New House Blog: Episode LXV - Looking Over A Three-Leafed Clover

Yes, it seems that Clover/Shamrock Season has officially begun.  As you recall from this Episode, our front yard succulent garden was formerly a wild and unkempt mishmash of a hodgepodge of unkemptness.  And it was apparently a sanctuary for pesky plants we call the accursed shamrocks.  Said accursed shamrocks are, for the sake of those who don't remember and don't want to re-read an older blog posting, little green pesky pest plants - weeds - that have 3-leaf clover leaves, multiple stalks, white roots, and bulby-type seeds.  They can apparently grow in any type of soil, and they lie dormant for several months, lulling unsuspecting homeowners into thinking that they had removed all of them last spring.

The accursed shamrocks are back in force.  We thought they were pretty much gone from our succulent garden, and we hadn't seen any for several months, but after the first, and so far only, good rainfall of the season they started sprouting up everywhere in our succulent garden.  So we pulled them all up.  And just a week later what should start showing up again, poking their little green heads out of our soil?  Yup, a second wave of accursed shamrocks was upon us.  This Episode deals with us dealing with the second wave of pesky accursed shamrock plants.  But first we have a bonus construction/wiring question for our readers.

Bonus Construction/Wiring Question

This photo was not taken at Our New House - it was taken at a not-to-be-named apartment complex in the Mountain View/Sunnyvale area.  A family member was dwelling in this complex up until recently.  While she was living there the management started some remodeling, and this wiring appeared one day, and it is still as you see it in the picture.  Again, the complex's management installed this new wiring as you see it in the photo.  Now for the bonus question: What's wrong with this picture?

Dealing With Accursed Shamrocks

So far, the best way we have found to deal with the accursed shamrocks (yes, I do have to call them accursed every time I mention them)  in our succulent garden is to dig them up one by one.  Complicating the work is the closeness of the succulents and the sparseness of places to kneel or crouch down.  It is a tight place in which to work, and it also doesn't help that many of the accursed shamrocks like to grow among the leaves and branches of our succulents.

 This is a view of the typical density of accursed shamrocks in our succulent garden.  They're ubiquitous!  And they're insidious.

Here you can see a good example of the accursed shamrocks growing up through the branches of one of our coppertone stonecrops.  It's a challenge to dig up the accursed shamrocks without damaging the surrounding plant in such cases.

This photo shows some of the size variation of accursed shamrocks.  The green parts grow above-ground, and the white parts grow-below ground.  Note the one on the far right with its seed/bulb attached.  The gloves are included to show scale.

 This is a close-up of the bulb/seed structure.  Note that multiple stalks are growing from this particular seed/bulb.  This is not atypical - we observed several cases of multiple stalks emanating from one bulb/seed.  Did I mention that these things are insidious?

More accursed shamrocks.

This is the result of two weed-pulling sessions over two days.  As of this posting the succulent garden is free of accursed shamrocks, but more could show up any day.



When are we gonna get more rain?
   bIsh