Possibly Immortal

We inherited a lot of plants from the people who sold us our home; the lady of the house liked to garden. Unfortunately she tried to grow a lot of things that don't fare well in this region. She also put in some invasive plants like this Mexican Petunia, which is a Category 1 troublemaker that displaces native flowers, and is a real pain to eradicate.

Since the petunia patch happens to be contained in a spot where it can't spread we decided to leave it alone and just cut it out when it died during the winter. Which we did, down to two-inch stalks we planned to till into the ground in spring. Only it grew back within a couple weeks. That started a cycle of cutting it again or watching it freeze during frost nights, and then seeing it grow back again.

Since then we've tried everything we can think of short of setting it on fire to discourage it from growing, and it still grows and flowers beautifully. It's hard to kill something that determined to live. It's still going strong -- which is likely why it's a Category 1 invasive -- but we really need to get rid of it. So, next spring I'm going to persuade my guy to dig it all out and replace it with a native plant.

Comments

Better than Fried

I cut some chives from the kitchen garden to make garlic-chive baked fries for dinner. This is a great side dish for veggie burgers. Click here for the recipe from Taste of Home.com.

Stuff

After finding this Caron one pound skein of lovely peach yarn in my thrifted lot I raided my stash for two cakes of Mandala in Pegasus, which matches it perfectly. For practice and hand therapy I'm going to make another Worth Street Afghan with this free pattern , but this time I'll use the yarn that was recommended for it plus the one pound skein. I'm not quite ready to do the vintage/recycled linen quilt I had planned (still a bit too nervous about the idea), so I'm going to use some color therapy and make a quilt from these thrifted green fat quarters. I considered doing another Yellow Brick road patchwork pattern, but I might go with a split rail fence like this one.

Make It Yourself

As we head into December, here are ten ideas for easy handmade gifts: Cookie Exchange: If you live close to your friends invite them over for a cookie exchange. Basically everyone bakes a set amount of their favorite cookies, and these are exchanged at the gathering by lottery, sharing a little from each batch with everyone, or however you want to do it. You can also exchange recipes, too. My neighbor did this once and it was wonderful. Favorite Recipe Cookbook : For my favorite person I found a copy of my favorite cookbook from a vintage bookseller (yes, I am that old) and went through it making notes on all the recipes I used, how I tweaked them, etc. Ornament: There are probably a million free tutorials on how to make your own holiday ornaments, so do some research online. I like to make hanging pomanders , which smell heavenly and are biodegradable after the holidays. Mug Rugs: If you sew, making up a set of mug rugs is simple and easy; I add these every year to my ...

Rayen

Search This Blog