Gardening and fail
miome and I decided to start getting ride of some of the English ivy that is covering our back slope today. We're not going to do the whole thing this year. For one thing, it would be a pain in the butt. For another, there's probably nothing growing under the ivy that would be able to handle erosion. the plan is to remove it in sections, a little bit each year, until we have the slope cleared and under control.
That doesn't mean that nothing grows through the ivy. There's a mallow plant back there, probably a rose mallow, that bloomed later last year. There are also clusters of daffodils that someone had to plant. They come in both the typical golden yellow variety and in a type that is white with a yellow trumpet. There's also a huge (like 2in diameter) Virginia creeper, some other vine I don't recognize but suspect was planted there, and thorny briars.
Our goal was to clear back the ivy to the first cluster of daffodils in one small 3ft section. We completed that goal. I also wound up cleaning a foot space all along the back of the shed, because the ivy was beginning to grow up it. Ivy can and will damage buildings if you let it, so it had to go. Miome did some trimming around a small tree while I worked
Only to discover there was a raised bed that contained the daffodils. The wood it was made of was rotting, but the raised bed was about four feet wide and 8-10 inches high. At some point, someone had put significant effort into that back slope.
Suddenly, I'm wondering if what I thought was just common briars are not actually some sort of climbing rose. I've not seen it bloom, but if there are more raised beds back there (and I think that's a safe bet), it wouldn't surprise me. It definitely has the leaves for it, which I noticed only after I realized what it could be. We had to trim one large cane back because it was in our way, but there is a huge tangled mass of them farther up the slope. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on it.
One of the things we realized towards the end was that we needed a wheelbarrow. I also wanted to get a trashcan to put all the ivy/Virginia creeper in until I was sure it was dead. Adding it to the compost pile as it would lead to a compost pile sprouting ivy. If I put it in the trashcan, however, it can't root and will die at which point I can add it to the compost pile. So off to Lowe's we went with a list of a few other things to get.
There was just one minor problem with our plan. We drive a Prius. I can now attest to the fact that a wheelbarrow and a trashcan will not fit inside a Prius unless you somehow violate the laws of physics. Also, while Lowe's may have a disassembled wheelbarrow on display, that does not guarantee they have the accompanying hardware to allow you to put said disassembled wheelbarrow together. Why they feel the need to taunt customers by displaying something that you cannot actually buy, I had no idea, but there you go.
We wound up having to return the wheelbarrow and will try again some other time. Until then, there is plenty of ivy and vines to shove into our new trashcan until they die. I have a feeling that what we pulled up today will fill it to the top.
Removing the ivy is going to be a long, long project. -_-