Canna Lilies Are the Devil: Part 1

While on a long car trip with  the mother of my best friend (and fellow blog contributor) Melody, I read aloud to her from the book Paradise Lot by Eric Toensmeier. She also happens to be my former Biology teacher and a former forester, so I was sure she'd be intrigued by permaculture. When she heard how passionate I was about the subject, and after she mentioned how lackluster her backyard had become, we decided to solve both our problems at once! Thus, my first official permaculture project was born! Mrs. Snow (yes, that's her name!) is giving me almost free roam over the back patch of her backyard, for me to test out all the permaculture principles I've learned.

It was perfect! Sure, it may be a tangled mess of overgrowth, but it gets FULL SUN, faces the south, and the only tree that could cause shade is going to be removed! In other words, it was a dream come true.

The only problem is, the sunny patch of her yard that I wanted to work in has been completely overrun by canna lilies for the past 11 years. Do you see that brownish patch in the middle of the photo? Dormant canna lilies. 

What are canna lilies, you may ask?

Well, according to Melody and Mrs. Snow, they're a voracious weed that spreads by its roots and takes over everything in their path. They'd been trying to get rid of them for years, and were interested to see whether I could contain them. Being the fearless Forest Queen that I am, I welcomed the challenge.

Unfortunately, in mid-March, their giant stems are like dried corn stalks, but the base of the stems are too slimy to cut with the loppers, and their roots are like anchors, so yanking them up wasn't an option.

After several hours of raking, pulling, trimming, and singing along loudly to the Les Miserables soundtrack, Melody and I finally made headway on the patch. We had to snip the canna lily stalks about six inches off the ground, so that after we raked all the debris away, the soil was studded with straw-like stubble. 

Just south was a patch of vinca, or perinwinkle, which is almost as back-breaking and time-consuming to remove. It was a dense green tangle of slender five-foot-long fines that trailed along the ground like the hair of a dryad. We made great heaping piles of compostable material! I can't wait until it can really start composting! These are the things that excite me. 

 Can you see our progress? I'll be writing more posts as I continue planning and working! Unfortunately, Melody goes back to school at the end of the week, but I will carry the torch for her and keep on working in her garden.

'Til next time!

~Forest Queen