Convolvulus

Here’s what I know about convolvulus.  Donkeys love it.  They hoover it up as the rest of us hoover up spaghetti.  Convolvulus is also known as Morning Glory.  At our place, I’m working on the only Glory in the Morning being Donkeys honking.  We’re not quite there yet.  We’ve still got Morning Glory and Honking Donkeys.

I know another trick about convolvulus.  If you raid the local retailers who sell white-ware – or any other large item that comes in a large box of their cardboard; – you will be doing them a favour.  Where we live it usually costs retailers money to get rid of it.  Anyhow – after a pleasurable period of time ridding the cardboard of plastic tape and packing note covers, and if you’re really anal and have small children, the staples that held it together; you may place this on the unplanted sections of your garden – and indeed around the sections that are planted, and cover it with mulch.  Mulch may be donkey poo (in plentiful supply here) or lawn clippings or seaweed, or coffee grounds, or preferably a combination of these things and anything else a reputable permaculturist might suggest to you.

After a couple of moons during which you have hung your whites to remove stains, lamented planting your broccoli during the wrong quarter, and sowed a slough of seeds that now require regular watering or planting out; - and - during which you could have designed a silent drone, or a decent face mask, or how to clap with one hand; the most wondrous thing will happen.

That pesky convolvulus will have risen to the surface – just under the cardboard.  It will be poking wee heads of very cute benign looking new life above the mulch and if you grab it now – you will be collecting a veritable feast (bolognaise) for your donkeys – or you will clog your wheelie bin.  Either way it will be a wondrous thing.

In the normal course of events convolvulus  goes deep underground and valiant efforts to extract it usually result in the beggars breaking off so that every broken piece may sprout more of the horrid stuff.  Once it comes to the surface however, there is great joy in hauling out the long running roots, and either tossing them over the fence to the obliging asses or whacking it in the wheelie bin to become somebody else’s problem.

About now I can hear some of you asking why we wouldn’t just deal to it with chemicals.  I dunno.  Maybe I’m a masochist.  Maybe I care about the planet a bit and this is one way of making my contribution towards staving off it’s desecration.  Maybe it’s my way of staying sane. At the end of the day Donkeys Honking – is a hellava lot more pleasurable than convolvulus – even my neighbours seem to think so.  And the best thing is that I am an old dog and I have learned a new trick.

If learning is not already a life-long pursuit for you maybe it could be.