Haunted

On an evening when there are frequent raps of the door knocker by children in various Hallowe'en costumes (including, tonight, a young pirate), here are three horrors that haunt my garden, and which M and I spent this afternoon trying to eradicate. Or at least reduce.

I'm still in the process of trying to identify them definitively, but I think they are (from left to right) couch grass or chiendent or Elymus repens, cinquefoil (Potentilla sp.), and bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis). I have to admire their persistence - they are so well adapted to frequent weeding (not frequent enough, evidently!), drought, fire, you name it and they survive it. Due mostly to their rhizomes or underground shoots in the case of the first and third, the tap root of the second, which give them underground resources from which to regenerate.

I've been given varous tips - cover the area with plastic or an old carpet to block the light, keep cutting the shoots so that the root withers, but I can't resist just digging them out because they are such a nuisance.

I've looked up the botanic names on the principle that it's best to know your enemy. I'll try the 'appliance of science'.

I'm also about to upload a couple of backblips: from yesterday, and from earlier this month (the latter featuring my granddaughter).