Roadside Weed And: The meadow was a common sight in rural England until the farmers learned how to get the most out of what was once termed unproductive land, and scarred and plowed the meadows, finally turning over to developers what they didn't destroy. And it's no different in the United States, where the desire to build has spread out from every city and flattened everything in its path, coupling with the mania of state highway departments for removing every roadside weed and flower.
Wild oats (Avena fatua) grows to 4 feet tall and is considered by most eastern farmers to be nothing but a troublesome weed. It can be found growing along the roadside in high summer. Even for a grass the plant looks straggly, but the flowers dry to a beautiful shade of light brown. A more civilized species called animated oats (A. sterilis) has a larger flower that looks like wild oats held under a magnifying glass. It is termed animated because the needlelike spike (or awn) that protrudes from the seed heads moves about as the humidity in the air changes.See Also Moist The Weed Makes:By the way, a crab grass lawn isn't a bad idea for a summer place if you are there only from June until frost. Provided the ground is kept reasonably moist the weed makes a thick carpet of light green foliage that is not bad at all, that stands wear well and needs essentially no care other than mowing. I consider it preferable to a mostly-crab grass lawn in which choicer grasses wage an obviously losing battle.
The Baronet Cut and Hold Flower Gatherer makes cutting and holding a flower a one-hand operation. It's 31 inches long and per¬fect for pruning soft wood, gathering fresh flowers, and removing dead ones. Use it on vines and climbing roses.
The Baronet Firm Grip Weed Puller is designed to grip and pull out the most obstinate weed from cultivated land using one hand. At 34 inches it's invaluable for such work.
On The Other Hand See Jimson Weed:Caterpillars of the various sphinx moths are among common fall insects. The species include such familiar worms as the tomato worm, the tobacco worm, and the grape worm. The adult moths are primarily night fliers. They come out at dusk to feed on nectar from various kinds of trumpetlike flowers, such as nasturtium, even¬ing primrose, petunias, moon vine, and jimson weed.
In the wild, tomato and tobacco worms feed on leaves of tomato, tobacco, potato, ground cherry, jimson weed; achemon sphinx moths, on wild and cultivated grape leaves and Virginia creeper; white-lined sphinx moths on leaves of apple, azalea., beets, buckwheat, currant, bitter dock, elm, evening primrose, fuchsia, gooseberry, grape, melon, pear, plum, prune, and tomato.
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