Cornflowers

One of the very best things about cornflowers (also known as Bachelor's Buttons) is that deer don't seem to like them.  Another best thing about them is that they come in such lovely shades of pink, purple, maroon, and blue, with the occasional white thrown in for good measure.  Cornflowers not only survive, but actually thrive in our hot, rocky, windblown hillsides -- seed that I scattered around the pond and up and down the driveway 15 years ago has multiplied and spread the plants into the hills.  That's probably their best quality of all.

Ironically, those legions of nasty thistles sprouting all over that I'm working like crazy to chop down before they set seed, possess many of the same sterling qualities as the cornflowers: the deer won't touch them, the flower has a pretty color and they're unfazed by anything our climate throws at them. All that goes out the window, though, because of the sharp spines running up and down their stems and from the ends of each leaf.

We were lax in our efforts to get rid of them last year, so this spring they're popping up everywhere.  We're able to mow them down rather quickly with the weedeater where they're alone or in clumps under the trees.  But the one's among the cornflowers, where they nestle in and grow beautifully, are another story.  These I insist on pulling out, one at a time, by hand. The thistle's spines frequently poke through my gardening gloves and into my hands, but I'm gritting my teeth and getting the job done.

It's worth a little pain.  It would be far more painful to cut down such a pretty tapestry.