Beware of bolting musk thistle
by Deb Mercier / June 25, 2007

When describing musk thistle, a.k.a. nodding thistle, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says, “It generally does not pose a threat to high quality areas. It colonizes primarily in disturbed areas.”

Due to the fact that our yard looks like a giant, green porcupine up and exploded out there, I apparently live in a disturbed area. Imagine that.

I thought the lawn care guy put it pretty well: “Man! You guys got some monsters back there!” I believe the thistles to which he referred are the ones that tower more than a foot over my head. They tend to snicker and throw things at you as you walk by. This unacceptable behavior has led to the declaration in many states that nodding thistle is a noxious weed.

And unfortunately, this particular thistle is unpalatable to wildlife and livestock. They simply won't eat the stuff. There goes my plan for a pygmy goat, though I still enjoy saying the name. Nodding thistle must be nasty, indeed, to be turned down by an animal with a penchant for pop cans.

Just for fun, I looked up some information on our spiky friends. (You knew I would.) And the reason our yard looks like we're growing a fine crop of hairy knives is that some nitwit in the early 1800s brought nodding thistle over from Western Europe – either in a bilge or because he thought it would make a good ornamental plant – and set it loose. I don't know about you, but I prefer my ornaments not to have that charming “touch me and die” attribute.

The other tidbit of information I found -- and this one's my favorite – is that nodding thistle plants “overwinter in the rosette stage until they begin to bolt in mid-March.” Now I'm sure all the plant people out there are perfectly fine with this statement. But it left me with nightmare images of snarling, fanged weeds running full-tilt across my lawn, terrorizing the hostas and spitting on the tulips.

Our main consolation is that we don't have leafy spurge, a plant which sounds as if you've been up all night barfing tree parts. Almost as fun are cow vetch and hairy vetch. The conversation would go something like this:

“What kind of plant is that?”

“Hairy vetch.”

“What did you call me?”

Anyway, the battle for the backyard has begun. Wish us luck. We're goin' in.

© 2007 Deborah Mercier