Tuesday, August 21, 2012

My Nemesis Blooms

August is proving to be a showy time in the garden becoming. There is quite a bit going on. The first of the mums, an unknown fell out of the ground and followed me home mum, with a bug attached is ready to burst into bloom.



















Cleome cast out as seed in the spring have been blooming for quite some time. The purple dahlia is having a second flower. Gardy don't dig no tubers. This dahlia will have to survive winter on its own merits.


























One of the other Ironweeds that was already here in the crease of the sunny utility valley aims towards peak bloom. It is going to make a lot of seed. I have already found a few of its progeny poking up through the Lush in this part of the garden.


























This is also the time when my nemesis, Virgin's Bower, Clematis virginiana blooms. The damn thing is quite lovely. The seeds are that fascinating clematis fuzz. Millions and millions of seeds that make a vine that climbs by tendrils up everything and can turn a garden into a tangled interconnected mess of steel cables. It will smother anything in its way. It roots where ever it touches the ground with a vise like grip. I hate it. It's lovely and I hate it.




















It will take years of weeding to be rid of it all, if ever, and it can always sneak back in on the wind. It is more smothering than Virginia Creeper, worse than Poisoned Ivy, more annoying than Blackberries, a faster spreader than Elderberry. Clematis viginiana is my garden nemesis. We will do battle.

6 comments:

Lola said...

Love the mum. The others look gracious. I use to have & dug those tubers.

Janet, The Queen of Seaford said...

I am thinking of the Clematis on the slope....if only the seeds didn't travel and germinate in other spots. I have seen it growing along the roadways in the last few days. It is pretty.

sallysmom said...

I pinched my mums. It looks like I shouldn't have. They seem to be frozen in time. BTW, I pinched them around the 4th of July and just a tiny amount.

Gail said...

"The damn thing is quite lovely," just about says it all! I battle it and Virginia Creeper.

Anonymous said...

I am assuming you cut off all the blooms of the clematis? I only had one but I started doing that toward the end of its bloom and it helped. Yours may be too overwhelming.
Yes, weeds can be beautiful too; if only they weren't so damn competitive. The Wall Street bankers of the plant world.

bev

Christopher C. NC said...

Bev I don't have time for such nonsense, cutting the flowers off, mercy. Might as well just mow it all down. In places it is still a carpet on top of things.