You wrote:

>> We also made a start on pulling the Killer Ivy which seems to have attached itself to everything it can find. There's a Mystery Vine of some kind, too - we don't even know what it is. Welcome to Maryland (ha ha!). About the "mystery vine", are the small leaves always in pairs on the stem? Is it herbaceous (stems soft, never woody)? Is it a twining vine that makes corkscrews around anything it can get hold of? Then it may well be Lonicera japonica, Japanese honeysuckle. Identity will be obvious when it flowers if my guess is correct. One of a number of garden plants introduced to the eastern US from other parts of the world that have "escaped from captivity" and now run rampant; the term frequently used for this type of plant is "invasive".

One possible reason that the azaleas aren't doing well is that your soil is neutral or even slightly alkaline (limestone rich) therefore not best suited for azaleas. Acid soil is typical of our region but not universal. You should have a soil test done to find out.

Viburnum (may species and varieties) are easy, adaptable, mostly shade tolerant, and grow well in neutral soils. Another easy shrub for a shady site with moist to wet, neutral soil is Itea virginica (Virginia sweetspire); good to excellent fall color, will gradually spread by sending up new stems from runner roots.

Another possibility is that the shade is too deep for the azalea (which prefer light shade). Keeping with the viburnum theme, Viburnum acerifolium (maple-leaved viburnum) is a small shrub whose foliage is accurately described by the common name and is especially adapted to deep shade.

I hope you will consider learning more about the native trees, shrubs, vines, and wildflowers of Maryland. Please visit the Maryland Native Plant Society web page:
http://www.mdflora.org/

Lists and information about native species
http://www.mdflora.org/publications/natives2plant_lists.html

Nurseries for native plants
http://www.mdflora.org/publications/nurseries.html
(These Washington DC area retail nurseries also have a good selection: Behnke's, Merrifield)

Here is a link that might be useful: Why not

Wow - thanks so much!!

It MAY be the honeysuckle you mention - I'm sitting here with a clip in front of me tryign to match it up to images on the 'net lol - the piece I have is young and the pix are mostly mature and/or flowering, so not 100% sure but I think it's likely. The leaves on my sample are a little more rounded than the ones I'm seeing in pix, but I think there's an 80% chance it's the same thing. They are always in pairs, but then another pair comes out at 90dgrees to the ones "below" it and so on, sometimes 5 or 6 pairs out of one initial bud. If it IS the Japonica, What's the best way to handle it? If it's a nice honeysuckle (particularly if it'scented), I'd rather tame it than destroy it, so.... :)

Also, any further thoughts on tactics against The Killer Ivy? Reading through the archives here I see that Roundup is mentioned. Is that something I'd get at a garden centre (again, excuse my completely idiotic questions - I really am a TOTAL newbie!). Is there any groundcover that can hold its own against it?

Ditto, do they sell soil testing kits here like they do in the UK or do I have to get a garden center to test it or is there some other way of checking the soil? I think the azaleas are just rather neglected, actaully; one of them is quite tall (nearly 5ft) and looked like it hadn't been cut back in YEARS so it was just straggly. This is, of course, assuming they really ARE azaleas and I haven't mis-identified them!

Thanks so much for the links and planting suggestions. I'll be checking those out.

Anybody else? Further suggestions on how to wage the war outside?

Many thanks :)

Oh, and another question - how does Campanula do in this climate? Is it too hot for it?

And (last one for now, I promise!) what about Aubretia (I think it's called Purple Rock Cress in the US?). I LOVED the aubretia+bulbs we used to get in Derbyshire -a ll that spring colour was fabulous after a long grey winter. I know that theoretically it will grow in zone 7, but how does it REALLY do with the hot summers here?

Where are you in MD? I am in Lanham, near NASA and the New Carrolton Metro. You are welcome to come visit for a shovel tour (we walk around my yard, and if you like a plant, we use the shovel to dig you a piece) and also to see what the lonicera looks like in person -- my long-neglected woods are covered with the stuff. Not to mention wild rose, greenbriar and poison ivy.

Maryland, except in the hillier areas, tends to be hotter and more humid than England although it is technically in the same zone. Thus many British favorites like delphiniums, lilacs, some phlox and certain roses have a rough time here with mildews and fungal diseases they would shrug off in your old home. Instead, try larkspur and resistant varieties of rose/phlox/etc. We go nuts over spring bulbs too; you'll see daffodils, hyacinths regular, Spanish and Grape (muscari), squill, and a range of tulips and camassia, before yards get taken over by the azaleas, daylilies and hosta that make the backbone of most local gardens. Irises too -- many Bearded rebloomers do well here, as do Siberians and Japanese iris, and I love my tectorums, which are growing in happy drifts. People tend to plant for Spring here, since the summer heat and mosquitos/bugs discourage many casual gardeners. And then there are the folks here, who believe fervently that the ideal garden in any area has sweet-scented bright things blooming from February to frost. And tasty things, too. We grow WONDERFUL tomatoes here.

Want to to come visit?

Lynn

For what it's worth, I have a lilac, 'President Grevy' and it's done fine now for 6 years or so.

Wow, you really do qualify as a Newbie! So many things to cover.

Most importantly, there is one Mystery Vine in Maryland that is truly killer: POISON IVY aka Rhus radicans. If you've never heard of it, you need to find out about it before it finds you. Google will find plenty of informative sites for you.

Second, you need to come to the MAG Spring Swap on May 14th so you can see live and in color all the plants that do exceptionally well in Maryland. We may even give you some if you bring chocolate for the post-swap picnic.

Roundup is available at any garden center or hardware store. You can buy it in concentrated form and I would use it at double strength on the ivy. Before you use the Roundup, you DO want to remove as much of the old leaves as possible, either by running a mulching lawnmower over them or by pulling off as many of the long runners as possible. Use the Roundup on the new leaves. This is probably going to be a multiyear project for you.

Campanulas here are so-so. Campanula punctata is OK, so is Serbian bellflower, "Kent Belle" and "Cherry Bell", also the Adenophoras. I've never seen Campanula lactiflora grown here at all, and Campanula rotundifolia does not grow for me.

Aubretia - Yes, people sell it here, but it struggles to survive. So does London Pride saxifrage.

You will really need to pay attention to the "zone ratings". We are much farther south than England but our weather both winter and summer is much more extreme. Maryland is Zone 7 and we can grow cold tolerant plants from Zones 6, 5, and maybe 4. If you have a southfacing wall, you may be able to get away with more southernly Zone 8 plants. For example "Aztec Pearl" choisya is not hardy here.
Things that stay in bloom in England for weeks will be in bloom here for days, because they get fried in the heat. Current case in point - our daffodils all just got blasted by our 70F spring weather. I had Tete-a-Tete that lasted just one week.

Here is a link that might be useful: MAG Spring Swap Info

G'Day!
- Ditto what ChrisMD said; check to be sure your Mystery Ivy isn't poisen ivy (which grows in several different styles, from ground cover to lianas, and really is quite pretty - but evil!), and DO come to the utterly fabulous MAG Maryland Spring Swap, not to be confused with the soon-to-be-equally fabulous MAG Virginia Spring Swap, or MAG swaps in PA and elsewhere. (That's my plus to remind folk that MAG isn't just Maryland and NoVA.) But, depending on where in Maryland you are, you might want to check one of those other swaps out too. But my espresso-chocolate-banana-raisin bread cake only appears at the Maryland swap's after-swap pot-luck picnic, while we compair our new treasures. (If you haven't spare plants to trade yet, just bring something for the pot luck and a car full of smiles and we'll send you home with a boot load of plants! You NEED strawberry plants, right? i have lots extra.)

- Hint: Bring Mystery Plant samples (such as clippings) to the Swap; i'm sure our bevvy of Garden Mavens will be able to identify everything for you! Not to say they'll all agree on their identifications...

- Meantime, while i'm sure others will have even better suggestions, i know that over on the Cottage Gardening forum, many folk like to post pictures of their plants on "Photobucket" (i'm guessing that's photobucket-dot-com; ig not, Google will no doubt get you there) and them copy-paste the url (from the "address bar" of your browser window) of their page(s) of pictures into the "Optional Link URL" box under the Post A Follow-Up box and invite others to visit their little gallery; this might be a good way for you to post pictures of your "Mystery Plants" for the rest of us to help identify - or at least admire! As a sample, i'm pasting a link below to some pictures from my gardens, taken last spring. (OK, it's really just a blatent excuse to show off my daffodils; we have such dreary winters that i really treasure early spring daffydillies.)

- And, if you're within a reasonable drive, may i extend an invite to vist our farm down here in Aquasco? i very much enjoy giving "shovel tours." (That's where you walk around the garden, pretending you don't notice how messy it is, with a shovel and dig up divisions to take home. Plus a big bag of "horse apples" to enrich your soil.) Check out my Exchange Page (by clicking the "My Page" at the top of this posting. BTW, my exchange page includes some nice white lilac babies and a couple other plants you'd mentioned if you'd like some.) (Not that my gardens are anything compaired to LynnTs, but just give me a few more years! Oh, but by then she'll have further outpaced me!)

- i absolutely loved the gardens i've visited during my visits to the UK! The softer climate really does wonders. (Hint: don't prune quite so hard here except in early spring and mid fall; our hotter summers and colder winters mean our plants live with more stress and need a gentler touch.) i think one difficulty with my gardens here is that i keep compairing them to gardens that took armies of gardeners a few centuries to develop and wonder why mine don't look like that - yet!

- Welcome to the States! Now that your in Maryland, here's a pop quiz: do you know WHICH Mary we are named after?

- Happy Gardening,
-vlad

Here is a link that might be useful: pictures; last spring in my garden

WOWWWWWWWWWWW!!

I can't thank you all enough for your warm welcome and sage advice. I certainly hope we WILL be able to attend the MAG event, although I know I have to be at a rehearsal in Montgomery County that afternoon for a rehearsal (I'm an professional opera singer). But if the schedule allows, I'd love to come!

A bit more about us (I suppose I should have posted a better introduction): We moved from the UK about 7 years ago, but have lived in an apartment since then. There's me, my husband, our 7 year old daughter and a Bearded Collie We're actually in north Baltimore - entirely suburban area, but older homes. The house we bought at the end of last year is a very small 1920's bungalow (I don't think it IS a Sears house but it's that sort of structure); it was extensively rehabbed inside as far as wiring and plumbing, kitchen etc before we bought it, but the outside wasn't touched beyond raking the leaves. There's still a lot to do everywhere (we bought it because the internal "mechanics" were solid and it has a TON of potential... once we have a ton of MONEY!! ;), but for the time being my goals are to at least START getting the ivy under control, to replace the hideous front porch rails (somebody decided to put new ones on sometime in the 60s, I'm guessing, and the tacky skinny "wrought iron" is rickety and a MESS) and to get the bed in front of the porch looking like somebody loves it. Hence all the questions about shade-lovers for the foundation :)

Speaking of which, the pruning and the warm weather mean that the larger of the 2 azalea bushes is looking much better even after only a week - it's covered in buds right now! I feel as proud as a parent :)

In the meantime, we're going to attack the back weedpatch with Roundup soon and see how we go. We're anticipating needing to go several rounds on that simply because the magnitude of the job is so huge, but at least it will be a start, even if we can't get to planting it with something "real" until next year.

So, again, thank you all SO much. I hope nobody will mind if I keep posting newbie questions - I'm sure that we're going to have a lot! I haven't had much expeience to begin with, and it is a completely different beast here - not just climate, but the types of houses and thus types of gardens as well as the light etc etc etc. Also, it seems that my neighbours aren't "serious" gardners as such (I don't count myself as that, but I respect and aspire!). That IS a huge difference from living in the UK where it seems there was always somebody in the neighbourhood who could provide you with all the horticultural information you ever wanted to know!

I have to second what Chris said about looking out for Poison Ivy. Look at pictures on the web and familiarize yourself with it. When we moved into our house in Baltimore County (in Sudbrook Park) the hills (well, the yards) were aliiiiiiiiive with drifts of honeysuckle, wild grape, wild raspberry (killer thorns) and poison ivy. I had many an itchy night after clearing our jungle-like back yard.

(I am shocked! to find myself disagreeing with ChrisMD.) If you don't plan to do anything with where the ivy is until next year anyway, then my recommendation is as follows:

1. Skip the Round-up.
2. Pull up all of the ivy you can.
3. Wait a few weeks, then pull up all of the ivy that survived Step 2.
4. Smother the bed with the ivy in it with everything you can get your hands on. Start with maybe 8 layers of newspaper, or some nice thick cardboard, and then start dumping on your neighbors' grass clippings, leaves, coffee grounds from Starbucks (they hand them out free for the asking), hay, straw -- pretty much anything free that you can get your hands on. Keep piling on the stuff as you find it.
5. Go on periodic ivy patrols, just in case a tendril or two makes it through, and pull up them up.

The advantages of this method are, first, you don't have to buy and apply Round-up, and second, you're improving the soil while you're killing the ivy.

(oh sheesh, alfie, remember the horrendous hosta controversy?)

Yes, I WILL endorse Alfie's recommendation, except instead of deleting the Roundup in Step One, move it to Step 3A.

Divamum, I am fairly chemical free, but I do use Roundup on ailanthus, poison ivy, English ivy, porcelain berry and wild onion. Especially with poison ivy, kill it first with the Roundup so it gets the roots, then CAREFULLY pull up the dead bits and dispose of them in the trash, not the compost. Wear glove and don't breathe in the dust - poison ivy can still be active even when dead. Don't burn it - you can get zapped by the oil released in the smoke.

Speaking of burning, it is (mostly) forbidden here to have anything like a bonfire. No Guy Fawkes or Samhain. We get crunchy dry with our long hot summers and you can easily set off a major fire by burning stuff in an open bonfire or even in a trashcan.

I will ALSO endorse Alfie's surreptitious suggestion that you spend some time analysing and improving your soil before going all out with planting. Waiting a year or so to plant is well worth it.

Once again, thank you all SO much! This is just GREAT information, and I already feel like I have a better idea of what to do, where to go, and who to ask!

And the links and photos you've posted are AWESOME!!!! Truly - what a wonderful resource :)

PS (slightly OT to vladpup)
>>Welcome to the States! Now that your in Maryland, here's a pop quiz: do you know WHICH Mary we are named after?

Actually... I DO (but I will confess it's only because she is a character in the opera Il Puritani, and her Maryland connection figured heavily in the programme note for Baltimore OPera last year :) Henrietta Marie, who was exiled during the British Civil War -she was Charles 1's wife. (Did I pass?!)

I am here to tell 'ya, that Round-Up is not going to kill all the poison ivy. It's amazing stuff. Lasagna gardening only forces the roots to seek light by going around the edges of the bed.

Do start with Round-up. Kill what you can see. After it's dead, garb yourself in a space suit. Bread bags up your arms and over your gloves and hip waders are also a good idea. Latex gloves are not because they breathe.

Gently pull the ivy up, being careful to let the vines underground come up and out of the soil. Don't break them if you don't have to, because they make more. Like tentacles. If you're pulling them down make certain it and parts of the ivy don't fall on you. The hair-like roots will get into your clothes and hair and be devestating.

Note that I get poison ivy from the dirt the roots have been in, so if you get showered with the dirt, use liquid dish washing soap that has a degreaser in it (Dawn works well) or Lava soap all over your entire body as soon as possible. Remember that the dirt can get down your collar, into the perspiration on your torso, which spreads this evil oil.

Repeat this procedure in 2 weeks, where you'll be shocked to find even more ivy. Repeate for at least 2 years.

Oh - before you wash with degreasing soap, don't forget to burn your clothes, or at least washing them immediately with degreasing laundry soap. Don't forget your shoes!!! Anything you touch, eye glasses, sun glasses, yard tools, etc., can get the oil on it. A thimbleful will "infect" the entire United States. It was a component in mustard gas during WWI, if that tells you how nasty it is.

Just my take on poison ivy, with which I'm an extreme vetern.

Christine

I think there is a lotion you can put on BEFORE you get in the poison ivy that forms a protective barrier or neutralizes the poison - is it Tecnu???

I have had good luck killing poison ivy with Brush-B-Gon. There is a product that you can put on to form a barrier, but I have not used it. Tecnu is a wash to be used after possible exposure. I have used Tecnu with good results. The same company makes an anti-itch gel named CalaGel that has worked well for me. There are some very expensive products that are supposed to be more effective than Technu.

- Brent

Tech-nu is for amatuers, although the Forestry Service swears by it. I swear by washing with degreaser. After all, Poison ivy, is oil...

Brush-B-Gone works on poison ivy that has developed into the thick, woody vines. We had some larger than my husband's thighs. However, it has no effect on the ivy while it's in a more delicate vine-ish state.

This is where Round-Up, which works on foliage, is best. Hint from professional landscapers: add a squirt of liquid detergent (do you see a theme here?) to your Round-Up. It etches the oil on the leaves so it gets to the foliage and absorbed into the root system faster.

I have this stuff called Zanfel, recommended here. It's a post, Oh-My-God-I-Have-Poison-Ivy-All-Over-Me remedy. It's very expensive, but you just use a little bit. You get to rub this stuff into your skin for a few minutes that feels like an exfoliant. You only need a little bit, and you've ever had ivy, you know how fabulous this feels. Anyway, it absolutly stops the itch. I got it at CVS.

Note that poison ivy changes form. It's beautiful, shiny red leaves in the spring, dark glossy leaves during the summer, bright, pretty yellow leaves in the fall, and beautiful white berries in the winter. It's tricky, tricky, tricky.

Christine

Re Brent's comment about barriers to poison ivy oils, anything non-oily that makes an unbroken coating will work to some extent. Back when I was a little less sensitized to poison ivy than I am now, I used to "take out insurance" when picking berries by coating my hands and forearms with plain calamine lotion. As long as I could see the solid pink, it was OK (and it's awfully hard to pick blackberries efficiently in gloves!).

Re your question about campanulas, persicifolia does OK, but what does even better is one of its relatives. Adenophora (ladybells) is nearly foolproof in my garden, and I've seen it thriving elsewhere as well.

I'm one of the Virginia people on this forum, but I hope to be at the swap on the 14th. I look forward to meeting you then, and maybe I'll get to hear you one of these days. I'm a singer too by training, but never went pro.

Robin

I guess my experience with Brush-B-Gon is different. My experience has been...spray the foliage that you can reach...day 1, nothing...day 2, nothing...day 3, the foliage that you sprayed along with a bunch of foliage that you did not spray is now dead. It seems to do a great job of killing the entire plant, roots and all. I have not tried adding detergent to RU, but that would probably help a bit with Poison Ivy and English Ivy (though English Ivy seems to pull up easy enough that I have not resorted to herbicides)

Like indicated by Christine, if poison ivy was not such an irritant it would be a beautiful plant. Last fall was the first time that I noticed the wonderful fall color.

- Brent