over 200 by the time we left) of voles move into every available plant root system in the yard?  These are the things that I faced in Memphis that I resented every season when I had to "clean up" a mess that I didn't make. I can't even begin to tell you about the pond that was beautiful for the first two weeks in Spring with the cute little frogs croaking....until it was a pool of green slime that I could have marketed to kids who love to make the stuff.  I know we all have those nagging garden irritants that we have to deal with on a regular basis and it makes gardening nothing like the shows you see on TV where someone is happily planting some beautiful annuals while wearing a cute little apron and sunhat.   

But nothing tops our Texas hill country yard fight. The family who sold us the house decided that the front yard needed a face lift and decided to plant three large agaves, the middle one being five feet tall and counting.  Why oh why did God make agave? Wait. Tequila, of course. And there are places in Mexico where they are farmed for this delicious beverage. But ours is not of that variety. When I kept impaling my hands on the sharp toothed fronds this morning I wondered why this big treacherous thing exists. And to add insult to physical injury, it puts out pups--that's what the baby plants are called. And, boy, is it a promiscuous plant, because they are everywhere and if you don't dig them up, they grow to be the same size as their parent with the same teeth and needles. I'm pretty sure the Native Americans used them for sewing buffalo hides and such. They could pierce metal. And ours are along the front walk into our house. So if you don't know us, you might think we are trying to deter you from "sittin on our porch awhile".

This is not our first rodeo with this menacing plant. When we first moved in, we were trying to whip this Texas yard into shape. (impossible with cactus and rock)

I have lived the majority of my life in the deep South, having fluffy and soft flowers and shrubs. That is not this land. Clark was using a chain saw to rip up some old and perhaps snake infested cactus when we noticed a large agave with her pups in the area the kids had been playing.  I told him to go for it. He revved up the chain saw and was dismembering its arms when the alien plant started spitting all over him. This thing was alive and fighting back.  White juice covered any flesh that was not protected. And then he began to burn. "Corlea, I'm on fire!" he said. He jumped into the shower and emerged with welts everywhere the juice had landed. We considered the ER but ended up at the pharmacy and the staff shaking their heads. 

The agave is still out there, itching for a fight. It will always win but I have cut some of the needles off the top fronds so when people walk by they won't be stuck in the eye or other body part. Other than that, since they are too big to dig up, we have to put up with these ultrahazardous beings for 15 to 20 years when they produce one 30 foot ugly flower and then they DIE.  I hope I'm alive to see it.