Wednesday 9 June 2010

Wednesday Whimsy: Buttercups


Nature provides no better example of conflicted relationships than ours with the buttercup. This time of the year these weeds make the fields and meadows around Cullingworth a glorious sight – not the sharp, almost artificial yellow of the oilseed rape fields but a golden sheen across the green fields. For a few weeks in June this eruption of yellow delight lulls us into a love of the buttercup.

Come July though, gardeners will be back cursing and complaining about the buttercups as we vainly try to stop their remorseless spread across the flower beds and into the lawns. Wheelbarrow loads of little white roots and once yellow-topped greenery are removed, tactics for prevention varying from poisons of one or other sort to – in these less poison-friendly days – thick layers of mulch. All this will be in vain – the buttercups will return in their fancy yellow livery next year. Next year we’ll be struck by the lovely fields. And curse the invasive spreads roots that make gardening more of a chore than a pleasure.

Right now, though, I’m enjoying the beauty. I will worry about the pain a little later.

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