There’s a garden bulb catalog out there with a photo of a river of grape hyacinths meandering among clumps of tulips. The picture is ridiculous. BLUE. YELLOW. RED. It’s a real-life photo of a cartoon landscape and all that’s missing is the munchkins. It’s absolutely compelling and the whole scene can be yours for about six days in springtime, before and after which it’s kind of a mess.
I was looking up grape hyacinths to see what they’re going for these days, and it’s about seven bucks for 25 bulbs, making my garden worth somewhere north of a hundred thousand dollars.
That’s the problem with grape hyacinths, and their big cousins, the wood hyacinths. They look splendid in masses for a few days and then if you turn your back on them they spawn like drunken seahorses. One bulb fattens into a solid mass of a dozen and then pups fly off of them and the flowers seed up too and before long anything else you planted has to wheedle its way through concrete in the form of future grape hyacinths which, as you recall, will look terrific for about six days next year. It’s a problem.
So every year I not only yard out as many bulbs as I can pull up but I do it while they’re actively blooming because they piss me off so much. Also I can tell what they are then. But next year it’s going to be the same thing all over again.
The problem is it doesn’t take much in the way of a bulb to produce, first, a full-fledged plant, and then a whole colony. You pull out one big bulb and immediately there’s a whole botanical diaspora happening. You’re not going to get half of them. It’s like herding an exploded box of BBs.
I decided to leave some beds that were totally packed with hyacinths because it was a done deal and concentrate on the areas that were not entirely overrun. The areas that were being scouted for the expansion of the empire.
This spring, though! This would finally be the year I get on top of the situation. We had a lot of rain. We had so much rain. It’s been raining since mid-October and it was still raining through April. We had rain in May that was originally scheduled for March but had to wait in line. It’s sunny for the moment and the soil is crumbly and I can plunge my hand through it up to my wrist without meeting any resistance. Ten inches down there’s still moisture left over from February. I slip the spading fork into the ground and rock it just a bit, and I pull on the leaves and beautiful flowers until the bulbs ease out—it’s not weeding, it’s persuading—and I pull out the adult bulbs in a solid mass and then a clique of nearby teenagers and then, underneath, the littlest babies are there, crouching in the basement, and I look at them in all their innocence and sweet potential, and I murder them.
And this year they too slid out of the soil, silently, like seventh-graders skipping school. I sieved them for strays and carefully plucked up bulblets less than a quarter-inch in diameter. Any smaller I’d have to go metric. Any smaller they’d be fetal. This ain’t Idaho. I’ll destroy them in a hot heartbeat.
And now, in the April of 2024 that exists in my mind only, happy authorized flowers burst forth from their tidy beds and romp with their little elbows out. And the remaining grape hyacinth population, in their little hyacinth minds, smile, and spawn, and say Dream on, sister.
Oh, man…. I’d gladly trade your hyacinths for the invasives that have taken over my yard: honeysuckle, english ivy, poison ivy. It’s a never-ending job to eradicate them. I envy my friend down the street who has a tiny yard, but beautiful flowers. Something is always blooming in her yard. That’s because it’s easy to maintain. And our soil is hard-packed from all the tree roots, so digging anything is out of the question.
On a side-note, we didn’t have any rain in May. At all. I heard on the radio that it’s the first time in 120 years that has happened.
Yeah, yours are worse. I’ll give it to you. However I’m gathering that you have room, and trees. Not bad!
And then there are violets – invasive little thugs which have wandered around our yard unmolested for years. I figure, if it wants to grow here, good for it! Let it get out there and fight with the blackberries and ivy like the rest of our plants!
Are violets considered invasive? We have SOME in our yard, but not many. I like them, so I have never considered them “invasive”. And they are edible, as a lot of invasives are. Violets. Garlic Mustard. Dandelion. I don’t think that we can beat the invasives. I think we just have to control them. And, if I’m wrong… I’m Old, so WTF? All you youngsters deal with it, if you can. But it doesn’t really matter, as we’re doomed.
Roxie lives here, and yes, violets and Johnny Jump-ups are rampant, but they ARE pretty, and easy to pull out wherever you don’t want them. They don’t bother me much.
I love their cheerful little faces, in our bad old world.
Violets? Yes.
I would be delighted to have your grape hyacinth problem. In our backyard soil, which is not really soil but more like adobe with lumps of partially consolidated sandstone, it would take at least a century for them to take over the yard. The curse of our front yard is Lily-of-the-Nile (Agapanthus, aka Angry Panthers). When it gets too out-of-control I set my organic gardening dreams aside and poison them, since digging them up would require removing all the soil going down several inches, and I expect that viable rhizome fragments would be left behind anyway. But they’re pretty and the hummingbirds like them, so it’s not all gloom. They have yet to discover the back yard. I hope they’re not reading this.
I’m afraid I will also have to use the nuclear option on the honeysuckle. I didn’t realize that it came in tree form as well as vines, and it’s a pretty tree and heavily scented. It has tiny white flowers, and I had only seen the usual yellow and white honeysuckle before. The scent is what made me suspicious. I googled honeysuckle tree, and sure enough, it came up. Apparently it’s VERY invasive and will take over a yard if given a chance. So Paul will have to cut it down, and I will have to put Round-Up on the stump. Probably covertly, because Paul is against using it — as am I, normally. But there is no way we can dig this up, because of the hard-packed soil from all the tree roots in our yard. It’s a shame, because it really DOES smell nice and is so pretty.
If the stump is thick enough, you can drill it full of holes an pour in a potassium nitrate stump-dissolver. Then walk away and forget about it (unless you need that spot for something else real soon.) That worked for me on a birch stump.
Thank you, Jeremy! That would be a much better option than *ugh* Round-Up! I’m going to my garden supply company tomorrow , so I’ll ask if they have it, or can order it. Again, THANKS!
You will be pleased to learn that I spent part of yesterday carefully transplanting Agapanthuses around here because they are NOT going to get out of hand.
This is why I plant my bulbs in pots. They can’t romp through what little space I have all willy-nilly. Although with the local slug, snail, earwig, other bugs and possums, they don’t grow so well in the pots anyway.
That horse have done left the barn. I love container gardening though.
My my, such violence is unbecoming of a liberal. Unless you are talking about the MAGATS. I assume bleeding hearts are ok? 🤣 My aggravation is the lacebark elms planted 50 years ago. I’ve pulled out hundreds of their babies from my new flower beds and pots, and likely pulled out some native flower seedlings that look like them. The invasive black medic has crowded out the horrid Bermuda grass in the lawn and actually looks quite lovely—and short, right now. I’ve seen native phlox grow close to the ground in Maine cemeteries and is quite lovely this time of year. One option for grave decor.
Another option for grave decor? A skeletal arm stuck in the grave. I may be a Progressive, but I have a dark side.
I can’t even imagine having a grave. I always wanted to be planted in my vegetable bed.
I’ve always thought that cemeteries were a waste of space. The only exception is a cemetery in Philly: Mount Laurel. They are also an arboretum, having many VERY old trees on their grounds. ALSO, they have a separate section where one can have green burials. It is such a peaceful place to go for a walk, then go into nearby Manayunk to shop and eat and drink. If any of your commenters are from around Philly, it’s really worth the stop. And if all that is just too “simple” a day out, there is a Saks down the street from the cemetery.
I like cemeteries as greenspace, but get the willies thinking about all those embalming chemicals seeping into the earth..
I’m with you with murdering those damn wood hyacinths. Every year I try to destroy them, with tiny bits of success, except for the ones that grow tightly at the base of my apple tree. As though they think they might be safe from me, tangled up beneath the roots. This year, I ripped off all the budding blooms and threw them into the trash. They don’t deserve the compost or curbside recycling bin, then sprayed them down with the strongest vinegar concentrate I could find. The remaining stalks and leaves have withered and dropped in place. I’m hoping they get the message.
Please let me know next year if that worked. I know who my money’s on.
Paul sprays cleaning vinegar on our river stone paths to kill the weeds. It works well! But for poison ivy, he sprays concentrated bleach plus Dawn dish detergent. That works, too.
I am always willing to take anything that spreads and I never stipulate that it needs to have a long bloom life. I would always rather cut back and dig out than to patiently wait for things to fill in… so I always over plant…. I tell all my lovelies that if you are meant to live in my yard then you will survive my inconsistent care…
That is a terrific attitude. When my garden does look good and someone asks me what I do for it I always tell them I pull out the dead shit.
I was astonished to learn that strawberries are quite invasive. Learned it first-hand, too, there in your beautiful Oregon. Not as awful as the blackberries (and not nearly as thorny, as in: not at all thorny) but give ’em an inch and all your neighbors will have volunteer strawberry plants.
Years ago I planted a hummingbird-attracting plant that needed a shady spot to do well. I worried, as shady spots are hard to come by in summer, in Texas. Well! That thing is so hardy that I’m still hacking back large portions of it.
My strawberries are growing in a piece of crockery. They tried to spread anyway, but they found the awful surrounding soil too uninviting to them, as it is to most things that are not weeds. I grow my tomatoes, cucumbers and flowers in pots, but that’s another story.
Paul built raised beds for our tomatoes and hot peppers alongside our driveway, as that is the only sunny spot. One of them is a cold frame so that I can overwinter my herbs.
I wouldn’t call it invasive, but a couple decades ago, while walking in the woods, I decided to dig up a clump of marsh marigolds that were by a brook, and plant them next to our pond. Just one clump. Not only did it take off, but now it’s in many locations in our yard. They are the first hit of color in the spring (as early as February!) and they die back in a couple months. I don’t know how they ended up in different locations… perhaps squirrels. They ARE avid gardeners.
Nope. I grow strawberry plants every year. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten more than about three berries out of them. Other places they’re romping all over the driveway.
Two words; Trumpet. Vine. The original vine, tree, whatever, is against a retaining wall and attracts hummingbirds like crazy, so I don’t want to get rid of it altogether, but it’s like playing Whack-A-Mole with the offspring. Those little bastards can pop up in the morning and grow 6 inches in a day. Unfortunately, I have to use chemicals on them, it’s the only way to keep them even remotely under control. One went unnoticed last year for a long time until I noticed it stealthily trying to choke out a cedar tree after it made its way up the trunk about 8 feet and then popped out to say hi. Or, more likely, flip me the bird. Took a little work to untangle and kill off that mess. Now I go out every couple of days and spray the everloving crap out of whatever I find.
I wanted one bad. My plan was to build it a post/trellis that I could walk around (not near a building or tree) and whack at it. I never did it but Dave and I collected bugles and taxi horns and trumpets he was going to weld onto the structure and we still have those…
You are fortunate you never got around to planting one. I did, because… hummingbirds! But it turned out to be very invasive. I cut it back whenever it sprouts up again. Eventually, it will just give up and fucking die. Or I will.
Claudia! Imagine meeting you here! This week is the one where I tear out the lily of the valley. Next week it will be rudbeckia. Then on to hostas. And ferns.
Hi Vickie! Nice to “run into” you here! I can’t be sure, because my head is like a sieve, but I think I may have seen a post of Murr’s that you shared, which led me to reading her blog in the first place. So thank you…I think!
Hah! Wisteria wins the race. We have it on an arbor and it is so heavy that it warped the posts holding up the arbor even though we cut it back a couple of times a year. Also it sends up shoots all over the yard. It’s beautiful when it blooms, lots of lavender racemes hanging down from above. HOWEVER, the last two years it hasn’t flowered—last year a hail storm took out the buds and this year a late single-digit freeze in March killed the flowers just as they started to bloom.
Kinda lost the whole point of having a wisteria then, didn’t you?
I have one that I planted too close to our pergola, so I have to cut back the whips every couple of weeks. I think it just got old enough to flower. Just three racemes this year. I’m growing several more in pots, hoping to make bonsai out of them — I hear it can be done…
Yup. And I bet that even if someone had warned us, and no one did, we would have planted it anyway.
I have a book on pruning, a book I bought because it was the only one I could find with a section on how to prune Wisteria. The author wrote “Wisteria is Latin for ‘lots of work.'” I didn’t follow her directions, and now the plant looks like Cousin Itt.