Lesson 8: Beware of Charlie... He's a Creep!

There is definitely a theme of yard and garden lately but when you own a house it's such a big part of it all! The lawn is looking pretty sad in general. The only person who seems to care and help me with it is Emerson! He's been doing a lot of work for me such as cutting the grass and weeding and I am very appreciative of it! A couple weeks back we were looking at my back yard and trying to draw up a plan for making it much better. Honestly, there is so much that can be done.. it's like a blank canvass.. the only problem is I'm too lazy of an artist to paint a beautiful picture if you know what I mean!

While Emer and I were looking at my back yard I pointed out this clover type weed that seemed to slowly be eating up my lawn. I mean it's kind of pretty if you like clovers. It's really green and.. well... it looks like clovers which are supposed to be lucky, so LUCKY ME! Not quite. Emer decided to investigate and found out that it's something called Creeping Charlie and it is not cute nor lucky. It made me start to think... who names plants? Why would they look at this clover type weed and name it Charlie? I mean, I get the whole creeping gig because it's literally creeping around my backyard making a home for itself. But why Charlie? Does the plant-namer just have a thing for alliteration? I'm going to google this. Sorry, I digress.

 Creeping Charlie creeping in my wood chip area... 

More of Charlie creeping up my nice tree!

It's pretty easy to rip out with your hands because it's all connected. It's arms are long and lanky and it wraps around everything on your lawn. The more I think about Creeping Charlie, the more it makes me think of it in a personified manner. I can't help it, I'm imaginative. I think of myself standing at my kitchen window looking out into my backyard and here's this sketchy man laying on my grass, rolling around, and covering my grass. I picture myself yelling at him through the glass, "Hey! Who are you??" and he looks at me still rolling around on my grass and calls back, "My name is charlie" and then he gives out a creepy laugh. Creeping Charlie scares the crap out of me.

There is a way to get rid of him or it. Emer discovered from my neighbour that you can spray it and it will die. Back to my imaginative world, I picture myself walking outside and standing at Creeping Charlie's feet and spray his face with a Windex bottle full of whatever it is I'm supposed to spray Creeping Charlie with. He then gives out a scary scream and disappears.... I don't think getting rid of the real Creeping Charlie is going to be that dramatic although it'd be way more entertaining.

Things I learned from Lesson #8:
- Once again, lawn and garden are the neediest parts of owning a home.
- Take time to identify if you have Creeping Charlie. Don't assume, like me, that my back yard is slowly becoming the luckiest place on earth!
- Look into getting a job as a plant-namer... it could be a LOT of fun.