Several years ago I scattered California native wildflower seeds in our front flower bed.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn’t easy getting to the place where I could do that, though.  First, I had to free my front yard from the sea of vinca that grew there.

A look at our front yard before the vinca clearing

Vinca is an invasive, spreading groundcover that is very common here in our small town, abounding in front yards and on undeveloped land, too. Apparently, lots of people love it. True, it blooms with pretty purple flowers in the spring. It’s also better than the wild blackberries that cover entire hillsides with thorns so ferocious that they pierce all but the heaviest work gloves.

In a battle between  blackberries and vinca, I  have to side with vinca.

But it is invasive and it crowds out native plants, and it’s boring and, basically, I hated it.

I especially hated that it covered our entire front yard.

Vinca, vinca everywhere

So a few months after we moved in, one of my best friends arrived with her two strong sons. We had a vinca destruction party. We ripped and tore and pulled and dug. As we worked, we discovered large, lovely accent rocks that had been buried beneath the vines. The clearing process was therapeutic and exhilarating.  It was also a little smelly, because that’s how vinca is.  Mostly, though, it was exhausting. Vinca is tough.  But after a few hours of toil, the ground was clear. I was excited to start over and eventually planted a mix of native California wildflower seeds that came from the local native plant society sale. Continue Reading…