Me vs the Chinese Elm
From Ingridients
I've been procrastinating about gardening, but we had quite a lot of rain today, which eased off in the evening so I went out to attack the Chinese Elm in the driveway.
Chinese Elm is the most evil weed I think I've ever encountered. It can do a lawn-like coverage of little shoots with pretty little leaves, and pretty little flowers, within months. And yet, as the name might hint, each of those little plants has ambitions to become a tree.
I think my dad had a go at the driveway during the winter, because a lot of the little plantlets were clearly multiple shoots after the original shoot had been chopped off, leaving the root. This was why I'd been waiting for rain, so I had some chance of getting roots out.
I feel confident there's now more Chinese Elm out of the driveway than in it, although casual passers-by might not realise there'd been any attempt to remove it. I also have a charming blister which is obviously where I grip around the root with my right hand. (I'm not ambidextrous, I have a preferred hand for most things, but which hand varies.)
My plan is to get most of the rest of it out, or at least under control and amenable to short bursts of weeding, over the next two weeks. Because I have planted some nasturtiums in the driveway and that's when the shoots are due to appear. Eventually I hope they'll be doing enough ground covering that the Chinese Elm can't win back.
I've been procrastinating about gardening, but we had quite a lot of rain today, which eased off in the evening so I went out to attack the Chinese Elm in the driveway.
Chinese Elm is the most evil weed I think I've ever encountered. It can do a lawn-like coverage of little shoots with pretty little leaves, and pretty little flowers, within months. And yet, as the name might hint, each of those little plants has ambitions to become a tree.
I think my dad had a go at the driveway during the winter, because a lot of the little plantlets were clearly multiple shoots after the original shoot had been chopped off, leaving the root. This was why I'd been waiting for rain, so I had some chance of getting roots out.
I feel confident there's now more Chinese Elm out of the driveway than in it, although casual passers-by might not realise there'd been any attempt to remove it. I also have a charming blister which is obviously where I grip around the root with my right hand. (I'm not ambidextrous, I have a preferred hand for most things, but which hand varies.)
My plan is to get most of the rest of it out, or at least under control and amenable to short bursts of weeding, over the next two weeks. Because I have planted some nasturtiums in the driveway and that's when the shoots are due to appear. Eventually I hope they'll be doing enough ground covering that the Chinese Elm can't win back.