There used to be what looked from the outside to be a perfectly fine brick house here. I used to admire the flowers and flowering shrubs in the front yard; it was all flower garden, with no grass. Lovely. When I came by last winter/spring and the shrubs were gone, with pits left where they had been, and scrabbly spots were I assumed someone had dug up bulbs and other plants, I thought, uh-oh, did someone die, or just leave, or what? Now I know. It’s a total replacement situation.
Here’s kudzu, pronounced something like kood-zoo. It’s a tenacious species, and even trying to persist here as the temperatures drop with winter coming. In full winter, it may lose its leaves, and will bounce back when the weather warms. I read somewhere that its roots can go thirty feet along under blacktop and thereby the plant can cross a paved road. Persistent.
Continuing the growth theme, here’re some brilliant-colored new fronds on an evergreen. Even in the overcast of an almost-rainy moment, they almost glow, the color is so vivid.
Title is a nod to Nobel economist Paul Krugman, who sometimes notes the wonkish level of his NYTimes columns.