My Nemesis

Two years ago I made a huge mistake. How I regret it. I loved the way the flower of the cilantro plant reminded me of Queen Anne's Lace, which I have never been able to root in my garden. Therefore, I took the seeds of a couple of spent cilantro and scattered them in my back garden. Other seeds scattered naturally as I pulled the plants out at the end of the season. Little did I know that the plant is viscious. I spent much of last summer rooting out baby cilantro plants and I thought I had won....black garbage bags were full of the green stuff and there was no evidence of cilantro anywhere in any garden bed. Well, this year, the year we have to make buyers think we have a beautiful yard that demands no work (ha!), there it appeared again. This is what it looked like the day I took a hand rake and, on my hands and knees, scratched it out as best I could. Two weeks later it is flourishing almost as much. Yesterday, in a light rain, I went out and scratched it up again with a long rake. Tomorrow I will go out and try again. I bought some weed repressent mulch and will see how far one bag will go. Not far enough, I imagine. Hopefully, the people coming to our open house today will just look through the living room window to the deck (or from the deck) and won't go wandering in the back garden...it looks beautiful today even though the tulips and daffodils are spent. The lilac, the crab apples, the azaelea, the lily of the valley, all should bedazzle and confuse and prevent the reality of weeding from intruding on Eden.