Spring - Beauty and Beast - Part 2 - Beast

to get a grip on. It flowers and seeds anywhere from dime-sized plants in inhospitable places to lush green cushions where soil is rich and moist. Once all seed is dispersed and hot weather sets in, it turns yellow and dies. It wouldn't be so bad if it just stayed green, but it does not. Where I loathe it most is in the gravel drive, which it favors. No matter how much time is spent removing it, there are always seeds there waiting to germinate.

Tying with Poa annua is hairy bittercress, Cardamine hirsuta or C. Pensylvanica. This is an annual member of the mustard family. You probably have some. If you don't, you're likely to get it as a freebie in a nursery pot.

It starts out as a rather cute little rosette of rounded leaves, easy to pull if you can find it nestled into some other plant. It's also a fall germinator, starting in as soon as weather cools down. Mini rosettes winter over and greet the lengthening days of spring with exuberance. Over night, slender flower stalks emerge with minute white flowers at the tip - also cute, but only for an instant.

Before your eyes, the white flowers turn into slender seed pods. These ripen in a flash. When ripe, the slightest touch sends the seed flying yards away. It's another plant that is almost impossible to get rid of once you have it - you simply can't get all of them or even half of them before the seed ripens. It's also another plant that dies a horrible yellow death once all seed is ripe, making sure you see just where you missed pulling it and just where you are going to find thousands of them next spring.

A constant companion in woodland shade, Ground-ivy, Glechoma hederacea, also called gill-over-the-ground and creeping charlie, covers ground at a gallop. It spreads via underground roots, overground stems that root where they touch soil and seed. It likes sun and shade. It will survive in hot, lousy soil and become lush and actually quite attractive in good, moist soil. It's a member of the mint family and has a quite distinctive odor when disturbed. The flowers are cute, formed in pairs at the leaf nodes. There's actually a white variegated variety being sold by several nurseries. As much as I love variegated plants,

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