A gallery of my worst enemies in the garden and on the embankment.
Sugina. There is a Japanese saying that the roots of sugina are attached to Hell. It may be true. I know for a fact they go down at least a meter. I think they may actually go through the center of the Earth and out the other side because I've seen an awful lot of the stuff in Seattle. This is the neighbor's method of weed control (old bath mats). I have mostly stamped out the sugina in my flower beds. It was SO bad when we started that I implemented a zero tolerance policy.
Dokudami. It has white flowers and we drink the tea, but it is still really annoying and smells like fish.
Small clover is taking over the lawn and the flower beds in the absence of the sugina.
The large pink clover is rather pretty, so I mostly leave it alone, to the frustration of my husband.
On the embankment, the worst weed is kudzu. This is a kudzu vine a few days after being cut back to the ground.
There are still kudzu vines left in the trees my husband couldn't get down. The trees were completely covered when we moved here.
Tsukushi reeds, they grow so quickly.
What happens when the weeds are left to their own devices. This is what the entire embankment was like when we moved in.
Sugina. There is a Japanese saying that the roots of sugina are attached to Hell. It may be true. I know for a fact they go down at least a meter. I think they may actually go through the center of the Earth and out the other side because I've seen an awful lot of the stuff in Seattle. This is the neighbor's method of weed control (old bath mats). I have mostly stamped out the sugina in my flower beds. It was SO bad when we started that I implemented a zero tolerance policy.
Dokudami. It has white flowers and we drink the tea, but it is still really annoying and smells like fish.
Small clover is taking over the lawn and the flower beds in the absence of the sugina.
The large pink clover is rather pretty, so I mostly leave it alone, to the frustration of my husband.
On the embankment, the worst weed is kudzu. This is a kudzu vine a few days after being cut back to the ground.
There are still kudzu vines left in the trees my husband couldn't get down. The trees were completely covered when we moved here.
Tsukushi reeds, they grow so quickly.
What happens when the weeds are left to their own devices. This is what the entire embankment was like when we moved in.
5 comments:
we have loads of sugina in our garden. that's why you'll probably never see pictures of our yard!! LOL DH told me last year that it favors acidic soil (i think) so maybe plant things that make the soil more basic?? dunno how to get rid of it. i try to pull up as much as i can, but the roots go down so far!!
dokudami is awful. hate it. luckily we don't have any in our yard now (knock on wood). the previous house we lived in though...*shudders* at least it didn't have sugina.
i've planted western clover, because it's so soft and green. our soil is mostly sand over clay and we don't know where to get topsoil, and we're not sure we want to pay for it. SO...we try to compost a lot but i think it would take YEARS to get decent soil from that (we don't have a lot of trees to make leaves for our compost ATM...) but i planted the clover because i think it grows most anywhere, it's green and soft (as i said) and smells nice when i cut it. DH rather likes it as well. very ironic as i used to battle the clover in my parent's yard(s) back home!
no comment on the kudzu, although it IS all over the place in the empty lots and the kofun nearby...
We have been mixing lime with the soil to make it more basic, but I think sugina is more or less indestructible. I used to try to dig up as much of the roots as possible each time, but ended up destroying a whole years worth of bulbs, so now I just keep snapping the tops off. They are showing signs of weakness, but I think this is a battle I can't win. When we are all gone the sugina and cockroaches will remain.
Our dokudami is not as bad as the sugina, it just smells so bad when I pull it. I never want to bother with gloves just to pull a few weeds, and then end up with stinky hands.
Clover can be quite pretty, really. I hope works hard for you and changes your sand to soil. Can you buy a truckload of earthworms?
We've been gradually hauling soil from the riverbank (but sorting out the sugina, kudzu and tsukushi roots takes forever) and adding manure. It's coming along. Luckily for me, my husband does all the hard labor, I just plant, weed and prune.
yoshi has actually brought some soil from the nearby kofun. i also try to send him over there in fall to get leaves, but he's usually to tired to do it...
when i harvested the potatoes, i found quite a few earthworms. and the soil was actually kinda decent. i also throw all the old potting soil into the garden and we've been using manure this year. it's coming along slowly, but too much sugina!! lol
p.s. do you mind if i add your blog to my blogroll?
Oh, please do, thank you! And may I do likewise? Right now I only have my husband's...
yes, please!!
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