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eroush

the attack of the passiflora

eroush
18 years ago

Okay, I love my p. incarnata. It is growing lush and beautiful on my south wall. The bugs and butterflies love it. However, in addition to growing on my trellis, it is:

-coming up in the middle of my lawn, vegetable garden, etc.

-filling the crawl space beneath my house

-growing in between the screen and window on the south wall

-coming up inside my garden shed (which has NO WINDOWS!!!)

-and the last straw was when my 5 year old said form the dining room "Mommy, what's this plant doing here?" and I came in to find the vine coming in through the a/c vent.

I didn't mind it so much when it was just in the lawn an the veggie garden- I just mow it and/or pull it up- but it is now inches away from my NEIGHBOR's lawn and seems to be intent on invading (and possibly disassembling?) my house!

HELP!

Comments (5)

  • kayjones
    18 years ago

    LOL - TOLD YA! You can either keep pulling it as you see it pop up in unwanted places OR use Roundup weed killer. You haven't seen the last of this fella - he will be with you for some time to come!

  • triciae
    18 years ago

    OMG...I just planted one these things this spring!

    I made a post on the Perennials forum about how excited I was because I've got buds. I was concerned about over-wintering it in CT Zone 6.

    Oh my...coming in through the a/c vents?!

    Will my much colder climate and hence much shorter growing season save me and my property from this thing?

    I've wanted one for so long and always lived where it was too cold. We moved here two years ago and I've been soooo excited for the vine.

    Opinions???

  • Krstofer
    18 years ago

    I need some of that.

    My neighbor is an ass... He's the only one in our little 'homeowners association' who refuses to pay the gardner.. Hence all his bushes look like Don King.. They were kindof round like everyone elses, but now have sent out branches over the fence & all over the place.. Grass deep enough for even Tiger to get trapped in.. No general upkeep what-so-ever.

    I don't care if you don't want to pay someone if you keep it respectible yourself.

    My caerulea sometimes pokes it's head up on his side of the fence. 1 or 2 runners a month... He freaks out, dancing from foot to foot screaming "It's Invasive!!!" He came over & ripped one of my big ones off the fence on my side.. I had planned to move it anyway so he really did me a favor, but none the less, jackass move.

    I laughed at him, and mentioned the next time he has a problem with something to come talk to me about it before "taking matters into his own hands".. "I'd do the same for you" I told him..

    ANyway, I dream of planting something *really* invasive by the fence.. Some incarnata.. Or a 'running' bamboo.. Or kudzu.. Or getting about 100# of thistle seed & 'leaf blowering' it into his yard.

    I understand your plight, but being from the country it amazes me how some folks can get so excited about a plant who doesn't respect property lines.

    He now pulls the runners & tosses them over the fence.. Which gives me a reason to smile. His yard looks like absolute crap & he's worried about a tiny vine by the fence? Sigh. Only in the city...

    I don't know if it would help you, as I don't know how deep the roots grow- But when I was a kid (and thus a "chore magnet") Mom would give me a shovel & tell me to dig a ditch 24" deep a couple feet out from the drip-line of her fruit trees. Apparently the pine trees were impinging & the ditch would cut their roots. There were lots of pine roots.. Trust me. So perhapse a ditch around the incarnata, then bury some weed barrier vertically? That *might* keep in the new runners, then "all" you have to do is kill the ones who have escaped.

    Don't know if that'll work- But it's an idea.

  • Bob (Seattle, Zone 8a)
    18 years ago

    Jeez..tried to post several times but got hijacked by a damn Oreo commercial video.

    Anyway. I had a caerulea that also became invasive. It was such a nice one, with big especially substantial flowers that the problem of suckers was mostly taken care of by all the people who wanted starts of it. I did warn them.

    The mosque behind my house has a nice cross of some sort, probably a cross of P. incarnata with something. It never sets fruit; I found a plant of P. incarnata busy engulfing a neighborhood on one of the islands off the coast and got a start to pollinate with. Planted it out in a safely isolated (by lots of cement) area, but the martens (not purple martins, martens as in fur bearing predators) dug it up. They probably did the neighborhood a service as I can imagine the monster popping up eventually in the mosque's garden, turning it into a mound of green with white stars and a minaret sticking up out of the middle of it...

    I did once purposely plant something unpleasant in a neighbor's yard as a sort of parting gift....they were thoroughly unpleasant people, whining at every possible opportunity... I took some bulbs of voodoo lily, the one that comes up in the spring and smells like horse manure, urine and days of bacterial action, and made a horizontal/diagonal hole under their fence, and put in several of them. They can dig them up but they throw lots of little pups. So they should be having aromatic springs for several years to come. :)

  • spiderwoman
    18 years ago

    Yeah that Oreo video is a real pain!!
    I have P. incarnata and a good friend who owns a garden center. I grab the wandering bits near the soil line and pull them straight out of the ground then deposit them feet first in a 5 gallon bucket of water kept for just this purpose. I gift them to whoever is game. It dies to the ground during winter. I love it and am in the southern end of zone 6. I also see there are lots of them being sold on ebay. Just a thought.
    spiderwoman

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