Turns out what I’ve been diligently watering and waiting for flowers is actually a noxious weed.  Ah.  It turns out too that rampant sweet peas are renegade ornamentals, escapees from gardens, ornamentals on the loose.

Flora have a vocabulary of war: takeover, seige, aliens, foreign invaders.  They invade, creep, grasp.

Purple Loosestrife is a weed, as is scotch thistle.  Dandelion is not noxious but diligently pulled out, not by me, but sells in Whole Foods for ore than cilantro. If you are smart, you can harvest these tender greens in early spring.

There is a law that no weed in my town can be over 12 inches, though I’m not sure of the situation if the weed is hanging its head down.  So I spent a few days madly weeding, first pulling out the ones that looked like bare branched stiffened yellow twigs; then the cheat grass followed by goat grass.  What I did not anticipate was the pleasure to be had at the sight of bare (more or less) ground afterwards.  A blank canvas for new plants!  Sedum?  Legal daisies?  Wooly thyme to match the rocks to give a Mediterranean aspect?

Wooly thyme seems best, with creeper flowers.  Pacifist and multicultural to the core.