Things Grow

Things grow.  Even though we're getting well into fall and the trees are dropping their leaves, there's still enough warmth, sunlight, and moisture for the smaller plants to keep on growing.  I was very thorough in removing the plants from the fringe of the garden and digging to pull up their roots, but still, small green spouts have started to pop up everywhere, just two weeks after getting it cleared (see above).

Elsewhere in the yard, seedlings are fighting through the underbrush and leaf litter and hoping to join their parent trees someday as the elder statesmen of the yard.  Maple trees dominate much of the northeast boundary of my property, and this little seedling is one of several in a relatively small area that is trying to gain a foothold.

I discovered this little conifer while I was clearing out some thorny plants and surveying an edge of my property that I hadn't gotten to before.  He's lucky to have survived with all of the thorny plants around that could have choked him away.  His parent tree is not too far away - one of three evergreens in the yard.  (Sorry, my tree identification is not so good, so I can't tell you what type they are.)

And here is the devil.  Yes, that innocent looking sprig, small and harmless looking, has become the bane of my yard-managing existence.  This is the beginnings of a thorny plant.  In its early stages, it has no thorns, and it climbs straight upward.  Eventually, though, it stretches out, develops those prickly thorns, and overruns everything around it.  Yes, even now, as fall begins to foreshadow winter, the thorny plants are sprouting, growing, reaching out, taking over.  As I said, things grow, and the most aggressive plants, it seems are always growing.