Mombretia

When I saw you for the first time I was dazzled by your fiery bright orange blossoms in a sea of slender light green leaves. I admired your dance in the atlantic winds of the west coast of Ireland. I got drunk from your exotic beauty and being a tourist back then in the 1970s, of course, I had to take many pictures of you. close-ups, general views of a dizzying ocean of orange, razor sharp fotos frozen in the time of a fraction of a second of some extraordinary pose, only visible through a camera lens, and of course blurred atmospheric impressionistic shots in orange and green.
years later, I bought a small cottage, and was delighted to discover a small patch of Mombretias in the yard. this patch got bigger over the years and I was well pleased to eventually dig up some of them, and transplant them to other spots.
the Mombretias kept multiplying and eventually I managed to plant a ring of them around a circular exposed bedrock which would burst into flames by the end of July, burning bright for around 2 months and then the fire would die down eventually, with a last spark as late as Christmas.
not only did the Mombretias look very beautiful, they also covered big areas in the garden with hardly any weeds in them, in fact they seemed almost like a beautiful weed killer getting rid of everything else with the radiance of their fiery beauty. The combination of exuberant beauty and low maintenance seemed an unsurpassed gift of nature to a lazy gardener.
many years passed and the Mombretias spread more and more, everywhere, near and far, I had stopped transplanting them a long time ago, there was no need to anymore, they were well capable to do that themselves. They popped up everywhere and what at first was a nice accent in all that green had become the ordinary as it was way too much. I noticed that for me beauty somehow did not come in large numbers, rather the contrary, it had to be somewhat rare and just for that fact it seemed to be noteworthy and desirable. Of course the individual Mombretia looked just the same as ever but there were whole armies of them now everywhere trying to conquer even more ground as if they where on a mission to spread the colour orange for 2 months in a year. At last I had to admit to myself now that this was an invasive species, that had -dazzled me with their elegant and colorful beauty.
Action was required. this spreading fire needed to be kept at bay, restricted to some wisely chosen areas.
I should have known this. There is surely an over abundance of Fuchsias here in West Cork.