This being the weekend of Candlemas, the halfway point between the solstice and the equinox everywhere, but here on Anastasia Island it is most certainly the earliest evidence that winter is sliding into spring. Here it is a fine time to pull weeds, to clean out the dead and overgrown and make way and for new growth in the sleeping garden.
Lauren put me to the task of clearing out wedwliathat was crowding the Meyer Lemon as well as the firecracker bush, red salvia, weeping bottle brush, plumbago, sea grape. It was crowding every other plant.
The wedelia preceded all the other plants. When we first began to eliminate the lawn that was the first place we planted and wedelia was one of the first plantings. Wedelia provided a way to replace grass with a leafy green plant, and it came with little yellow flowers as well.
The wedelia did exactly what it was expected to do: it flourished. Over many years of trimming back again and again and pulling up gently by the roots to transplant in other areas, this patch of wedelia never weakened. No matter how many corners of the yard received those new generations, that first wedila patch remained supreme.
Today, as I pulled the plant up I remembered that it had done just what was asked of it and did it well, but now it was time to allow the shrubs to flourish much to the demise of the wedelia.
So I ripped it out, all of it except for a small island of low to the ground green. If ever it is time for the wedelia to return, I need only to empower the small patch. That small start will replace all that has been destroyed today.