The state park employee walked slowly with a small tank and a squirt nozzle he aimed onto each unwanted bit of vegetation on the playground. I hoped he was only getting rid of silver nightshade. It’s prickly and toxic, though it has pretty flowers. But there wasn’t much of it. There were many tiny, tough yellow flowers.
I asked the man with the tank how he chose which plants got to stay and which plants had to go.
“They all have to go,” he replied.
“All of them? I like the little yellow flowers. I just watered one of them.” Encouraging its survival in the desert heat, I’d given it what was left in the water bottle I take on runs.
With an air of apology, he added, “We don’t do weed control except in the developed areas.”
Of course not, because a wildflower isn’t a weed in the wild. I didn’t say what I thought, but he kept explaining while he squirted. “If we let them go, they take over.”
“Yes. You’d have a meadow.” I smiled at the memory. One year, the flowers did take over. There were so many, I sometimes accidentally picked them with my five-fingers running shoes, snagging yellow blossoms between the toes when I crossed the playground to stretch on the equipment.
He kept squirting. I felt sad for the flowers, but finished stretching and went home. A few days later, I was back, and all the flowers were gone, sprayed to death and shriveled away. Except one. He saved the one I’d watered.
Amber Foxx Mysteries 