Day 214: Another one of those "too pretty to weed out" plants, this Oriental poppy was one of the discoveries made while renovating grassed-over flower beds during the first spring after I moved here. At the time, I didn't realize how aggressive it was and gave it a position of prominence beneath the window. By the time a few years had elapsed, it had multiplied to a three-foot diameter clump, dominating the garden with its foliage long after the short-lived flowers had dropped. I decided I'd had enough of its bullying, and one day went out with the shovel to address the issue. "Look, you're fine as a bush, okay? But I want more bang for my buck. You're just not givin' me colour here, kid. Move out!" I excavated a wide circle, convinced that I could win the war with one pre-emptive strike. The following year, dozens of little poppy leaves up again in the spot I'd dug out. I executed another shovelling assault. Even so, it took about five years before I had successfully removed any trace from the flower bed. The relocated poppy was quite happy against my back fence for a decade until one tree began shading it out. After an inner debate, I decided to relocate it again rather than letting it die off. It now occupies a space in the Barren Wasteland which, I must say, is at this point hardly deserving of the name.
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