I see nothing wrong with wildflowers like fireweed, lupins and others. If
you control them in your garden they make lovely backdrops and are perfect
for the areas where nothing else will grow, or areas that are hard to get
at.

-Karen


"Barry C. Parsons" wrote in message
...
With that quote, I am reminded of my mother's flower garden around the bay
that I started for her. She called me several times to tell me of the
lovely
tall spiky plant that was growing beautifully in her perennial border and
that she couldn't wait for me to come out and tell her what it was so she
could label it so as not to forget where it was over the winter. When she
called in utter delight, that it was starting to bloom in pinkish purplish
flowers, I packed up the dogs and kiddies and drove around the bay to
investigate.

I arrived to find her carefully weeding chickweed from around her pride
and
joy: a wonderfully healthy, fertilized, mulched, 4 foot tall, bushy and
profusely blooming FIREWEED!

Without saying a word, I leaned in to the back of the border , grabbed it
by
its main stem and promptly pulled it straight up and out of its place of
honor. The resulting shrieks of horror from dear old Mom brought more than
one curious neighbors eye peering over the fence.

I don't think she ever really forgave me or indeed agreed with my
selective
destruction. Given her druthers, I believe, she would still be cultivating
a
little patch of fireweed in that border still.

"KR" wrote in message
om...
Thanks everyone for your advice, it has all been great!

I think I will sit back on the front porch and watch my gardens grow
while enjoying a tall glass of drink. I will definately take those
beers next summer, I am pregnant right now.

I realized yesterday that similar to the quote, "One man's trash is
another man's treasure," perhaps it is also true that one man's weed
is another man's rose!

Katherine

"Doug Kanter" wrote in message
t.net...
In one of his great books, garden writer Henry Mitchell comments that
tourists love to visit Versailles, and comment on what amazing gardens
were
created by King Louis the whatever. They forget that except for the
statues,
the beauty they're seeing is due only to one thing: The labor of the
people
who cared for it yesterday, not hundreds of years ago.

Perhaps the previous owner let one season go by without doing the
necessary
work, hoping it would care for itself. As another person here
suggested,
limit yourself primarily to maintenance and observation this year.
Take
pictures, make notes, walk around with catalogs & books and identify
what's
there.

Have a couple of beers. Things could be worse. You could be one of the
unfortunate people who doesn't have a garden at all.