Corralling The Lysimachia 'Firecracker'

I recently wrote about what I thought was Coreopsis 'Golden Gain' invading the neighboring plants.  I discovered it was actually Lysimachia "Firecracker' (thank you Gardenweb Forum), which is a VERY invasive plant.  It seems to be a type of Loosestrife, which is a real invasive family.

It had suddenly spread into some stokesia on one side and into some asters in the back.  It had totally smothered a patch of Coreopsis 'Moonbeam'.  It has fibrous matted roots that are impossible to disentangle from other plants.

It was sold to me as the Coreopsis 'Golden Gain' and since it had a golden flower, I didn't realize I had been sent a mislabelled plant.  Fortunately, the vendor is making it as right as they can by sending replacements.

Still, I had to do a lot of hard work to correct the situation.  As it actually IS a rather good looking perennial, I wanted to keep what I could.  If I had a sunny spot surrounded by paved surfaces to fence it in (like driveway/sidewalk/house) I would have dug it up and moved it there.  But I don't.

So my solution was to dig up the plants in the invaded area, install edging barrier around it, and replant the lost stokesia and asters.  Looking back, I am thinking I should have just used Roundup!  But all's well that ends well...

First, I dug up a foot around the area I wanted to keep, a nice 8' diameter circle.  It was just like digging up turf sod and about as much fun.  I am saving the dug up sod because I have an idea what to do with it!

Here is one side cleared out.  Digging around the soaker hoses was not fun, but pulling them up through the existing plants and trying to nestle them back down afterwards seemed worse.

Here is a picture of them invading the asters in the back of the garden.  They seem to spread the roots out 2' in Fall, then the new stems emerge suddenly in Spring.  You don't get much warning.  Last year, I thought they were self-sowing, so I snipped the flowerheads.  Alas, that wasn't the problem...

After I dug them all out leaving the 8' circle, I dug a trench around them.  Since they haven't spread under the path edging, I think more edging will contain them.  It took a spade to cut through the matted roots, a mattock to dredge the trench, and a trowel to scoop out the soil.  Loads of fun...

I threaded some old edging under the hoses through the trench...

And backfilled on both sides.  The edging looks high, but that's because I removed a lot of soil with the dug pieces.  I will have to add more soil to return it to level.  The edging should be sticking about 1/2" above ground.  Mulch will cover that.

You can just see the space for the 3 replacement stokesia to go.

Any Lysimachia that try to escape the edging will get a vinegar spray first, and a Roundup spray if absolutely required.  And if the edging really won't stop it, I will make a cardboard circle around it and give the whole patch the Roundup!  I'm taking a chance even giving these plants a second chance.  But if they will stay in bounds, they'll have long happy lives.

Now what am I going to do with the parts I dug up?  Future post!

A Bit Of A Report

Sorry I haven't been posting here regularly.  I get more involved in the Mark's Mews blog about the cats.  Their pictures are more interesting.  And I haven't been very active with home projects lately.  Weeding the gardens is not very exciting, and everytime I want to go to the local project store to get wood, it starts to rain.  So (for example), my plans to build new plant light shelves is still on hold...

And my gardening work tends to end up on the cats' blog.  I'll have to find a way to balance that.  "They" get to show off the results, so I will have to start posting more about the weeding and digging here.  Fortunately, I have a few dozen new plants on order, so I will have some new things to show soon.

One major effort is too enlarge the areas of successful plants.  When I started flowerbeds, I ordered "6 of this" and "9 of that".  The results were a bit chaotic.  I am moving more toward larger areas of the ones that have done best.  And bringing several small plantings of one plant together.  For example, I have 18 astilbes in 3 places and I think it would look better to have them all in the one place where they seem happiest.  The two other places, they just struggle to survive.  One place is too sunny and the other is too shady.

The back of the flowerbeds has always been unsatisfying.  I originally planted 5 butterfly bushes, interspersed with 2 euonymus shrubs, 2 spring flowering almonds, and some nandina.  And the butterfly bushes are so old that the yearly prune-back has made them weak.  Even perennials don't thrive forever.  The euonymus shrubs are twice the claimed size and are shading everything.  Plus they send up shoots everywhere.  It is time for a clean sweep of the background shrubs.  That is going to be a job removing them all, but it will be worth it.  And I may be able to use some of them in other parts of the yard.

I plan to plant new smaller red butterfly bushes, put nandina in between for winter color, and move the euonymus along front creek for privacy and erosion control.  They can grow full size there.  I haven't thought of a good place for the spring flowering almond shrubs, but they are only interesting for a couple of weeks each year  so they may not be much of a loss.

Meanwhile, I did do a lot of weeding the past week.  Every location has their own annoying weeds, but mine are purple deadnettle, some creeping grass that spreads through runners, and some damn little plant with tiny white flowers on it (and the seeds jump away when the plant is touched.  The good news is that I think I got at them this year before they could go to seed.  There are others like thistle and dandelion, but they never get to seed here, they just grow from windblown seeds in other yards and I can't stop that.

I don't have many weed problems, usually.  This was a great year for the purple deadnettles though.

They are all OVER the front lawn.  I'm never seen this before.  They apparently love sunlight because they only grew beyond the shadow of the house.  Well, they only live a few weeks, so it could be worse.

They do annoy me though, because I maintain the yard organically and it mostly works.  I apply corn gluten each Spring and Fall, and that stuff supresses initial root development, and mowing at 3" usually shades out most weeds.  Here's an example:

This is a view down my property line.  My yard is on the left.  My neighbor uses synthetic weed killer  and major fertilizer stuff and mows his lawn down like a pool table.   I mow my yard to 3" and use organic stuff.  Biggify the picture to see where all the dandelions and crabgrasses are... And my grass IS greener without anything added but the 9-2-2 corn gluten.

Yes, he doesn't have the purple deadnettle.  I have to think about that one...  But I bet if I took a core sample of his lawn and mine that the soil is richer many inches down in mine and almost dead in his.

And here's something else.  I have honeybees in MY yard.  I don't think they live IN my yard, but they sure come here to feed.

In fact, it was becoming hazardous to walk around the yard before I mowed the lawn deadnettles down.  Don't worry, they still have plenty to feed from, there are large unmowed areas.  But I have difficult childhood stinging issues and the memories remain...  So where I walk, it is mowed.

Poison Ivy Progress

Time for a progress report on the poison ivy.  I gave it all a good spray on May 28th.

It was thriving then...

It was looking a bit tired a week later...

It is looking REAL unhappy now...

Now I have to go around and find the ones I missed the first time or that need another shot...

Poison Ivy Woes

I have constant problems with poison ivy.  It's partly because this neighborhood was developed from mature woods in the 80s/90s and partly because I left most of the backyard wooded.  It took a decade just to get the scrub trees (like thorny locust) cleared out.  I like the semi-natural look I have.

But it is partly because 2 adjacent neighbors totally ignore their yards next to mine.  One has a drainage easement through their back yard (10' from my fence) and they basically ignore everything on the side near me.  The other has 10' of brambles near my fence and just never bothers with that area.  A 3rd neighbor is basically absent for some reason (I think the property is involved in a divorce dispute), and while he mows the yard every couple of weeks, he pays no attention to the edges.

So I am constantly fighting off poison ivy coming in through the fence.

I used to have little reaction to it, but several years ago, I got a full body rash from it.  It was a miserable 2 full weeks.  Some of the poison ivy in the neighbor yards is mature enough to produce berries and the birds evidently drop the seeds all around the yard.  New plants spring up out of nowhere even near the house.

I saw the first new poison ivy plants leafing out 2 weeks ago.  They are now fully leafy.   I am an organic gardener.  But that garden/flowerbeds/lawn.  For poison ivy (and also rampant honeysuckle, wild grape, and some vine I haven't identified), I turn to Brush-B-Gon!

So today was "Spray Day".  I filled up my large pressure sprayer (portable, but just barely) and made the rounds.  I was shocked at how much poison ivy was around the yard and how mature some of the plants were!  That's partly because I have been clearing problem spots and revealing places I haven't looked into for years.  For example, I discovered (to my horror) that there is a huge poison ivy vine coming up over the fence and growing 20' up a tree in MY own yard! 

I can pretty much kill off most of the plants in my yard, but I can't get rid of the sources.  I spray carefully (short controlled spray individual plant by plant) through the fence as far as I can (the neighbors have no landscaping near the fence), but there is always more growing back the next year.

So I have a dilemma.  If I ask the neighbors to control/spray the poison ivy in their yards, they will spray wildly right through the fence on a windy day and kill all my plants and flowers.  If I don't mention the problem, I will have poison ivy forever.

Maybe I should ask them if I can spray in their yards and do it carefully...

Anyway, I went around the yard spraying poison ivy plants with great pleasure.  I can't wait to see them turn brown and die!  It was a sunny and nearly windless day, so it was safe.  And only an hour later, all the leaves were dry, so I know they soaked in the spray.

I'll try to remember to post pictures of the dead poison ivy next week...