There’s a lot to be excited about with the native plants I’m nurturing. An entire patch of wildflower seedlings popped up in a spot where I planted them two years ago! The same thing happened with a little tray of California Sagebrush coyote bush seedlings. I had long given up on them, but here they are. (Hi, guys!)

The hummingbird sage plants that I thought needed to be moved to a better spot have come back lush and strong. I can’t wait to see their beautiful pink blooms again!

And, the California Buckwheat plants in the front yard are bright green and so much bigger! The one that I bought on clearance because it was sad-looking with just a few strangely twisted branches is growing like crazy now.

Every time I get discouraged with this native planting project, I look over at the buckwheat plants and feel better.

I also remind myself that, in many of the places where the native plants are taking hold in the yard, there was nothing growing before. It was just wood chips and rocks. (I’m so thankful that I take tons of pictures of the yard and plants and never delete them. It really helps to go back and see how far everything has come.)

But all the rain that has spurred the native plants’ vigorous growth has also sent the non-native plants into overdrive. Now, among all the wildflower seedlings, there are thousands of Scarlet Pimpernel sproutlets.

At first, I didn’t realize what those sprouts were. I really should have known they were a weed given how prolifically they were spreading, but I was holding out hope that they were one of the wildflowers I had scattered. WRONG. For every one of the wildflower seedlings, there are now several Scarlet Pimpernel sprouts surrounding it. So I’m spending a lot of time carefully pinching and pulling them out, trying to give the wildflowers a chance to take hold.

I do find weeding sort of meditative and soothing, so I don’t mind it that much. But it is starting to feel like an impossible task. There are just so many weedlings!

There are also gazillions of bulbs. The previous residents planted crocuses, daffodils, freesia, hyacinths – all the lovely non-native spring flowers. Then, there are tons of what I think are some kind of wild onion? They pop up everywhere! And, they’re SO hard to remove. I don’t want to dig them up because the little wildflower sprouts would be disturbed, too. But if I try to pull them up gently with my fingers, the green stalks just snap off, leaving the bulbs behind under the soil.

Are these native onions or some other native? Should I leave them be? When they bloom, the flowers are quite pretty. But if these are some kind of invasive, non-native, I don’t want them choking out the native plants. And, if I do need to remove them, how should I do that? The bulbs can be teensy-tiny, the size of seeds.

The native plant experts I’ve been learning from stress that you should avoid disturbing the soil as much as possible, otherwise many more weeds will get triggered to grow. But how do you remove bulbs without digging them out and disturbing the soil?

These are the kinds of dilemmas that make me feel lost. I’m still so new to California and all of its plant life, and I really don’t know what the heck I’m dealing with here.

Time to do some research and ask the experts. I’ll let you know what I find out!