{"id":9429,"date":"2020-11-22T22:28:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T22:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/?p=9429"},"modified":"2020-12-19T17:06:05","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T17:06:05","slug":"plant-a-day-2020-day-314-ranunculus-repens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/22\/plant-a-day-2020-day-314-ranunculus-repens\/","title":{"rendered":"Plant-A-Day 2020 (Day 314) Ranunculus repens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The common name of \u201ccreeping\u201d buttercup doesn\u2019t capture the voracious way this plant eats up territory. It should be renamed Smothercup. And if you ever make the naive mistake of thinking that the garden is asleep in the winter, this maleficent marauder will prove you very wrong. It uses the fall and winter to spread by stolons across large swaths of the garden so that when you step out for your early spring clean-up, you have yards of buttercup to eradicate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will say this positive thing about this invasive weed\u2013digging out these plants provides so much pleasure. No other weed gives me this much satisfaction. It has to do with the way the plant grows\u2013there is a thick wad of white roots at each node or under each main plant, and prying them up and pulling them out, you know you actually have removed the weed\u2013it isn\u2019t like a taproot that breaks off and resprouts. Once they are gone, they are gone. But, for me, they are never quite gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n