West Seattle: Garden Ho, Part II
Sunday morning arrived with unexpected sunshine and warmth. After taking Sally for her morning constitutional I drove to 8 Limbs Yoga in the Alaska Junction for an early morning yoga class (it's time to start taking exercise seriously again). Afterward, I headed over to the West Seattle Sunday Farmers Market where I was delighted to find an "Ask a Master Gardner" booth manned by volunteers from the Washington State University Master Gardner Program. Score!!
Last week I had gone to check out the local branch library and picked up half a dozen gardening books as Ivan had just informed me the day before that I was going to be in charge of the garden. I believe I actually missed that memo, but I vowed to take the matter seriously. I am a city girl who has barely managed to keep house plants alive but I am smart, gosh darn it! And resourceful! So I went off to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible. The books from the library, however, did not meet my most pressing need: to tell me exactly what I needed to do and exactly how to do it.
The issues:
1) I discovered that the Wisteria planted on the south side of the house was a Chinese Wisteria. Very invasive and very hard to kill. Here's a great description of it:
Folks in the Southeastern U.S. are familiar with Kudzu, another Asian import that runs rampant over trees, telephone poles, old buildings, and slow-moving children. As bad as Kudzu is, Chinese Wisteria is even worse; Kudzu simply climbs and covers native trees and shrubs--occasionally shading them out and killing them---while Chinese Wisteria almost always strangles them to death. Wisteria is a twining vine, and when it wraps around a tree trunk the combined growth of vine and tree eventually chokes off the tree's plumbing. After the host tree rots away or topples earthward, the wisteria simply grows along the ground until the delicate tip of a new stem finds another vertical object to ascend, and the murderous cycle repeats itself.
How do I get rid of it without resorting to herbicides?
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY
2) The stand of bamboo also on the south side of the property has been sending out roots yards away from it's supposed containment field. There are two shoots coming up through the bricks in the drive way. How do I keep it from spreading? The books say to sever the rhizomes but don't tell how to achieve that.
SILENT BUT DEADLY
3) The laurel on the north side of the lawn was unreasonably tall. The tallest was approximately 20 feet high. Can I prune them down to around, say 6 feet, without damaging them?
GOSH, YOU'RE A BIG FELLA, AREN'T YA?
4) We are being overrun by dandelions. If I dig them up, what do I do with the hole that's left behind?
DO NOT MAKE A WISH!
5) Aside from the wisteria and the bamboo, we also have to deal with the encroaching blackberry, ivy, morning glory, and lilac that are already fighting to the death in the woods around us and they are trying to create military outposts in our yard. Bastards! How do I keep them at bay?
AND IT WON'T BE OVER TILL IT'S OVER, OVER THERE
So, you can imagine my delight and relief to have four, FOUR, Master Gardeners to consult for FREE!
I received answers for all my questions and I won't go into detail about what they told me, but my task for the day became to hack back the wisteria and attempt to dig up the root ball. (In the months ahead I will continue to cut back new shoots for as long as it takes for the root system to exhaust itself- just like I am doing with the clematis.)
So I got home, ate a bit (my first food of the day) and then fell into conversation with Domenico and Carmela who were doing some yard work of their own. We started talking about the laurel that runs between our properties and that I wanted to cut them down to about 6 feet. Domenico, who has the tools for this sort of job, offered to do the job if I hauled off the debris. Deal made, he went to get his limber (a sort of a small chainsaw on a stick) and I went to attack the wisteria.
During this time, the sky has started to grow dark and within 15 minutes of us starting our tasks it began to rain. I ran inside with Sally, but 10 minutes later it let up so I returned to the yard where I grabbed what Dom had cut and brought them to the far side of their property and through them into the brush.
BEFORE
Within minutes of this Dom had returned to his task, the limber set aside in favor of a pair of pruners. As before, the rain started up in a matter of minutes but this time we didn't run and we, including Carmela, spent the next 3 hours or so cutting back the nefarious laurel. Dom wielded the pruners while Carmela and I loaded up a large blue tarp (about 12x15) with the discarded branches and then dragged it through the mud to the the north side of their property where we dumped each load. We did this about 8 -10 times, easily, and I would guess that the total weight of the loads added up to several hundred pounds. Needless to say I was quite sore this morning.
DURING
The Master Gardeners had, in unison, rolled their eyes when I mentioned the laurel. But they assured me that, even though it might take a bit of time to grow back, not much could harm them so 'have at it'. So Domenico did. But each pass revealed just how tangled the branches had become - branches from one tree becoming fused to another's trunk; branches spanning at least 5 feet in length. It became clear that leaving the laurels at 6 feet in height was still going to be too tall. So the cutting continued. By the time we were done we were soaked through, covered in mud, rain dripping in our eyes and the laurel were pathetically bare, stumpy ghosts of their former glory.
AFTER. I SAID IT WAS SAD LOOKING.
Having said all that, I must admit I had a great time. I love hard physical labor and fancy myself a packhorse when it comes to this sort of thing - you just need to put your head down, set your teeth and keep going forward. The feeling of accomplishment is most satisfying and doing it in the rain looking like a rugby themed Abercrombie & Fitch advert just added to the overall pleasure.
MANDATORY SAFETY MEETING
As for our sad-looking laurels? I can now easily access the various plants underneath them if I decide to replant them elsewhere. If we decide we don't like the laurels they are at a state where we can pull them out. If we decide to keep them, we can now prune them properly and keep them under control.
Next weekend? Project Wisteria resumes and, if I can find a pick-ax, Project Bamboo begins.
Last week I had gone to check out the local branch library and picked up half a dozen gardening books as Ivan had just informed me the day before that I was going to be in charge of the garden. I believe I actually missed that memo, but I vowed to take the matter seriously. I am a city girl who has barely managed to keep house plants alive but I am smart, gosh darn it! And resourceful! So I went off to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible. The books from the library, however, did not meet my most pressing need: to tell me exactly what I needed to do and exactly how to do it.
The issues:
1) I discovered that the Wisteria planted on the south side of the house was a Chinese Wisteria. Very invasive and very hard to kill. Here's a great description of it:
Folks in the Southeastern U.S. are familiar with Kudzu, another Asian import that runs rampant over trees, telephone poles, old buildings, and slow-moving children. As bad as Kudzu is, Chinese Wisteria is even worse; Kudzu simply climbs and covers native trees and shrubs--occasionally shading them out and killing them---while Chinese Wisteria almost always strangles them to death. Wisteria is a twining vine, and when it wraps around a tree trunk the combined growth of vine and tree eventually chokes off the tree's plumbing. After the host tree rots away or topples earthward, the wisteria simply grows along the ground until the delicate tip of a new stem finds another vertical object to ascend, and the murderous cycle repeats itself.
How do I get rid of it without resorting to herbicides?
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY
2) The stand of bamboo also on the south side of the property has been sending out roots yards away from it's supposed containment field. There are two shoots coming up through the bricks in the drive way. How do I keep it from spreading? The books say to sever the rhizomes but don't tell how to achieve that.
SILENT BUT DEADLY
3) The laurel on the north side of the lawn was unreasonably tall. The tallest was approximately 20 feet high. Can I prune them down to around, say 6 feet, without damaging them?
GOSH, YOU'RE A BIG FELLA, AREN'T YA?
4) We are being overrun by dandelions. If I dig them up, what do I do with the hole that's left behind?
DO NOT MAKE A WISH!
5) Aside from the wisteria and the bamboo, we also have to deal with the encroaching blackberry, ivy, morning glory, and lilac that are already fighting to the death in the woods around us and they are trying to create military outposts in our yard. Bastards! How do I keep them at bay?
AND IT WON'T BE OVER TILL IT'S OVER, OVER THERE
So, you can imagine my delight and relief to have four, FOUR, Master Gardeners to consult for FREE!
I received answers for all my questions and I won't go into detail about what they told me, but my task for the day became to hack back the wisteria and attempt to dig up the root ball. (In the months ahead I will continue to cut back new shoots for as long as it takes for the root system to exhaust itself- just like I am doing with the clematis.)
So I got home, ate a bit (my first food of the day) and then fell into conversation with Domenico and Carmela who were doing some yard work of their own. We started talking about the laurel that runs between our properties and that I wanted to cut them down to about 6 feet. Domenico, who has the tools for this sort of job, offered to do the job if I hauled off the debris. Deal made, he went to get his limber (a sort of a small chainsaw on a stick) and I went to attack the wisteria.
During this time, the sky has started to grow dark and within 15 minutes of us starting our tasks it began to rain. I ran inside with Sally, but 10 minutes later it let up so I returned to the yard where I grabbed what Dom had cut and brought them to the far side of their property and through them into the brush.
BEFORE
Within minutes of this Dom had returned to his task, the limber set aside in favor of a pair of pruners. As before, the rain started up in a matter of minutes but this time we didn't run and we, including Carmela, spent the next 3 hours or so cutting back the nefarious laurel. Dom wielded the pruners while Carmela and I loaded up a large blue tarp (about 12x15) with the discarded branches and then dragged it through the mud to the the north side of their property where we dumped each load. We did this about 8 -10 times, easily, and I would guess that the total weight of the loads added up to several hundred pounds. Needless to say I was quite sore this morning.
DURING
The Master Gardeners had, in unison, rolled their eyes when I mentioned the laurel. But they assured me that, even though it might take a bit of time to grow back, not much could harm them so 'have at it'. So Domenico did. But each pass revealed just how tangled the branches had become - branches from one tree becoming fused to another's trunk; branches spanning at least 5 feet in length. It became clear that leaving the laurels at 6 feet in height was still going to be too tall. So the cutting continued. By the time we were done we were soaked through, covered in mud, rain dripping in our eyes and the laurel were pathetically bare, stumpy ghosts of their former glory.
AFTER. I SAID IT WAS SAD LOOKING.
Having said all that, I must admit I had a great time. I love hard physical labor and fancy myself a packhorse when it comes to this sort of thing - you just need to put your head down, set your teeth and keep going forward. The feeling of accomplishment is most satisfying and doing it in the rain looking like a rugby themed Abercrombie & Fitch advert just added to the overall pleasure.
MANDATORY SAFETY MEETING
As for our sad-looking laurels? I can now easily access the various plants underneath them if I decide to replant them elsewhere. If we decide we don't like the laurels they are at a state where we can pull them out. If we decide to keep them, we can now prune them properly and keep them under control.
Next weekend? Project Wisteria resumes and, if I can find a pick-ax, Project Bamboo begins.
posted by maryja at
2:46 PM
1 Comments:
Hey Mary!! That was funny! I'm still laughing at your picturesque
descriptions and historical allusions! Glad you had as much fun as we did!! It's great having you as our neighbor..I can hardly wait for another rainy day!!
I'll be better prepared with sloshing boots next time!
Carmela (& Dom)
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