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WHAT DO OUR GARDENS HAVE IN COMMON WITH THE WILD WEST?
A wide range of common plants, including groundcover lamium, have the potential to become tumbleweeds.
By LADYBUG
What do our gardens have in common with the Wild West? In one word: Tumbleweeds! Or the potential of tumbleweed.
I was watching the docudrama Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War recently (what can I say, my husband is a fan of the genre) when a giant ball of what looked like twine or dry twigs rolled across the screen.
What is a Western movie without this quintessentially wild west element? Having seen this in countless movies in my youth, when I didn’t have access to trusty Google on my phone – when I didn’t have a cell phone, period – I hadn’t really thought to learn more about tumbleweeds. Because by the time we got home (yes, this was in the good old days as you may have gathered) I’d forget to do so.
As this was not the case now, I hit pause, looked up tumbleweeds and was surprised to learn that many plants can become, in essence, tumbleweeds.
“A tumbleweed is a structural part of the above-ground anatomy of a number of species of plants. It is a diaspore that, once mature and dry, detaches from its root or stem and rolls due to the force of the wind. In most such species, the tumbleweed is in effect the entire plant apart from the root system, but in other plants, a hollow fruit or inflorescence might detach instead. Xerophyte tumbleweed species occur most commonly in steppe and arid ecosystems, where frequent wind and the open environment permit rolling without prohibitive obstruction.
Common garden plants such as beebalm can turn into tumbleweeds.
“Apart from its primary vascular system and roots, the tissues of the tumbleweed structure are dead; their death is functional because it is necessary for the structure to degrade gradually and fall apart so that its seeds or spores can escape during the tumbling, or germinate after the tumbleweed has come to rest in a moist location. In the latter case, many species of tumbleweed open mechanically, releasing their seeds as they swell when they absorb water.
“The tumbleweed dispersal strategies are unusual among plants; most species disperse their seeds by other mechanisms. Many tumbleweeds establish themselves on broken soil as opportunistic agricultural weeds. Tumbleweeds have been recorded in the following plant groups.”
And imagine my astonishment when I read that the list includes common plants in our garden, everything from the groundcover lamium to asters given the right – wrong – conditions.
Amaranthaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Asphodelaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Boraginaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Fabaceae, Lamiaceae and Poaceae.
While each is a large family of many plants, it’s still within the realm of imagination to picture a few turning into tumbleweeds.
Amaranthus, asters, the borage family which includes forget-me-nots. But amaryllis? The trusty bulbs that we purchase to force into bloom over winter to bring some cheer to our winter-weary hearts?
Or brassica, which include such staples of the kitchen garden as cabbage, kale, cauliflower and broccoli? Try as I might, I can’t get the image of a head of cauliflower bouncing around my yard out of my mind!
And what about lamium with it pretty mauve or yellow blooms? How would that turn into a giant ball of tumbleweed? Then I think that it does cover areas where grass finds it hard to flourish. I also learn that lamium belongs to a family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint, deadnettle, or sage family. Many of the plants are aromatic in all parts and include widely used culinary herbs like basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, hyssop, thyme, lavender, and perilla, as well as other medicinal herbs such as catnip, salvia, bee balm, wild dagga, and oriental motherwort.
So I can totally see mint, oregano and lavendar doing that, but again have difficulty imagining my patch of bee balm with its jester’s cap-like blooms turning into tumbleweed.
But having read up on all this, now I see my garden with new eyes. And with gratitude for living in a climate where my plants don’t up and tumble away.