songbird wrote:
many years ago Ma planted some flowers that were
supposed to repel mosquitoes. it also happens to
be able to spread more than we'd like. inside the
fenced gardens it was taking over six different
patches. last fall we started getting it out of
three of them, this spring i finished those and now
we've had time to think about what next.

this week we chopped back the rest of it (with the
bees still buzzing all over it -- they switched over
to the many other flowering plants). Ma got it mostly
out of one of the gardens and two others will need a
few square yards of it either smothered or removed
along their edges, but that at least halts the invasion
of that flower going on in the fenced garden patches.

leaving it still having spread into the large area
behind the fenced gardens which contains my second
strawberry patch. as this area was along the large
drainage ditch and it never was properly set up as a
formal garden i did't really spend a lot of time back
there to keep things under control. so the grasses
have invaded from the ditch and the invasive flowering
plant has gotten going in there too.

my original plan that i've been working on was to
gradually get that stuff removed, smothered and to
put down a deep root barrier to keep the grasses and
other weeds out.

Ma decides she wants to chop all that down so we
start on that and almost get done and she says she wants
to either keep mowing it or we have to cover/smother it.
now, if i'd know the choices before spending two previous
days chopping it back i'd have just said smother it (and
not waste time chopping because the stubs from chopping
will come through plastic or weed barrier fabric when you
step on it)... she says that she'll do anything to not
have that area be strawberries again.

since i'm losing my large strawberry patch she says that
we can put one inside the fenced gardens in a currently
unused space (i was eventually going to do this anyways).
that frees up the time i was going to be renovating the
large strawberry patch - when things cool off in a few more
weeks we can start on the new strawberry patch. much
easier location to manage (completely surrounded by formal
gardens, crushed limestone pathways, fenced, etc.). it
won't be invaded by the large drainage ditch grass and
horsetail...

in other news, cherry tomatoes coming in now, many
cucumbers, peppers, onions, beans. hail damage in
places. should be able to make some bean salad soon.


songbird

Care to share what that invsasive plant was ? You mentioned that bees were
all over it , and I have a lot of areas here at The 12 Acre Wood where I can
plant it and not care how invasive it is ...

--
Snag