Drifting seeds portend hours of weeding

Dandelion seeds float like soft snowflakes across the lawn, lifting, dipping, drifting along in the breeze. The seed storm is an ominous warning of massive weeding efforts yet to come. Some of the seeds float across the fields to the road’s edge.

They become lodged in the tall grasses there and await a steady rain to press them to the ground. Others drift over the grassy barrier into the garden and inconspicuously rest on the fertile soil there.

Drifting seeds may be the gardener’s bane. Why can’t gorgeous plants such as monkshood or bleeding heart proliferate by wispy seed?

Oh, I know, some people think dandelions are beautiful. If the nuisance plants could contain themselves to areas outside of my garden, I suppose I could find some level of enjoyment in them, but I find myself cursing their willowy yellow heads when they do what they do. You know … you mow the lawn, they giggle as the mower passes overhead, then proceed to sprout up 8 inches by the next morning. They turn to seed by the second day’s nightfall and send their young off to punish you in the garden.

“We’d best find some beauty in them,” one sensible woman said to me this week. “They’ll outlast us all!”

Yes, I suppose so. But as long as I have a Cape Cod Weeder and a good arm I will attempt to annihilate those tenacious yellow beasts. I will scrape. I will dig. I will yank.

I will grow weary just thinking about the years of weeding ahead.

Loads of other plants proliferate by wind dispersal of seed. Valerian, a wildflower here in Maine, may drift hither and yon. The plant grows with amazing gusto. Deeply lobed lush green leaves grow in a dense mass, sending up lovely creamy white flowers that release a sweet vanilla fragrance. Masses of small flowers cluster atop sturdy stems that may reach 8 feet by mid-June.

Throughout summer, the flowers of valerian come and go, and so do the seeds. Valerian will pop up here and there, creating either a wonderful, ever-changing cottage garden effect or join the ranks of the dandelion, depending on your view of their seed dispersal efforts.

Thistles, of course, also proliferate through the wind. Canada thistle and milk thistle are greedy weeds in these parts. The milk thistle sends off ugly runners from the mother plants, invading the immediate area with obnoxious offspring.

As far as proliferation of the species goes, wind dispersal is an excellent means of passing genetic material far and wide. For the dandelion, valerian and thistle, the wind improves the plant’s range. Some plants rely on animals for seed dispersal – burdock, for example, clings to our pant legs or to the fur of animals and is spread from its original area. Other plants rely on water for their dispersal – the coconut floats from island to island to improve the palm tree’s range of growth.

But of all modes of transportation, wind dispersal might just be the most effective. It may blow from the northeast one week and the southwest the next. A succession of maturing blooms ensures that seeds will be dispersed whichever way the winds blow, increasing the plant’s range over time.

Ah, the wonderful fragrance of freshly cut grass just wafted in on the breeze through the window. And what’s that?

Oh dear, my husband seems to be oblivious to the giggling dandelions as they duck below the mower’s deck.

Where’s that Cape Cod Weeder? Excuse me, but my arms are aching from typing away here. I think I’ll go stretch them out and deal with those pesky weeds.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.