Today, excitement in the garden as we burn!

Kevin loves this bit.

Very important safety equipment! (I also have a hose very close.)

Flame weeding is great if you can do it. Nothing lingers in the soil, and a lot of our native ecosystems evolved with fire and love it. Just be careful your fire guy doesn’t go mad with power.

This is a Weed Dragon. Got it off Amazon, runs off a standard little propane tank. Spring for the optional cart if you get one, it’s a pain to lug the tank around.

Your goal is not to toast everything to black ash (although it’s fun) but just to boil the liquid in the weeds. They turn bright green and are dead in a day.

Please remember FLAMETHROWER IS NOT A PRECISION INSTRUMENT.

Great on stone path or large sections of stuff you don’t want! Not for use around beloved hostas!

NEVER BURN AROUND POISON IVY THAT WAY LIES DEATH

Now, to prep for burning, I moved a lot of stuff out of the path, flipped it back, etc. These are native rain lilies, which normally draped over the path. Superb substitute for Mondo grass, which is overused.

They reproduce by bulbs and by seed, and they love to seed into sunny wet muck, like on the edge of a stone path in a swamp. So before burning, I had to go remove some pavers and dig out the latest crop.

They lift really easily, and as you can see here, this one was nicely established, lots of bulbs formed. I dug it out and will replant it somewhere safer. These look like grass until it rains hard, then they get lovely little flowers!