Nice Lawn!

Oh, I amended my beds, too. Fluffed the soil up with lots of compost so their little roots could roam. Well, they roamed alright. I almost lost a beautiful old hemlock that's still recovering.

English Ivy is absolutely incredibly destructive.

Al just found this site. Beautiful lawn. Your one of those neighbors who you don't want to compete with for the best lawn. You win hands down.
Because my well went out I don't "have to" oops "get to" water the lawn and mowing would only kill it. You can see my beautiful lawn by the dead stripes from the shallow drain field.
Equil you are so lucky to suffer the consequences of all of Montana's top soil laying in the valleys of the Mississippi. No big english ivy here. I barely survives. I have one plant that was growing in my DW mothers flower pot at her grave site. I brought it home to have it here for my wife. I after 4 years is 3mm in diameter and only 4 ft long.

Ohhhhhhhhhh no! You lost your well? You poor thing. That happened to us last year. We had to re-drill and buy a new well pump. Oh my gosh, horrible news that you lost your well.

It is recovering but no irrigation but 1 1/2 hours a day starting last week. We went though 2 months of the hottest heat with no irrigation. Everything made it but the transplants and newbies. They are all recovering now. Check valve failure and water table down.

Some people use Asian Jasmine for lawns here. I think it's about as bad as the ivy.

Al, you have some truly lush-looking turf, but where are all the trees and shrubs? We plant fescue and forget it (no water, no fert, no herbicide, no insecticide), mowing about 12 acres of it at 3" whenever it really needs it or when we are hosting a tour. For us, turf is just a utilitarian soil carpet, providing foreground and access for the more important plants and facilitating the control of brush encroachment. Of course, we don't have kids or grandkids needing turf play areas.

Guy S.

What does the property line look like between an average low-maintenance persuaded American and a mad gardener?

I wonder which one was in the bigest hurry to erect the fence! I see that the mad gardener's plants are attempting a conquest . . . I think pirates used to call that a boarding party!

Guy S.

Which vine? There are several.
Note how the fence faces two ways- an indication of how it was built, by whom, and when.
Kenton J.

Yep, the mad gardener apparently was trying to hide the concrete desert beyond! Who could blame him.

The mad gardener wouldn't perhaps be the tree-climbing son of a watchmaker, would he?

Guy S.

Nah. He doesn't like vines. Or Quercus...
Hops, Morning glories of various kinds, Silver lace, Akebia etc.

Guy - I've got shrubs, 2 of my hydrangea are in the corner of the picture. I have a tamarisk and this
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/111627/
as the only trees that are mine here.

here are some other shrubs I have for a privacy hedge to the backyard

We gotta get you some more trees to shade out that lush lawn!!!

Guy S.

The front part of this picture is really the best spot left, we have thought about it. The kids use this area a lot, but eventually we'll have something there.We have 2 Norway maple street trees that do overhang quite a ways.

Ugh. I dug up my Norway Maple this last spring. I take it yours are too big to dig up? And isn't Tamarisk on many invasive lists? Perhaps Guy would like one for his arboretum? He can watch it along with the others. He is of course, receiving baby Ailanthus from me. So what's a Tamarisk to add to the bunch? Right Guy?

I didn't hear a single desirable tree mentioned in either of those last two posts . . .

Ummm, Norway Maple is highly invasive but..... so is Salt Cedar. And so is that Japanese Barberry.

Oh, so sorry. And when I go back down to AR, I'm bring him back baby Albizia. And the neighbors have barberry, I'm sure they won't mind if I take a baby or 2. There. Make you feel better?

It's years away so a tree isn't decided on yet. The tamarisk in on invasive lists, but not this state. It is well behaved here.
Lauren - I don't have any barberry - atlhough they are everywhere else.
Norway Maples are the cities tree - they are functional here.

No, my neighbors have that darn Barberry as well as Norway Maples. Come to think of it I am getting bombarded with Siberian Red Twig Dogwood too. Those three are beyond prolific. The people directly across the street from me planted several Salt Cedar but with all the wells going dry around here, that was one plant the Village stepped in and said no no no to. They asked them to voluntarily remove the plants and they did. Thank God is about all I can say.

Invasives and Noxious lists by State are a guide but certainly not all inclusive. One thing is for certain the nursery industry is extremely powerful and there is a lag factor associated with maps and lists. As time goes on and data regarding naturalization of some of the worst of the worst species becomes available, the area of the maps infested will expand.

I would definitely agree with you that many plants don't exactly thrive in some areas. Unfortunately, many noxious weeds and invasive species have a built in "work around" for just these types of situations.

I think what I was trying to say in the above is that just because people who grow these plants don't see the spontaneous seedlings, doesn't mean they aren't out there. And then there is another wild card that aggravates the situation... polyploidism. Many invasive species are polyploids.

A small percentage of people are conscientiously choosing to classify all introduced species as "bad". Where’s the scientific data stating that all introduced species need to go? It doesn’t exist. This school of thought defies logic in that there are literally thousands of introduced species out there that don’t wreak havoc in the environment that a small percentage of people refuse to acknowledge actually staying put where planted thus respecting property lines. I think these are the people referred to as being unreasonable. Many who choose to remove invasives struggle with the removal process. I know I always seem to get hung up with the price of the plant. I paid for it and wouldn’t have purchased it if I didn’t like it so it stings me in the wallet when I determine a plant I bought and planted in the ground has to go. We’re only human and many of these plants are absolutely beautiful and when we don’t see the spontaneous seedlings, destroying a plant is a difficult decision to make. Sometimes even when we see the spontaneous seedlings, destroying a plant is a difficult decision to make. The fact remains that the vast majority of people have never been afforded the luxury of viewing spontaneous seedlings in natural environments. Most unfortunately, some people could care less if the offspring of their plants ends up on other people’s properties or in natural environments. Out of sight, out of mind.

I need to take some pampas grass pictures for you, Equi. We're in the desert; I figured they would be limited by lack of rainfall, but oh dear. -I am planning to go out here soon on a nighttime drive-by glyphosate shooting.
This is "in sight" and in my mind to be sure.

Barberry sucks. Plant it next to a prison fence to keep anyone from escaping.
Thumbs down to Norway Maples (Acer platanoides). Their seedlings are so annoying and grow in minimal light, hidden until they are of pesky size.

Terryr: are you serious about the Ailanthus? All along, I thought you were being a jokester. You better be putting us on about the ghetto palm. It's only okay to keep a ghetto palm in a container. And that's only MARGINALLY okay. Nobody likes Ailanthus when they get to know it's qualities.

Like how flaming difficult it is to remove?

Like as in really difficult to remove. We're not talking one or two casually appearing to make my life miserable either. We're talking literally hundreds.

undercover_owl, I'm a jokester, but unfortunaly this home (lived here 1 1/2 yrs) came with an Ailanthus that I've already tried to kill with the help of Equil. It didn't happen. That thing is still thriving. I put in a call to a tree cutting service yesterday, just waiting to hear back from them. Unfortunately also, is that there's one two doors down and one behind and caddy corner going the other way. There's 2 more on a corner about 8 blocks away and who knows where all else in town. The city took one down caddy corner in front of me last year, and the neighbors had one that cracked and fell on their house a few years ago they told me. Don't tell Guy, but yes, I'm joking about bring any to him. I also joked with a city guy who told me they wouldn't take my tree down. I told him I'd be bringing him 15 or so and I'd plant 15 more on city owned land.......all a joke and he knew it.

I girdled my plants and applied Garlon 4 to the exposed cambium layer. I went back about 10 days later and girdled the trees again only below the first girdle by about 6" or so and re-applied Garlon 4 and the thing still didn't die but was beginning to show some signs of stress. I finally chainsawed it down and ended up drilling small holes into the cambium layer and filled those holes with concentrated BrushBGon (I think it was concentrated BrushBGon because I was out of Garlon 4 by then) and that killed them off quite nicely. Three strikes at a tree should tell us something.

It's my fault Terry couldn't kill hers. I had no idea her tree was as big as it was. She ran out of happy juice.

This message was edited Aug 29, 2006 11:31 PM

Whew! Thanks for clearing that up for me. I would bet all the Ailanthus in the neighborhood have the same root system. It's probably all just one tree.

I HEARD THAT!!!

You heard what?

You guys should post pictures so we illiterates can see what you are talking about. It would help with our assist in ID and eradication. I am just a visual person. Like this. This is a picture of me and my famous friend Dan Hinkley. (picking nose). This is the nature boys.