I spent a recent weekend at war with the weeds dominating my beautiful flower gardens. The weeds are winning the war.

I really, really, really HATE weeding. It’s a mind-numbing, backbreaking, knee-cramping job. Some misguided philosopher once said that work well done never needs doing over. I can guarantee you that Mr. Philosopher never did housework or weeded a garden.

The abundance of rain this summer has created the perfect growing conditions for weeds of all kinds. They thrive in the moist soil and the gardener can’t get out in the rain to pull them. They seem to know this and take advantage of it. I am convinced that weeds, especially crabgrass, grows at least 10 times faster than the average flower.

I think the weeds are having a worse effect on me than they are on my flower beds. They make me feel guilty every time I pass my aster garden on my way to the car. It’s almost as if they’re mocking me.

Their weedy little voices penetrate my brain. “Ha, ha, you’re on your way to work, you can’t touch us now in your nice clean clothes.” And later in the day it’s “Ha, ha, you can’t touch us now because you have to cook a meal and do laundry.”

By the time Saturday morning arrived sunny and dry, I was fed up with the laughing, noxious growths and decided to spend the day launching an all out attack in my “garden of weeden.”

Some people believe in talking to their plants and I can understand that because I firmly believe in swearing at the weeds. After an hour or so of digging, pulling and cursing, I was quite amazed at how little progress I had made and how much my language skills had disintegrated.

I even started calling the weeds by name. Not their botanical names, which I don’t know, but by the names of any person that I could think of who has ever caused me a moment’s grief. Old classmates I didn’t get along with – out! Ex-boyfriends of days gone by – out! Past bosses who had ever given me a hard time at work and even my husband for every disagreement we’ve ever had. Out they came and unceremoniously dumped on the weed heap.

There are those who feel that gardening is good therapy, and I can testify to the fact that weeding is definitely a good way of working out any aggressions you may have been suppressing.

I did reserve some sensitivity for the flowers that I inadvertently pulled out and promptly made an apology to, but for the weeds I held no restraints whatsoever.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said a weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. I think he was wrong. The virtue of weeds that I discovered was a productive way to transfer any anger or hostility that one may have smoldering within.

As evening rolled around I was a very calm and serene individual. I didn’t protest or say a single negative word throughout the evening even while Henry channel surfed the night away. Of course, I was close to comatose from a full day of weeding in the hot sun, but be that as it may, I was feeling no sense of aggression.

My aggression had been fully depleted on the crabgrass. What in heck was Mother Nature thinking when she came up with crabgrass? Was that a PMS day when she said, “I’m going to create a completely worthless, ugly plant that will grow under any conditions within nanoseconds.”

I swear that I completely cleaned out an area of crabgrass growth only to see it growing again in the very same spot before I had even had the opportunity to discard its dead cousins.

When it comes to crabgrass I have to agree with columnist Dave Barry who once wrote, “Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms and there is no known way to kill it that doesn’t involve nuclear weapons.”

That also applies to bamboo of which my backyard has been taken over. It’s not a true bamboo, but that is what we call it in Maine when we aren’t calling it something unprintable.

Once I found a gardening chat room on the Internet, and I asked if anyone knew how to get rid of bamboo. One answer was to call in the National Guard and request an air strike. Someone else suggested a good dose of Agent Orange. My favorite suggestion was just one word, “MOVE.” I of course didn’t and I still have the bamboo.

I guess I can take some comfort in knowing that weeds are the nemesis of everyone with a garden. Whether it’s flowers or vegetables, we all work hard at trying to nurture the plants and rid the weeds in hopes of a bountiful harvest or aesthetic beauty.

The way I see it, this war of the weeds will go on for a while yet and the best I can hope for is to keep one step ahead of the crabgrass and just “weed ’em and reap.” Sorry, I couldn’t resist.