FOTD – June 18 – The Ugly Garden
Terrible things happened to our front garden this year. It has always been messy but this year, it has gone beyond messy into downright ugly. Binding, strangling vines are everywhere and things are growing I’ve never seen before. Maybe they are offshoots from fallen birdseed?
Anyway, I took pictures. I skipped the really hideous parts. Just try imagining them. Strangling vines and binding weeds and tall unidentifiable things growing. I have no idea what they are. None. I probably never will. I’m seriously thinking of removing the entire garden, excepting the rhododendron.
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Categories: #Flowers, #FOTD, #Photography, Cee's Photo Challenge, Flower of the day, Gardens
FALLING TREES & TULIP TIME 
LILIES AND ROSES 
CHRYSANTHEMUMS OR MUMS 
HYDRANGEA 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
PERHAPS THE BIRD DROPPINGS DID PRODUCE SOME UNWANTED PLANTS. ONE YEAR WE HAD WATERMELONS GROWING IN OUR CURBSIDE PATCH. PASSERS BY SOON ALMOST STRIPPED THE MELON VINES. WE HADN’T PLANTED THEM AND NOBODY ELSE APPEARED TO CLAIM THEM, SO WE ATTRIBUTED THE GIFT TO THE BIRDS.
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Considering that the birds love eating the bittersweet seeds, it’s very likely they dropped it in the yard. It’s good food for them, but it’s wrecking the garden. 20 years of working that garden wrecked in ONE month by one awful weed.
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Is there one small spot of the garden that you see a lot that can be given a new lease of life. I’m only thinking of a square yard or two. Contemplating the whole is way too much.
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The big — serious — problem is the arrival of bittersweet, a strangling vine that has moved up north from our southern states. It grows incredibly fast, strangles EVERYTHING from trees to day lilies. All you can do is try to keep pulling it up, roots and all, but it has a deep root and you have to be careful you don’t cause the rock wall to collapse.
AND it’s ugly. From the birds point of view, it’s good eating producing a lot of berries that the birds love to eat. That’s probably how we got it in the first place. The birds brought it. It’s such a fast grower that in a matter of two days, it can grow feet. I don’t know if we can save the front garden. We can cut it back after the daylilies bloom, though how much they will bloom with the bittersweet trying to kill them, I don’t know. They aren’t doing well. I didn’t think ANYTHING could stop the daylilies.
All these “imports” from overseas and other places in the country are really wrecking the garden. It’s also causing a lot of damage in the woods because this stuff also likes to strangle trees. It took us a while to identify it, but we finally found someone who said, “Yes, bittersweet. Sorry about that.”
We still have some control over the back garden, but that’s because it hasn’t grown in yet, so we can at least reach the bittersweet and pull it up — and there’s no stone wall to worry about, In front, I think we’ve already lost.
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Oh what a nightmare. I’ve just been reading this: https://treehozz.com/how-do-you-get-rid-of-bittersweet-vine
and though it indicates that control is possible, it still sounds a nightmare. Simply cutting the vine is hard work, but it might be an option with some to at least to stop it fruiting. Then there are the chemical options including white vinegar, but that doesn’t sound too brilliant either – risk of killing everything around it.
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You’d have to be out there cutting it every day. It grows really really FAST. Owen and I pull it up every day, but by the next day, it’s back. We did two full cleanouts of this garden twice this month as well as going at it with the big loppers. They have long handles, so i can reach further into the garden. I have been defeated. We have other binding vines — ye olde bindweed which is wild honeysuckle that at least smells good, wild grape vine, and Virginia creeper, but this stuff is BAD.
I won’t use any kind of poison no matter how supposedly benign. Too many birds. A neighbor once decided to poison his crabgrass and all the robins died in their nests. It was horrible. That was one of the worst things I ever saw, watching the robins literally fall over dead. We still don’t have many and we used to have dozens of them.
It’s interesting that they recommend Roundup because THAT was what killed all the Robins. It’s absolutely lethal to many small birds and probably some of the small creatures.
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I agree. Spraying is definitely a bad idea. The most effective method, though very time-consuming is applying it to a cut in the cut stem. Repeat cutting will also eventually cause the root system to die – a long-term process obviously.
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The flowers you’ve included here are very pretty, Marilyn. Garden’s are a lot of work.
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I think this one is past the point of saving. It needs to be uprooted and redone. And I do not have the energy to do it, so I think it’s going to stay a pile of weeds with the occasional flower.
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