Garden work

I have begun the war against stinktree for the season. For those of you unfamiliar with stinktree, it is a tree-like weed that stinks to high heaven when you touch it or cut it. It looks something like a palm tree, and when they peek up through my lilacs, my garden starts looking like a tropical rainforest. I wage constant war against it.

When you look it up, you'll find it is also called the "tree of heaven". Before Isabel, there were three tree-sized ones in teh surrounding yards- and I mean tree-sized, and in 60 feet tall, and looked like trees. They were actually quite beautiful, but getting on and brittle, and one went over in the storm; the others were removed as precaution. My garden became beautifully sunny, but I miss the dappled shade and their winter silhouettes. The whole nature of my own garden was dramatically changed.

I went from dappled shade to sun. That meant that the weeds began to win. I now have more Virginia Creeper than I can deal with on my fence. If I let things be, I'd have a whole grove of mulberry to make jam. Why can't a few birds drop off some dogwood seeds or something useful back here? I won't even get into my ever-present ground ivy.

I could spend whole weeks just trying to clear out the weeds. Fortunately, I have a good pair of loppers, a lot of newspaper, and I intend on getting in a fresh supply of mulch very soon. It may be a never-ending battle, but I at least have some shortcuts.