My Yard Is Politically Incorrect

Many Portlandians worry more about invasive plants than they do about undocumented immigrants. My yard is overrun with invasive plants. Since I never plant anything, this state of affairs is not entirely my fault. Somehow the invasives just got here. I have no doubt that their ancestors have lived here since before I was born.

But it certainly has gotten worse since I purchased the 1926 cottage in 1999.

My yard is not politically correct. With Oregon’s climate working against me–months of replenishing rain followed by a temperate summer season—the fallow winter yields to a spring onslaught of every non-indigenous chlorophyllian spawn that can cross a lot or be carried on the wind.

I’ve had estimates of three-to-five thousand dollars to remedy the situation. To whack everything down, uproot the roots, chemicals as needed, and start from square one. Some other expenditure always rises in priority. See, I like my politically incorrect yard, a mutant green and occasionally flowering jungle that looks the way something looks when nature, good and bad, takes over.

If I lived in a more controlled neighborhood, with covenants and paint-color restrictions, I’d be in trouble. I would be getting complaints about property values. So I chip away, just enough to deflect the possibility that my neighbors will band together and take action. I’ve taken to hiring out the front yard to a professional crew, for periodic “clear and hold” operations. They don’t remove the offending plants, they just neutralize them, root-shock them, until the shock wears off and the invasives come back with a vengeance.

I deal with the back yard, which is a disaster. My loppers are dull from constant “pruning.” Roundup weed killer is my Agent Orange.

I’ve got blackberries; they’ll rip you apart if you go in unprepared. I’ve got two kinds of ivy, a ubiquitous green and a mottled celery-toned variety, both of which send tentacles up into the indigenous trees. I’ve got an aggressive copse of bamboo, planted by an ex-girlfriend for privacy, which has turned my side yard into Burma. I think I’ve got both Morning Glory and Mourning Glory. I’ve got enough English holly to decorate Downton Abbey for Christmas.

And check this: my yard has become a breeding ground for poison hemlock.

These non-native plants come in addition to clumps and outgrowths of common weeds, like dandelions, which shoot yellow flowers in brief lifespans before the foreign mutants sap all nutrition from the soil. Every now and then, an ancient bulb planted by a previous resident will spear up from the ground, and multiply.

Native plant forms that once lived here have long been driven off the land. It’s odd, because right next door on either side neighbors have returned their yards into an approximation of the way God and nature intended, strictly indigenous, with welcome plants like Vine Maple, Wild Current, and Oregon Grape.

I’m like the neighborhood Boo Radley of yard maintenance.

Ridding your property of invasive species is a badge of honor in these parts—you get a certificate for it, and a plaque to display in your yard. At block parties, I joke about my “invasive plant museum,” and people do laugh. But I suspect they’re secretly hoping for the day something changes at my address. Perhaps at some point in the future a progressive young couple will buy the place, and invest in the eradication of the invaders.

They might miss me at the parties, but they will not miss Shady Hollow, the Bamboo Curtain, or The Day of the Triffids.