Last summer we had a wicked backyard. We had nice, lush grass, a swimming pool and bucket ball. The pool was a bad idea – it was too big, didn’t get used enough, had a filter and you had to put chemicals in it. Also a squirrel somehow got in and died. I think he tried to bite the power lines and got electrocuted and died before he fell in. Ugh, what a terrible sight that was…

Anyway, on to this summer. Our grass was growing in clumps and looked like chives, so we’ve been calling it chive grass (pretty clever). It was only in the front half of the lawn so we decided to wait a bit and see if it thinned out or went away or something. This weekend the chive grass sprouted pretty white flowers in a semi circle and I was in a gardening mode (first time since we lived on the farm…that’s another story altogether) and decided it was time to do something about it.


My initial idea was to transplant some of the flowers into the garden on either side of the vegetables I planted (carrots, spinach, sweet peas). I took one of the flowers inside to do some research on the internet and find out what it was.


What I found is that the flower is called Star of Bethlehem and it is an aggressive variety of Lily that is toxic to animals and people if eaten!!!! I panicked because Harley goes out and plays in the backyard (he’s a playmachine) and he eats grass on a daily basis, as well as our neighbor has little girl and they come and play in our backyard because theirs is a parking pad. So I started doing more research on how to get them out of my lawn and it turns out there is nothing you can do other than dig up the bulbs and throw them away. You can see from the photo below how dense this is. All the green “chive grass” around it is part of the plant and has bulbs as well.


So I started the arduous task of removing all these little flowers and it is really hard work. One little flower has about 20 little bulbs 2″ below the surface. It’s very, very heaving and my back is still sore. The photo below shows what I pulled out and if you look to the top along the patio line, that is all the area I covered, which is only about 3 feet.


I had to stop because Chad made me called the landlord before I ripped up the entire lawn.

Chad came home after band last night and dug up 4 more brown garden waste bags and we’re still only half way done.

So anyone who feels like getting some aggression out on my lawn, feel free to come over and help!

Grass Cutting