I’ve decided I’m going to have a new native garden philosophy!  I’m going to give up on weeding!  Or at least I’m not going to try to dig up wire grass anymore.  To dig it up requires using a spading fork and this basically destroys my garden.  Here’s a photo of where I dug up wire grass last fall:

Where Wire Grass Has Been Dug Up

It’s not worth it.

I know of more than one native flower garden in nearby City parks that has been abandoned because the gardener couldn’t control the wire grass.

I’ve found that wire grass is relatively unsuccessful in the vicinity of my tall flowers such as Monarda fistulosa, sweet Joe Pye Weed, goldenrod and green-headed coneflower.

My new philosophy is going to be to plant as many tall-ish flowers as close together as possible and ignore the wire grass.  I’d like to say I’m aiming for a Flower-rich Meadow but this is too euphemistic!  I’m going to have to say I’m aiming for a Flower-rich Mess and if the bees like it, then I like it.

In the interests of truth-in-advertising, here’s a photo of what my flower-rich mess looks like right now.  (Not exactly flower-rich right now but hopefully there will be a big transformation over the next few months.)

Current State of Flower-rich Mess