Milk Thistle is a common weed in Southern California, but it is useful in Chinese herbal medicine, which is why they have a Milk Thistle growing in the Learning Garden in Venice.
A whole section of the garden is devoted to Chinese herbs -- unfamiliar plants with unfamiliar names -- but you can learn about them, especially if some of the students are working on it -- I mean students of Chinese medicine.
Yesterday, we put in a few hours at the Learning Garden, doing the very unglamorous work of digging up the devil grass near and around the Chinese herbs. Devil grass sends out long penetrating rhizomes and spreads easily and tenaciously.
I gave my helpers two instructions on dealing with devil grass. 1. Nothing works. 2. Never give up. In other words, no matter how hard you try or whatever method you use, short of napalm bombing, you will never get rid of the devil grass -- but, BUT, never give up. Real gardeners aren't smarter than the rest of us -- they just never give up.
