sandburs
I was outside sowing wildflower seeds this afternoon while the cold front was moving in.
No wild oats. I had a mixture of “deer-resistant” seeds, and also a bag of standing cypress, which Tricia is fond of. I also sowed a bag of bluebonnets, just because you have to have bluebonnets in Texas.
I sowed some of these same seeds last year and didn’t see much of a result. We had a real dry winter and spring though and there did not seem to be many wildflowers much of anywhere around here. We have had a couple good rains already this fall but it is too early to know whether it will be good for wildflowers or not.
The deer stood around and watched me sow the wildflowers. I’m sure they are making dinner plans, even if it does say “deer-resistant” on the bag.
One thing I noticed while I was sowing seeds was that we have a good crop of sandburs. After I finished with the seeds I got a wheelbarrow and hoe and went back out to dig up as many as I could. Luckily they have shallow roots. I put them in the wheelbarrow and then emptied it into the trashbin, being careful to get all the stickery seeds out.
It brought back memories. I’ve been living a citifed life for many years now, with manicured lawns, and I had just about plumb forgot about sandburs.
When I was a kid, I can’t remember how many times we ran into the house crying because we had picked up “stickers” on our feet while playing barefoot in the grass. My dad eventually got them all hoed out I guess, or maybe it was the St Augustine that smothered them out of existence.
Do you remember sandburs?
October 18th, 2006 @ 8:36 pm
Must be a Texas weed. Never heard of them. But we have the odd thistle growing in the lawn and that isn’t very much fun to step on barefoot. Also, Dutch clover grows in our lawn (what am I saying? it’s what Ken Druse calls a cropped meadow) and when it is in bloom you have to be careful not to step on the bees, which just love it.
October 18th, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
I don’t remember them here in Texas, Bill, but they were in South Carolina, too. We once lived there and they’re hard to forget!
I love that standing cypress, too - may it grow and bloom in spite of drought or deer.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
October 19th, 2006 @ 5:42 am
Wayne over at Niches describes wildflower seeds as having a three-year cycle. First they sleep, then they creep, and finally they leap. I planted some seeds last fall and saw not a one come up in the ensuing year. But I am still hopeful.
Not sure that I ever encountered sand burs in my Missouri boyhood, but I have heard of the devilish things.
October 19th, 2006 @ 8:05 am
You can get those burrs in the city too. Friends in Rosedale in central Austin had a lawn infested with the darn things.
October 21st, 2006 @ 5:42 pm
You certainly know what sandburs are if you live and were raised in Oklahoma..a few miles west is a place named Burbank and supposedly it was named after the many sandburs or cockleburs there on a bluff/bank….a few miles south is a place named Hominy..And I will save that legend or story for another day! Reading these names, you have to realize NE Oklahoma is Indian country..
More interesting reading here, if you like..
http://www.oklanature.com/prod/osagehistory.html
Glad to read someone still plants the wildflowers…they are so lovely to look at..
October 24th, 2006 @ 10:03 pm
I think we called them grassburs. And, crapola yes, I remember them. Especially honery if you get them all tangled in cotton shoestrings…
The worst was getting the bottoms of your rubber flip flops covered in ‘em. I usually just threw the shoes away and told mama I lost ‘em.