Power Tools and Guys Who Garden: Playing Referee

As a guy who gardens, my husband's tools of choice are the weed-whacker and chainsaw-like hedge trimmers. He has this theory. If John Deere would build an over-the-shoulder vacuum cleaner, painted a gaudy green and gold with a huge leaping-deer logo on the side, the company would make a mint. I try to picture my gardener-spouse cruising the house with that leaf-blower of a machine, terrorizing the dust out of the carpets.

As a male who gardens, he also gets into playing botanical referee. Or maybe it’s his backyard version of, “You’re fired!” Green Water Celery---Oenanthe japonica—gives him a perfect opportunity. Pond fish love it and seek out this hardy plant for an important source of nutrients and vitamins. That’s the good news. Now for the bad. This is one of the most obnoxiously invasive plants I know. 

Ever since my husband excitedly installed the thing in a clay pot in his pond, he’s been fighting a losing battle with this guy. To say it spreads, does the thing an injustice. It winds up everywhere, from among the dense roots of the Siberian iris along the water’s edge to shooting up among the branches of the dwarf azalea, to crowding out a supposedly equally invasive bog plant known as coat-of-many-colors. Mid-astilbe, shasta daisies, hardy geranium---you name it, water celery is there. Sigh.

End of every season, my husband wades into the pond and hauls out armsful of the stuff. He chops back the roots, stems and leaves spilling out of that tiny pot in which it all began. By next summer, the whole cycle begins again. His fish are very happy.  Me, not so much.