rofl....thanks for wanting to share....rofl....but I only have 3 acres and afraid those would eat that up in no time..rofl.
What are you sorry you planted..... Part 4
That's an amazing list! I have most of these same plants in my yard, but the only one on the list that is invasive for me is Lilly of the Valley! I hate that stuff, and have been trying to remove it for years with no luck.
I wish my Phlox was invasive! It's one of my favorites! I transplanted some of mine to the front yard this year, and had it come back from some roots I had left behind, which I wasn't expecting. The good thing is that I need more of it, and now I don't have to buy it! It's never spread though, and now that I know it will grow well from roots, I guess I better be careful where I plant it!
Comfrey is another one that I've never thought of as invasive, but I know for sure if you move it and leave any roots, it comes right back. I recently dug one up and gave it away, and last night I noticed that it's growing back. But, I don't think I'd call that invasive. Just persistent!
I've been searching for a tall, dark pink or bright red monarda, but can't find one anywhere. Is the one you have one of those colors? I've got a purple one, but I wish it was dark pink or bright red instead!
Natalie
Maithyme - we have the same list! I'd only add aegopodium, oenthera (four o'clock's), and the always evil Houttuynia.
Natalie, I have red Monarda, happy to share, just send a dmail. I posted a pic recently:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=8724696
Pam
Hi, Cindy! Sorry I didn't see your comment on the Garden Orcs sooner.
True, Sam was a gardener. I don't remember if it's in the movie, but in the book Sam looks in Galadriel's Mirror and sees trees falling, being cut down, in the Shire, and he wants to go straight back and stop it: that's his test. A gardener's temptation, to rescue the trees of his home. About the Garden Orcs specifically, I had been thinking of Saruman's orcs at Isengard, and what the Ents thought about what Saruman had done with the place. But when the hobbits get home, Saruman's brought in a nasty crew to wreck the Shire the way Sam saw in the Mirror, and they've got to set things right.
I know "orcs" is rather an overreaction to having half a morning glory vine sheared off by hedge-clippers, or a swathe of rock cress decimated by raking and leaf-blowing in spring, or a buddleia "pruned" by snapping off the largest branch, leaving a jagged break... but just writing it down is making me angry at them all over again! Sigh.
That's one thing invasive garden plants are good for: coming back after something has messed up your garden.
nhuntley, I know what you mean about lov I once worked an entire afternoon pullling it out of a new flower bed. I'll send a picture (not flowering now so not pretty) of my COMFREY and see if you think it's a crazy grower. I moved it to our woods where it's been growing awhile and now I'm afraid it'll escape from there like a dandelion. I get a truckload of compost every spring and amend my soil so almost everything growing gets a shot of nutrients and is happy (sometimes too much). Regarding phlox, my white has overtaken the purple this year for the first time so you can have some if you like. I love the smell so I bought 3 new ones, mostly red. What a butterfly magnet! Do phlox ever change collor? I have a big stand I've never seen before. Regarding monarda, I have red but it's fast fading and not pretty now, I'd take PFG up on the offer - hers are beautiful.
pirl, isn't it funny, I started 4 o'clocks from seed this year because of the fragrance. One person's demon is another's treasure. Houttuynia must not grow this far north or it does and I don't recognize plants except by the common names. I'll have to look it up it sounds bad. After my first post I was working in the garden and came up with another 15 plants that have grown too well; cheddar pink dianthus, purple siberian iris, ground cherries, walking onion, trumpet vine, mother of thyme, shoo fly, even baptista and amsonia which have recently been 'perennial of the year' have lived here a long time and proliferate. I can't stand to waste them so I transplant them for a plant sale.
Happgarden, when you've been gardening as long as Mathusala you see all kinds of garden quirks. I've been taking photos - lots - this year for the first time and now have living proof of why I love gardening. But now it's time for canning (sigh)........rmetth.
Pam, you are awesome to offer to share your plant with me! I lucked out though about 1/2 hour ago, and found one at a local nursery! I'm so excited!
Thanks also to everyone who sent a d-mail that was willing to share too! Dave's Garden has the nicest people!!
maithyme, I wonder if we have a different Comfrey than each other. Mine can get to 4 feet tall, and stays in one place. I don't know the name of mine, but a friend told me it was "decorative" Comfrey. It's never once reseeded, but does come back easily from the roots. I consider mine to be persistent, not invasive! How did you get your Lily of the Valley removed in an afternoon? That made me laugh! I've been trying for years to remove mine and it's still there! I've never had a phlox change color, but I've only had them about 5 years.
Natalie
Actually Natalie the only reason it took such a short time is because the flower bed was only a year old. I removed the other plants which were planted in compost so they came out easily and then dug like a demon until I got every last white LOV root. But did I mention that I have 2 peonies with LOV coming right out of the middle of the plants in the back garden? This fall all peonies will be split and you can bet I'll get those little devils then.
This spring a DG member requested a 100 LOV roots. I sent them and it barely made a dent in my supply. They grow in a raised bed around the trunk of our red maple and are fine there. I have to keep some for their heavenly fragrance. Lilacs and LOV both bloom at the same time and we must have bouquets of both in the house.
Still shopping for plants, huh? Me too, alot of times it's "rescue" missions because some plants look so pathetic. When you're a plant addict like many of us are, does anyone leave the plants in the car until a time when DH doesn't see another purchase to plant it?
maithyme, that would explain why I'm having a hard time getting all of the LOV out! I planted mine about 20 years ago, so it has had years to get a good grip everywhere. I've got it growing right in the middle of a rose bush!
I do enjoy "covert plant shopping"!! My husband has never complained about any plants I've bought, but I do sneak them in once in a while because I feel guilty about it! I'll swear to myself that I'm done and I won't buy any more, and then I see something I can't pass up! I'm seriously out of room, but always manage to cram them in somewhere! And yes, I've left them hidden in the truck!
Natalie
maithyme - the idea of lilacs and LOV in bouquets for the home is divine. I have them at opposite ends of the property but they still end up indoors in May and June.
Digging like a demon is the sure fire way to get the LOV roots. I've cleared two areas of them with two to go and wish you luck getting them from between the peony roots. They are easier to eliminate because the pips are so obvious but that's not true with many other weedy plants. At least LOV doesn't run at a rapid rate - not here anyhow.
Natalie - having the LOV in the middle of a rose bush sounds like even more of a challenge than the peony situation.
I don't hide plants or leave them in the car. Look at all the money we don't spend by buying gold and diamonds or throwing lavish catered affairs on our many yachts all over the globe! They should thank us for spending money on plants!
I've never noticed that the LOV smells good! I'm always too busy trying to get rid of it that I guess I haven't bothered to enjoy it for what it's worth! I only had one small area of it when I planted it, but we rented our house out to a friend for 8 years when we were moving around with the Navy, and our friend moved it around to different areas. So, I'm battling it in several spots. The friend was a landscape architect, so it looks nice where he put it, but it's too invasive! I think my biggest problem is that the friend also put some huge rocks in the same area, so the roots are under the rocks and I can't get to them. I brushed Round-Up on them a while back, and the only thing it did was turn them brown after a couple of weeks. It sure didn't slow them down any! My main reason for wanting to remove them is that they are toxic to dogs, and I've got two dogs who are really attracted to the plant.
There is no way I can get it out of the rose bush. I've tried, but the roots are totally tangled together. I just need to decide if I should keep the rose. It's another thing that the renter planted, but I really love it. It's one of those tiny little roses that comes in a tea cup. After we moved back in, the thing grew to about 5 feet tall! Bill came over and just about fell over when he saw it! He planted several of them around the yard, having given them to his wife, who collects tea cups. It was the perfect gift because he got a plant out of it! It really is pretty, but I have to keep it cut way back because when it gets that tall, it flops. Decisions, decisions....
I think at this point, if it wasn't toxic to dogs, I'd probably not be so worried about it, but it scares me to have something in the yard that can hurt the furry family members. All of the flower beds are fenced in because one of the dogs is still a puppy, and she doesn't know what is off-limits, but I don't want to leave the fence up forever!
Natalie
Pine needle mulch was my big indulgence this year and my husband was totally agreeable to it. The more I use, the less I have to weed.
A piece of that heavy duty deer netting wouldn't hurt the rose but would keep the LOV safely out of the dog's reach.
When I was a teenager I decided to plant 4 o'clocks, bachelor buttons and cosmos all along the back of our house. I had to dig the 20 foot bed myself, pulled all the grass, weeds and wheelbarrows full of rocks out then dig in all the new dirt, compost and peat. Took me a few weeks (I was a teenager and had a limited attention span:lol:) Everything was great once they grew and matured. The mixed pink/white cosmos were huge, almost 5 ft tall. I didn't realize that each flower was a cluster of seeds and my dad was so irked that those things reseeded all over his lawn:lol: 5 and 6 feet away from the border bed. I'm still thinking it would have been pretty to just let them go...but nooooo he was an old school east coast manicured lawn sort of guy who mowed the yard every weekend.
I planted 4o'clocks here in NC when I first started my flower bed and of the mixed plants only one perennialized itself into a tuber and returns each summer. It's a 2 ft tall fuchsia and is reliable and healthy. I didn't even know they could form tubers and go perennial. I don't get any babies from the fallen seeds so I'm not sure what's going on with that. I'll probably collect a few this fall and try to start them myself and see if they are viable.
pirl, Bailey is a 10 month old lab, so we'll keep the fence up for at least a couple of years. We couldn't keep her out of the beds when we got her, so this was a good solution. I'm also positive that she'd dig up my daylilies! She's got her very own digging spot, but she's got a knack for digging wherever there are tree roots. She's like one of those pigs that digs for truffles, but she finds roots! Needless to say, we've got little holes dug all over the yard! I'm more than willing to leave the rabbit fence up until she's a lot older and learns that she can't go in the flower beds. It's not pretty, but the flowers are safe, and so is Bailey. We put the fence up the first time when we got our Golden Retriever, Maggie. She's now almost 9, and hasn't set foot in the flower beds since we took the fence down when she was 2. Like Bailey, we couldn't keep her out of the beds, and having the fence up taught her where she could go, and where she couldn't. I'm hoping that it works just as well with Bailey. Besides that, I'll do whatever it takes to keep them safe, because I've got other plants in the yard that are toxic to dogs. It's just easier to fence the plants in than to worry about it.
My husband would never complain, even for one second, about any plants that I buy. He's even more than willing to help unload all of the truckloads of mulch I've bought! I'm one lucky gal! It's probably because his hobbies are more expensive than mine are, and I never complain about them!
dmac, I bet that flower bed was gorgeous! And the fact that you did it as a teenager is amazing! I was totally into doing yard work when I was a kid, and even when I was a teenager, but all of my friends thought that I was insane! I even liked to mow the lawn and trim the hedge! Looking back, I think the only reason I liked to trim the hedge was because my parents would let me drive the truck out to the street and park it next to the hedge, so that I could stand in the back of it to trim the hedge! I probably didn't really enjoy trimming it as much as I loved driving the truck!
Natalie
I definitely enjoyed the garden more than dusting, vacuuming and doing dishes--still do for that matter:lol:
I still can't get over that no matter how good I pick out rocks, if I wait a couple of months there are more making their way to the top:lol:
Oh, I have that too. Endless supply...
Pam
What is the benefit of pine mulch? Is it mulch or just pine needles? SFMI
dmac, I've got the same exact problem with rocks! I'm positive that I'll never get all of them out of my flower beds. Someone who owned my house many years ago was a rock nut! I've got little white rocks everywhere. I've been collecting them as I find them, since my neighbor loves them, but it seems to be an endless supply! I'm a bit of a rock nut myself, but I like large rocks, not those little rock chips!
Natalie
Large rocks can be cool. Little ones - WHY?
catz - the benefits of any mulch of any kind is to help keep the soil temperature more constant, to conserve moisture and to help prevent weeds.
Thank you pirl ;)
I guess I was very broad in my question. LOL
I mulch regularly, somewhere around 3" or so at a time. I use hardwood mulch and peat moss. I have noticed that several people here were always using pine mulch. I was wondering if there is a particular benefit with pine over hardwoods. I also wondered if pine mulch is chopped pine wood or collected pine needles. Would there be a benefit to using pine needles as mulch?
We use the long needled pine and I do use 3" and it has made a huge difference in weeding. I've used many kinds of mulch in the past but love the feel of the pine needles under my feet in paths. It's the only one I use in my gardens. The radio gardening guy loves using the same one because the pine needles lock together and don't blow away. Personally, I love the smell of it but that does disappear in time.
It's not chopped but collected.
I use pine bark mulch because I think it is beautiful, and it is slightly acidic (my soil is alkaline, and it is said to lower the ph a bit). I also like its scent. It also is long lasting. A lot of people around me use cedar or cypress, which I avoid because here they are dyed a red color, and I don't care for the smell of them.
Pine needles, I understand from my reading, are particularly good for acid loving plants like azaleas. I understand that they are a truly superior mulch for acid loving plants.
And pine bark mulch is definitely chopped wood. It's also easy to find. If I could find a source of pine needles I would probably use those too.
Hi Pirl, we crossposted. It's funny that I wrote that if I could find a source of pine needles I would use them (once again, we think alike!)
Someone tried contacting them and they were of no help at all, Donna.
Pirl, was your response for me? I don't recall suggesting someone be contacted. Am I just getting old?
Thank you both. Several of the older neighborhoods around here have many mature pines. A lot of those folks never clean up after them. They just let the shed needles lay on their lawn,driveways, and street. Perhaps they wouldn't mind if I cleaned up for them.
Do either of you have a problem with certain plants when it comes to the acidity factor?
I contacted the company after Pirl posted a picture of the bag. They have no distribution anywhere me in Litchfield County, NW Connecticut. Very disappointing!
Pam
Pfg, I get all my pine needles free from the leaf debris piles left in the street before town leaf pick up.
Our town doesn't allow bags, just leaf piles.
I stake out the neighborhood to see who has pine trees and check to see when they are raked to the street.
If you time it right some of the piles have mostly pine needles, wait too long and other leaves are added.
Once I found a really large pine in a front yard and offered to rake the yard for the right to take the pine needles.
I got 10 large garage bags full.
If you can't find pine needles the bagged shredded pine bark or small pine nuggets are a good alternate.
I've been buying shredded pine. I like it better than chips, seems more natural somehow. But the weeds keep coming!
Pam
I do find that mulch does a very good job of suppressing weeds. But it's not free! And I like it chipped small. I don't care for the nuggets.
I usually buy finely ground mulch by the yard when I can get it. And if I can't get it, I usually buy the next smallest size. I don't like nuggets either, and the smaller the size, the better! I do use bark on the side of the house though, along the pathway, because it looks really nice. I just don't like it in my flower beds.
I bought a load of mulch about a week ago and just got through unloading it a couple of days ago. It's sold as a soil additive, but I prefer to pile it on top of the soil and let it work itself into the dirt over time. It's sure easier on my back that way! I always get a load in the spring, and another in the fall, but got it a little earlier this year. It's made my dirt so much better! The best part is that I buy a yard for $21, and they always give me closer to 2 yards! I have almost no weeds in the flower beds in the backyard, but never got a fresh layer of mulch added to the front beds last fall or this spring. I can sure tell the difference with how well the mulch keeps the weeds down!
Natalie
I noticed a HUGH difference in my myrica pennsylvanica when, in addition to Ironite, I added compost and pine bark mulch to the beds. There are 14 of them in front of my house, so they're hard to miss. I was using three methods to lower the ph in a nonshocking way, and boy did they respond! This is seven of them.
They sell bales of pine needles around here in the the late summer and fall. Home Depot, Lowes have trailers of them in the parking lot outside of the garden center area. They don't break down much either so they're easy to remove in the spring.
I ended up using the rocks I've gathered here beneath the rain spout at the corner of the flower bed underneath the plastic water shute guide thing so it doesn't end up settled in mud. Sort of looks like a short little dry riverbed thing most days.
I've never seen pine needles for sale anywhere, and I've moved around a lot, thanks to my husband's 26 years in the Navy. It must be a regional thing? I should tell my neighbor to start bagging his up to sell. He piles them sky high in his compost pile, and they take years and years to break down. He's got more than anyone could ever need in a lifetime! They are the long ones, which are nice and soft. We had two pine trees removed a couple of years ago that had the short needles, and I'm glad to be done with that mess. Those little needles poked me constantly, and I hated them!
I've got a growing rock pile under one corner of my front porch where the water drains from the gutter. I finally gave up and decided to leave them there because no matter how many I removed, there would be a fresh bunch after it rained hard! I just put mulch over it because it makes a really loud splashing noise, and it's right next to my bedroom window!
Natalie
It IS regional, judging by your comments. We never see them here, either plied up for the taking or for sale. But that's probably because we are all living on what used to be farmland. I never understood that until I started to dig in it. Decades of tractor activity compress the lower layers of the soil into hardpan, which it takes years of composting to undo. Developers scoop the top layer of soil off, sell it elsewhere, and leave the hardpan to us!
No one sells pine needles here, plus we have the problem of all the pines dying from the pine wilt or whatever it is called. I have lost 10 trees. We live in the country and are burning the trees and the needles in hopes not to spread the disease, I doubt we are stopping it but trying.
I mulch like a crazy person, and ask for it for almost any and all occasions, the folks I work with think I am crazy. One year I decided not to mulch because of the expense, to see when I retire I could cut that cost.....well 3 years later, I am just now slowing the weeds down.... it was awful. If one weed seed hit the dirt, 100 of them must of, at least with the mulch you will get weeds but nothing like without it trust me. That is how I think my autumn clematis got a foot hold and now I have all the little ones coming up every where.
Oh happy, 10 trees lost. That is so sad. We lost trees in a tornado this year; it has changed our yard so much.