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[shadesofmauve]

This post brought to you in honor of ursulav. If she can write about gardening drama and still be amusing, so can I!

Today, after a very productive day (finished a painting, practiced for an hour and learned three new tunes, caught up on backlogged e-mail), I ventured out the back door.

Since we've moved in, the black nightshade that grows in the basment window-well has been sending out runners with the aim of taking over the whole yard. From the basement you can't even tell there's a window, because the plant obscures all light. westrider likes to sit on the back stoop and eat breakfast, and I've been a bit worried about him. It was only a matter of time until the nightshade made it's moved. It would fling it's tendrils around him and suck him down into it's window-well cave before he had a chance to make a sound, where it would devour him at it's leisure. This plant needed to be dealt with. There are white spiders who have lived in it's darkness for generations. They tell their spiderlings about the myth of the land outside the plant cave, and the spiderlings don't believe such obvious bosh.

I pulled it. I yanked it. I grabbed it in great fistfuls. I have rope burn from this plant. I discovered things about it I never, ever wanted to know.

It grows into the house. Up under the stucco. Around the foundation. Far enough up that I couldn't get it (though I did get some and pulled peices of stucco off in the process). I found peices that were trying to grow up into my whiskey-barrel garden. It had a plan, too - it's stretchy, and it would wait 'till all my weight was pulling against it before releasing, in the hope that I'd fall backwards and take out the lilly (it's jealous, I know it is).

I haven't gotten rid of the nightshade at it's root, yet. I'd have to climb down into the window-well and do battle with it on it's own level, and I'm not willing to do that until I'm armed with large shears and holy water. Since I have to hold holy water with tongs, like Crowley, this is quite an undertaking.

I threw all the clippings in the blackberry thicket. Peter and I are going to take bets on wether the nightshade or the blackberries will win. The blackberries are already rooted, but the nightshade is clever and insidious, and probably fights dirty.

Comments

[madalchemist.livejournal.com]

I recommend a judicious application of fire. But honestly, that's my advice for all gardening related matters.