did I create an ecological disaster?

I didn't mean to, if I did.

The other day, while in town, I noticed the local grocery store had its usual springtime inventory of starter plants out front on the sidewalk.

Now, I don't plant things. I simply let all the flora at this place out in the middle of nowhere grow as it wishes, when it wishes.

The William Rivers Pitt, for example, grows lavishly with "volunteer" tomatoes and catnip, and given the nature of the William Rivers Pitt, it's usually a darker green than similar foliage on the ordinary soil here.

Where, for about 110 years, there was a large vegetable garden (5 acres?--I dunno, I'll have to ask someone who knows) I leave even that alone, to burst forth as it wishes, when it wishes. I will occasionally pull out weeds, but that's it; I don't plant, I don't thin, I don't "regulate."

Unlike primitives and "nature lovers," I leave nature alone to do its own thing, while nature leaves me alone to do my own thing.

When the gardening primitives some months ago illuminated me about "heirloom" seeds and plants, I became intrigued, and asked people who know, including the ancient elderly gentleman who used to mow the grass here, who had grown up in this place.

Much to my delight, I learned that all this flora is probably perhaps maybe in fact "heirloom" stuff, dating back to at least 1875, constantly going to seed and blossoming forth every single year. (Of course I use what the land produces, about one-half of one-tenth of one percent of it; all the rest has to be left to rot and decay, returning to nature.)

And the tomatoes that so richly pop out of the William Rivers Pitt; we all know the composition of the William Rivers Pitt, and these are obviously heirloom tomatoes derived from undigested tomato seeds that passed through the, uh, in-and-out system of generations of pigs.

It's all good, and I have no complaints.

However, on a whim, when I saw the display of starter plants at the grocery store, I lost my head and purchased a bunch of golden-yellow flowers, I assume marigolds (I didn't read the label). I thought they would add a nice little touch to the place.

I put them in the ground.

The next several days, the Sandhills of Nebraska were wrought with steady rains. Not bad rains, not "too much" rain, not gully-washers, but just nice decent moderate unceasing rain, interrupted every few hours by sunlight.

Now, I dunno if anybody else knows this, but it's a proven scientific fact that nowhere in the whole world do things turn green and grow so fast, after rain, than in the Sandhills of Nebraska. One can perceptibly see it happen, brown turning to green, bare spots filling up, green shoots sprouting up. Within minutes, at the most an hour.

This phenomenon however is rare, due to the paucity of rain in the Sandhills of Nebraska, this year being an exception. It would be nice if it would happen more, but mostly it's brown and bare.

These yellow flowers, which I assume are marigolds, are now twice the size they were a mere four and a half days ago. I had bought them pretty small, but trust me, they're no longer pretty small.

In fact, if they keep growing at this rate--and there's more rain in the forecast--I can see them taking over vast swatches of land, crowding out all the good stuff nature put there.

Well, I'm just going to let these flowers do their own thing, leaving them alone, but I'm wondering if by introducing flora alien to the land, I might have caused some sort of ecological disaster. Does anybody know if marigolds--I think they're marigolds--regenerate every year, or are they a one-time only flower?

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