a color story: daffodils and dandelions

I mixed up daffodils with dandelions. Suspicious family members called me out on it twice. 

"It's not a dandelion. It's a daffodil"

How did I get those two mixed up? 

Both plants bloomed yellow flowers on top of their green foliage. One was ornamental and aromatic. The other pesty. One was planned and deliberate. The other was "invasive" to the ideal green lawn. 

A common garden chore pertained to picking out the weeds in the lawn and garden. Even if you picked out 100, you would barely make a difference in the space. The pesty problem had to be tackled in a long term approach. A habit had to be formed. Every time you see the bucket with the weed pulling tool (weeder) go pull out 100 weeds. For some reason, the repetitive motion transformed into a fluid flow. Counting to 100 approached quicker than you thought. If the habit persisted (by the next season), the lawn maintained its coherent turf hues. The weeds "disappeared" for the mean time. 

The dandelions, however, fought back. They would gradually make their ways into the lawn. It could be the seeds in the soil or a spell from mother nature. All the work from handpicking out the weeds felt meaningless. But, once you go back into pulling out the weeds, one entered back into the flow. In a weird way, you feel connected to the complex depth of mother mature. This eternal battle reminded me of Sisyphus' tale: a man forced to roll a boulder uphill for eternity. 

All this for the sake of aesthetics. 

There wasn't much I did with the pretty ornamental daffodil. Dug a hole, added some bulb fertilizer, added the bulbs with tip pointing up, returned the soil back in, and make sure to do it in fall. Step in and then step out. Pretty much forget about the plants after. The daffodils won't even sit in the back of your mind. 

My Freudian slip concerning the yellow and green impressions (of both plants) alluded to the more demanding task: picking out the dandelions. 

Less was more. Not seeing the yellow, where it was suppose to be green. 

I checked the garden beds and observed the daffodils. Spring bulbs bloomed for a season. 

The green lawn shined in the sunlight. No interruptions from dandelions. Well, not yet. For once, things turned out as it planned. I should enjoy it while it lasts.