which plant are you going to rip out as soon as you get a chance and for what reason: invasiveness, wrong color, wrong size, etc.
For me, that day was today. Salvia Greggi. Though beautiful blue flowers, too vigorous (not invasive) and I needed the space for mums I got from the group purchase w/ Dstartz.
edited to say: I'm not 100% sure it's salvia gregii. just some type of salvia w/ bright blue spikey flowers. But it's gone now. bye bye
This message was edited Jul 17, 2005 6:22 PM
AS SOON AS YOU GET A CHANCE
I'm sorry, I can't resist! NUTGRASS! The very thorn in the side of my gardening existance--the rain sure has done them some good and quick! Also got some cyprss vines from YEARS ago still popping up...they truely are "heirloom" plants and as I'm sure you've probably heard before; that means your heirs will still be battling them! LOL Forgive me....Debbie
I'm a little backwards...I got my chance tonight and I filled a wheelbarrow and lawn sack. I pulled out these Cosmos that get gigantic. Some got knocked over with the recent rain and wind and all of the others have ants at the base. I cut down the Bee Balm that bloomed. I pulled out a bunch of red salvias and orange cosmos. Those filled the wheelbarrow up. I deadheaded Coneflowers and pulled out some bug infested zinnias.
But I think, as soon as I get a chance, I'm going to pull up a big aster. It gets huge and doesn't bloom until fall. It has the strangest shape and is very woody. It just gets way too big for...anywhere. I cut it back and it looks horrid, so I'm going to pull it up and replace it with a clearance (woohoo!) Black and Blue Salvia that I got for $1.
As always, I'm still fighting Johnson grass. At times I seem to be gaining the upper hand, but there is always a hidden sprig or two that spread like wildfire.
Yuska--Johnson grass is my OTHER nemesis!
My nutgrass is soooo hapy it rained that it is springing up right where I just dug up as much as I could 3 days ago.
Yuska, I thought I had diaposed of all of the Johnson grass after fighting it for years too. I just saw some coming up yesterday. Fortunately, I think it sprang up from seeds so it was easily removed. Boy, that stuff sure can slice up your hands.
Johnson grass makes great hay, so I can't despise it. But golly, is it tenacious! The smallest joint from a stolon that I've overlooked will start the whole process again. Our subdivision was built on open Texas scrub soil...black clay, loaded with rocks. I figure it must be chock-full of nutrients because it grows such magnificient weeds!
Gonna have to get out there tonight and fight off the mosquitoes and fireants (just everywhere down here after all this rain!--I'm not complainin'--we needed this rain sooooo bad)) and get that nutgrass OUT!
Oh, it's the darn dewplant for me! TOO prolific......smothers out everything else in the pots/baskets with it! I'm at the chop & toss stage..........
=) MKJ
The only invader that I'm fightin g with is Bermuda grass that is coming in from behind my fence. Some of the suckers are 12" high! Oh to have a gentic Bermuda grass killer.
Whatever pest plants you want to get out...do it now after all this rain! I got out there last evening after the 5 inches of rain Thursday-Sunday and all the weeds were so easy to pull......
:) Debbie
My biggest niusance are pecan tree seedlings. I have an area 80 by 20 feet mulched very thick and the squirrels bury them there.
I am sure everyone knows the roots are at least 3 times longer than the tops, and extremely hard to pull up, so most of the time they break and come back again.
The ones I get with the entire root I pot up to give to friends, but boy, what a chore.
Josephine.
frostweed, I don't know what it was about this year, but I had more seedlings than I've ever had! Most I could get by the roots, but some had the roots so well established that I could not take out the whole thing. I have a lot of monkey grass and a lot of them grew among the MK. I did not look forward to sticking my hand in the dense growth and finding a "slithering surprise" while pulling seedlings. But no such surprises, so far. No fun chore, indeed!
For me it's huisache trees. I love the look of a mature tree, dark bark and feathery green leaves, but they make millions of seeds and I think every single one comes up. If you pull them and leave an itty bitty piece of root, it grows a new tree and they have BIG thorns that make a sore if they stick you.
They're native trees, so they do very well here.
I battled it out with oak seedlings this spring--what do you think that means when the pecans, oaks, and huisache trees are trying to reproduce so hard.....hhmmmm maybe a colder than normal winter?
i was thinking busy $%^&* squirrels
I've got the d*&$ armadillo myself, vossner!
lol,
MKJ
Quoting:
I battled it out with oak seedlings this spring--what do you think that means when the pecans, oaks, and huisache trees are trying to reproduce so hard.....hhmmmm maybe a colder than normal winter?
I bet it was the bumper crop of pecans and acorns after last years rains. We had tons more acorns this fall and I am sure it just meant there were more for the squirrels or soft dirt to bury. I am sure over the next few years we will have a bumper crop of seedlings. Yuck!
We sure didn't have that rain last year here in Houston.
Well, speaking of tree seedlings.....I do battle with hackberry and chinaberry "children". There were a few trees left by the builder of the subdivision and the appearance of the place brand new was a bit less "raw" than it would have been without them. Also some mesquite, but those seedlings are not too hard to pull up. Nice to have mature trees for birds (and squirrels) but the hackberry seeds go through the birds' digestive tracts and get deposited at the base of fences and the foundation where it is really tough to get them out. The root grows first and is three times the length of the top. Just cutting them off at ground level is a mistake because they come right back, multi-trunked. Trying to dig those interlopers out of a canna bed without damaging the tubers is frustrating indeed. A couple of upstarts that my neighbors and I missed in the fence line are now good sized trees threatening to split the fence apart. Grrrr!
My yearly battle is with Mexican hats! I can pull them up, but just one healthy plant that stays can become a big floppy mess! I try to control them as best I can early in the spring, so they don't get out of control!
When time and heat permits, I will attack a bed that has four o'clocks smothering society garlic, fem clover, columbines and others. They just won't stop growing. I have one or two special colors and want to save seeds from them this year, but the rest can go. I know someone will want the plants if I can dig the tubers, but I can't even see the bottoms of the stalks now! I will have to cut the tops back to get to them. I have the pecan and oak seedlings everywhere too. As for the hackberry, Yuska said "hackberry seeds go through the birds' digestive tracts and get deposited at the base of fences". That's why my friend and I call them the bird poop trees, they will destroy a fence.
Sheila
Baby elm trees- they are everywhere for me and agggg they get in everywhere... the guy before me had "shrub line" by the house when I got out all the "nice trimmed" elms out we only had a couple of good bushes - they will go to soon... all green no flowers - oh well...
This message was edited Jul 22, 2005 1:20 PM
bermuda grass & campsis radicans will keep me busy the rest of my life...
-T
Well, let me see, I don't think I can narrow it down to just one. In the front we have this awful vine like stuff DH calls wild rose because it has really awful thorns (tiny and razor sharp). Then we have wild grapes that grow on the fence under the oaks and get out of control atleast twice a year. The branches of the oaks hang down close to the fence and the grapevines reach up and grab them and then we have a real mess. In the back yard is where we have tons of nutgrass because that's where it's sunny. We really need to find a way to market nutgrass to starving people in Africa or something. There has to be nutritional value to a plant that is as hardy as nutgrass. If we could unlock that secret, maybe we could trade nutgrass for oil. LOL
LOL!! Good idea! It reminds me of the Louisiana wildlife deaprtment asking chef Paul Prudhomme (sp) to do for nutria (those really BIG rats) what he did for redfish - make a great dinner out of them so they would be trapped and cooked into endangered species status. (So far it hasn't worked.)
I am sure they could be cooked at least into dogfood... save a few spotted ponies.
I think my sago palms are gonna have to go. I thought I'd gotten rid of the cycad scale, but alas, it is back. I'm just tired of fighting it. I don't like them anyway.