Mark Lane: February draws the Darwinian Gardener back to work

The Darwinian Gardener slid a brick-sized battery into his lawn mower and prepared for the year’s first lawn mowing. Always an event. The mower’s first outing since Halloween.

To his surprise, everything powered up at the touch of a button. It was ready for another year of taming — though not subjugating — the yard.

But wait, who is this Darwinian Gardener guy, and why does he consider a simple lawn mowing to be some kind of big deal in his life?

The Darwinian Gardener is Florida’s foremost exponent of survival-of-the-fittest lawn-and-garden care. He does not cater to fussy flora. He laughs at the demands of St. Augustine grass.

He is not the curator of nature, considering each section of the yard another gallery to supervise. No, he is the night security guard of nature, making sure nothing gets stolen or vandalized and watching for the occasional intruder before retreating to the guard shack for coffee and an evening of watching videos on his cellphone.

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And this is just the right season to Ask the Darwinian Gardener.

Q: You only now hauled out the mower?

A: In winter, the grass is dormant. The crabgrass looks dead altogether. So even this lawnmowing was only to trim the taller weeds. He set the mower’s blade a notch higher and started a path toward the most prominent weeds.

Q: Does it bother you that so much of your grass is brown?

A: He prefers to think of it as a casual khaki.

Q: What weeds are you mowing?

A: Mostly tasselflower (Emilia sonchifolia). It’s sometimes called the Florida tasselflower, even though it’s not from here. Another fake Floridian. He knows the type.

The plant is also called a Cupid’s paintbrush, but come on, doesn’t that sound dumb and Regency romance-novel-like? Still, pollinators do like it. It has tiny, purply flowers the size of a pencil eraser.

He’s also mowing over beggarticks (bidens alba). You can tell how widespread a plant is by how many names it has. This one is called Spanish needle, pitchfork weed, cobbler’s pegs, romerillos, stick tights and, most often, those daisy-looking thingies-that-are-popping-up-all-over-the-yard. So yes, they’re all over the place and spread fast.

Pollinators like them but they are aggressive, and their seeds stick to your pants legs.

Q: Isn’t mowing just a temporary, partial, waste-of-time “solution”? Time for serious herbicides.

A: The Darwinian Gardener is never scared by scare quotes. And the idea behind early season mowing is to keep wildflowers from taking over and bullying the other plants. You’ll never eradicate beggarticks unless you kill every living thing Florida-developer-style and start over from bare sand. The goal is to fight them to a draw and keep their numbers down.

A mowed-over tasselflower has less of a chance to sprout its dandelion-like seeds, yet it might still show off its cute little flowers that butterflies, bees and other bugs like. The beggarticks are easily discouraged but never give up entirely. They’re easy to pull up if things get really out of control.

In any case, the Darwinian Gardener does not trust himself to read all the fine print attached to lawn chemicals, which are seldom as choosy about what they kill as their labels claim.

And after a winter of ignoring the yard and mower, this exercise gives him a chance to get out and assess things. After all, February is Florida’s best month.

Q: You have a dozen months to choose from and you go for February? Isn’t that entirely outside your supposed “expertise”?

A: Scare quotes again. February is the best month because the weather is cool but seldom cold, and the azaleas are in big bloom with no help from gardeners. Some invasive exotics that spread like crazy because they assumed summer would never end are still stunned from January’s cold. This allows you to finish them off without much effort. Even his worst enemy of the backyard, the dreaded air-potato plant, has vanished from the scene, leaving behind only withered vines.

Meanwhile, some cold-damaged plants are not dead after all and are pushing out leaves. Volunteer plants pop up in unexpected places. Plus the electric bill is light and windows can be thrown open. Outdoor projects that were impossible to contemplate in August’s heat look like possibilities in February.

Q: So now is the time to get to work?

A: The Darwinian Gardener also advises against overdoing it.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is [email protected].