Weeding plants is a pleasant task for me. I put on my “yard clothes” which consists of a green T-shirt that is infused with an insect repellant, a pair of old patched jeans, a pair of leather gauntlet length gloves, some rubber shoes, and a wide-brimmed hat that is also infused with anti bug stuff. I grab my hand tools: clippers, pruners, and a cultivator, which I throw into my favorite black plastic bucket. Finally, I tuck my kneeling pad under my left elbow and I’m set for the day.

Some people like to stand and hoe. Or they like to practice bending at the waist while they swoop stray plants from unwanted places. Neither is my style. I am a crawler. Right-handed, I start at the bottom edge of a flower bed and crawl forward as I go, individually plucking any lost plants or drifters from inappropriate places. Sometimes I get help from the neighbor cat who scouts out anything dangerous before I get there.

Most undesirable plants relinquish their hold with little effort. That is, except for Bermuda grass, which in Italy, is called gramigna (say grah-meen-ya). The name “Bermuda” is far too complimentary, as is the word “grass” for that matter. Out of curiosity, we looked it up in the dictionary the other day only to find a one word definition: weed. Now that sounds more like it. I have nicknamed it “zipper grass” because it often grows on the surface of the ground, sending down little shoots or roots that release when you pull one end of the plant. But this grass is rampicante, creeping. It’s really not nice. No. creeping seems casual, respectable, almost meandering. Gramigna is NOT casual. It is insidious. Aggressive. It really puts the “mean” in gramigna. I’ve been known to use some pliers from the toolbox to dislodge a particularly insistent and illusive sprig.

One day we asked our friend, Luca, at the agrario, the agriculture shop how we could kill gramigna. His response was that we’d have to kill everything, good and bad plants alike. And then, the first seeds to take hold again would most likely be . . . gramigna. In other words, learn to live with it.

But it’s pretty difficult to live with. To the untrained eye the lawn looks beautiful, green and lush. But to me, I see gramigna, lurking, thatching just beneath the surface, quietly claiming the entire yard. It’s a conspiratorial grass.

One way that I deal with gramigna is to amuse myself as I remove it. OK. Maybe remove is too hopeful a word. Let’s say manage it. Anyway, I amuse myself by humming the old Donovan song, Laleña. To me Laleña (La-layn-ya) sounds similar to gramigna. I sing to the grass as I run my finger under a surface root, “That’s your lot in life, gramigna, Can’t blame ya, gramigna.” My quiet crooning seems to have little effect on the plants, but I’m sure that the weeds especially like the “la de da” part.

Posted on September 18, 2010

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