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aftermidnight_gw

There is a silver lining after all :)

I've sent the last 3 days digging out a couch grass infested bed, the thing is this isn't even a big bed but OMG what a job. I left a montana clematis planted at the base of the fence in one corner and some joe pye weed in the opposite corner.

In this bed there was the remains of a dead lilac patio tree and the 10 ft high shoots from the understock, I think some specie lilac, it bloomed this year and the flowers looked like lilac and were fragrant. It was turning into a monster so DH used the mattock and I dug and dug we finally got that sucker out yesterday.

A couple more plants I wanted to keep still growing in this mess, a siberian iris (Looks Morish), a piece of rodgersia (forgot which one) and a tradescantia (Rondeau Sapphire) I bought quite a few years back from a nursery back east that is no more.

Also mixed in with the couch grass that twined through everything was yards of a pink geranium roots which I also kept a piece of.

I put the pieces of the plants I wanted to keep to one side or I thought I did. When I went to pot them up, I found the iris, the rodgersia and the piece of geranium but do you think I could find the pieces of tradescanthia, Arrruuuggghhh!!!

I spent an hour going through the pile waiting to go to the landfill (a truck load). It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, no such luck I couldn't find them :(.

It was time for supper, DH brought home fish and chips which we get from our local chinese restaurant, I was too pooped to cook. After doing dishes I read "Lady luck is shining on you" this was in my fortune cookie, I mumbled not likely or something along that line.

Later I went out to pick up the last remaining weeds, roots, grass etc. still sitting in a pile where I had thrown them.

Guess what I found tangled in a mess of geranium roots, my tradescanthia roots. Talk about a happy camper, I don't think you can buy this variety any more, it was an introduction from the nursery that closed down a number of years ago, so lady luck was shining on me, the small pieces I rescued could have so easily got swept up, loaded in the truck and ended up at the landfill.

This is a plant I will definitely share when it increases, just goes to show you should never be the only one growing plants no longer on the market, sometimes the flowers are single, sometimes they bloom double and a favorite of mine.

Here's a pic of the flower.

Is it just me or does kind of thing happen to any of you?

Annette

Comments (5)

  • Annie
    12 years ago

    What a beauty!

    It happens to me too, Annette.
    (And btw, I have webbed toes too - on both feet, my second and third toes are webbed a little. Just wanted you to know you're not the only one with that too. Ha Ha Ha)

    ((HUGS))
    ~Annie

  • christinmk z5b eastern WA
    12 years ago

    That is beautiful Annette! So glad you were able to find it after all. I would feel the same way about trying to preserve a cultivar that is rare or no longer able to be found commercially.

    Last spring I found a seedling spiderwort of either my 'Carmine Glow' or 'Red Grape' that was double. Not a true double row like yours, but a small tuft of extra petals in the center. So fun when unexpected things like that happen.
    CMK

  • organic_kitten
    12 years ago

    What an upper!
    kay

  • mnwsgal
    12 years ago

    What a wonderful surprise to end your long tiring day. That is a beauty.

  • aftermidnight Zone7b B.C. Canada
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Today I took the day off just a tad sore and stiff, can't think why LOL. Couch grass is EVIL, the roots look like white pieces of coat hanger, just as stiff and they can be quite long, they can snake their way through thick and thin. They can and do bore through anything, not only will it bore right through a lily bulb it can bore right into landscape ties.

    The bed has been dug, gone over with a fork getting as much of the evil stuff out as I could, then tilled with my little mantis. There's still bits of this #!%$&@$ grass root to be dealt with in the next few months, the bed can't be replanted until next spring.
    In the meantime it will be tilled every day for a week or so and then every couple of weeks through out the winter weather permitting. We did the same thing with the adjacent bed last year and it seems to have worked.
    I've got 3 more beds to do, two not bad and the other one is going to be murder, not only do I have to contend with couch grass roots there's that d*mn landscape cloth some idiot, wasn't me, nope wasn't me, (why is my nose getting longer) thought was such a brilliant idea.
    Needless to say watering this bed is a total loss cause if it does manage to get through the mulch most of it just runs along the top of the landscape cloth. It's a good job we get a lot of rain most months or this bed would be toast.

    It looks like I'm going to have quite a pot ghetto come winter. Oh well that's just the way the cookie crumbles :).

    Annette

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