Blundering Gardener: Thistles and quackgrass and dandelions – oh, my!

Hot, rainy weather is nirvana for weeds. Check out my garden if you don't believe me.

The weeds that drive me nuts the rest of the year are familiar, their points of origin clear. Such perennial weeds as Canadian thistle, oxalis, quack grass, plantain, bindweed, wild violet and dock survive no matter how vigorously I went after them the year before.

Annual weeds like dandelions are just as bad. Their seeds blow in from neighboring yards even if mine are all dug up -- not that they ever are. Equally annoying are the acorns that rain down on my garden in late summer and produce wire-stemmed seedlings so tenacious that I have to use pliers to pull them up the following spring.

Then there are the self-seeding annuals and perennials that I planted myself. These include a nonsterile catmint (never again!), cushion spurge, California poppies, creeping Jenny, wild petunias, an heirloom morning glory called Grandpa Ott ... the list goes on.

I like drumstick alliums. I used to love them. I'm not referring to Purple Sensation, a hybrid whose stems are strong enough to hold its flowers aloft. I mean the tall, skinny ones that reproduce so thickly they collapse before a single bud has appeared. Unless given something to lean on -- like an upright sedum or a stout boxwood hedge -- they flower in the prone position.

At first I thought the onions were some native grass I'd invited onto my boulevard strip. On closer inspection, I sniff the same monster that had tried to suffocate the Angelina sedum, English thyme and hardy geraniums on my brick terrace. I must have pulled up thousands -- no, tens of thousands -- of the pea-size bulbs. The best time to weed is after a hard rain, by the way.

I've left most of the Egyptian walking onions alone, even though they've also multiplied many times over since last summer. Their tall grayish-green and -- at this time of year -- erect stems make a bold vertical statement against spreading conifers and creeping sedums.

I know they soon will produce onions at the tips of their tubular stalks and that the onions will cause the stalks to bend under their weight and topple, whereupon another stalk -- this time in a prone position -- will shoot off from the first.

Thus, the plant will begin its stroll through the garden, here and there sprouting new bulbs, roots and plants. Around mid-July, the original stalks will begin to age, turning brown and unattractive. That's when I'll begin to question the wisdom of planting Egyptian walking onions in the first place.

On the other hand, every garden needs its eccentrics.

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Blundering Gardener: Thistles and quackgrass and dandelions - oh, my!