journey11
Garden Master
I've got two Variegated Porcelain Berry Vines my MIL gave me. They can be invasive in the south, but aren't here. But they do cause me trouble in that they've become a monstrously large clump of tangled vines that attract Japanese beetles like crazy. I still like them though...when they're not all chewed up anyway. They don't travel and they don't reseed here at least.
I've got a Trumpet Vine that climbs up and tries to eat my back porch every year. I just whack it back down every fall. They do send out a lot of runners, but mine have gone under the porch and haven't really prospered there. I love the big orange clusters of blooms.
Vinca Major and Purple Wintercreeper both got off to a very slow start. They were supposed to be a good ground cover solution for a dry, deep shade, poor quality patch of soil up against my front porch. They finally did fill in and they look great, however the Vinca is determined to run sideways and take over the rest of my flowerbeds and the Wintercreeper makes a run up the side of the porch with little climbing roots like Ivy has. I chop 'em back a couple times a year to keep them where I want them, grabbing them by handfuls and chopping away like crazy.
My patch of Anise (Pimpinella) brings in tons of black swallowtails every summer. It's also a very interesting plant with dark, dill-like foliage and stalks that resemble black bamboo. If I remember to harvest the umbels before they drop their seed, everything's fine, but if I don't then it reseeds itself a little too happily. The seeds are really great for baking too.
I love the smell of Datura blooms on a balmy evening and they are very showstopping plants, but they reseed like crazy too, sometimes in places you have no idea how they got there. The seed pods are mean and thorny and every part of the plant is poisonous. They replant themselves every year, including coming back up from the root (which they are not supposed to do here, supposedly not that hardy in my zone, but even this past winter didn't kill some of them.) I pull bunches of them and leave a few to enjoy.
I've had the same problem as Bay with bringing in weeds with truckloads of manure. That I will spray weedkiller on too if I can't keep up with it by pulling. I really need all the humus and stuff I can add to this hard clay to make it better, so I make that trade off.
I've got a Trumpet Vine that climbs up and tries to eat my back porch every year. I just whack it back down every fall. They do send out a lot of runners, but mine have gone under the porch and haven't really prospered there. I love the big orange clusters of blooms.
Vinca Major and Purple Wintercreeper both got off to a very slow start. They were supposed to be a good ground cover solution for a dry, deep shade, poor quality patch of soil up against my front porch. They finally did fill in and they look great, however the Vinca is determined to run sideways and take over the rest of my flowerbeds and the Wintercreeper makes a run up the side of the porch with little climbing roots like Ivy has. I chop 'em back a couple times a year to keep them where I want them, grabbing them by handfuls and chopping away like crazy.
My patch of Anise (Pimpinella) brings in tons of black swallowtails every summer. It's also a very interesting plant with dark, dill-like foliage and stalks that resemble black bamboo. If I remember to harvest the umbels before they drop their seed, everything's fine, but if I don't then it reseeds itself a little too happily. The seeds are really great for baking too.
I love the smell of Datura blooms on a balmy evening and they are very showstopping plants, but they reseed like crazy too, sometimes in places you have no idea how they got there. The seed pods are mean and thorny and every part of the plant is poisonous. They replant themselves every year, including coming back up from the root (which they are not supposed to do here, supposedly not that hardy in my zone, but even this past winter didn't kill some of them.) I pull bunches of them and leave a few to enjoy.
I've had the same problem as Bay with bringing in weeds with truckloads of manure. That I will spray weedkiller on too if I can't keep up with it by pulling. I really need all the humus and stuff I can add to this hard clay to make it better, so I make that trade off.