Dogwood

Love the bright red stems.

Yes, I shall cut the plant back in the early spring to get new shoots. :-)

oh, nice! I always wanted a whole bank of these, with variious coloured-stems - maybe one day

The area of Miscanthus next to it is almost impossible to dig out - the roots are like steel cables! Otherwise, I'd do that - they'd look amazing there. :-))

lol, no flamethrower?

That might work! Good thinking. ;-)))

did you want to move the Miscanthus or get rid of it altogether? it sounds as if getting rid of it wuold be the easier option, given the toughness of its roots.

if you wanted to move the Miscanthus, could the roots be sort of trimmed? cut through the ones that you can't dig out and hope you've enough left for the plant to survive elsewhere? Though the roots may be mixed with the Dogwood ones, they look close enough together.

if you want to get rid of it, maybe some way of cutting the stem[s] right back and treating them? hard to treat the roots, given that it's right next door to a plant that you want to keep - looks too close to risk transferring.

This has just occurred to me, don't know how off-the-wall it might be - put a black back over the Miscanthus? if it can't get light ...

OH and I worked on the square where I planted the Dogwoods (two) and it took both of us hacking at the roots for ages to remove them, replace the soil with compost etc, then he sank 'blocks' in around the Dogwoods to stop the Miscanthus roots from returning, which seems to have worked. :-)

The area of the Miscanthus is about 12' x 8'! It does look lovely for most of the year, I have to admit.

I think it would be too difficult and time consuming to try to remove it now, and buying enough Dogwoods to fill that area would be juuustt a bit expensive! :-(

I hadn't realised it was that big! lol sounds a lot easier to relocate the boxwood - it'd take a heck of a few baby plants to fill that much space

Exactly. There's an insurmountable (to me!) problem every year, as well. The wild flower - 'Jacob's Ladder' grows amongst the grasses, and all I can do is heave out handfuls every so often. It wouldn't be possible to get the roots out, obviously, or to use weedkiller. Ah well, keep on heaving! ;-/

I looked up Jacob's Ladder, never having heard of it before; it looks nice and seems to be a rabbit-repellent, if you had need of such!

Is it so numerous as to be a weed? or just in the wrong place?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemonium
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/4167.shtml

Oh, no - it's not Polemonium. I love those, and I'm growing a whole lot from seed at the moment. :-) It's a wild flower - I'll have to look it up and tell you its latin name.

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Back again - it's a vetch, Vicia cracca I think, or one of the Vicias anyway.

lol ok thanks, I'll check that one out too

It's a menace. :-((

:( sounds like it!

I have no ideas about what I can do to eliminate it - a Dalek to 'exterminate' it maybe? LOL.

the prob is to eliminte that without touching what's around it, or dig them up, blitz the area, then replant. but as you've said the miscanthus is immoveable ... the only thing that comes to mind is weed control fabric, but as you've got plants down already, it'd be a bit hard to use that, unless you cut strips round the plants that you want.

Not possible - they're like one huge plant with no gaps. :-(( I came to the conclusion ages ago that I just have to live with it and keep clearing the vetch out by hand before seedpods form. :-(

aw, that's a shame. nothing can be done during its dormant season to maybe decrease its spread?

maybe only thing to do is to find another way to look at it, some aspect of it that makes it less of a pest - do butterflies like it?

This summer, I left it because the flowers are pretty. However, when I looked more closely, I saw seedpods forming, so I got heaving again - I'd be horrified if the dratted stuff threw seeds further away and spread into non-contaminated areas! :-O

lol understandable. why is it that weeds sew more seeds than plants we want?? would it help to behead them as the seepods are setting and before they look ready to pop? might keep the numbers down a bit, or at least stop it spreading too much too soon

LOL. The grasses are on the stream bank, and at the other side of the patch is a drystone wall. I have to lean precariously over and try to reach all the vetch plants. I've toppled over before now. Either lean, or paddle, and I can't reach them all from the lower-down bed of the stream!

lol maybe a very selective flamethrower??

oops! see i've aleady suggested that.. no one nearby has a sheep that might graze there once in a while? mind you, it might take other stuff as well!

There are sheep no more than 50 yds away, and they can stay where they are, thanks very much! They'd thoroughly enjoy my delicious plants, I'm sure. :-((

Just how do you tell a sheep what to eat and what not to?

That's your worst idea so far, Fran! lol.

grins, it was late and I was tired - as good an excuse as any i can think of! lol they should sell "sheep-stop" tht you can spray on plants that you want to keep, something that sheep won't eat. wonder how big a market for that there'd be?

Well, I'm not trying it, thanks. :-(

We once had some straying steers that got into the garden. Our lovely farmer next door came to the rescue with his dogs and rounded them up and out for us. Luckily it was during the winter months, and all the damage they did was to leave hoof marks and a few 'cow-pats'. One of them ate an ornamental grass in a container though!

take your point! how about waiting till the Scouts come round for Bob-a-Job? or at least hiring a couole of kids or teens? they'd be more flexible - it shouldn't take them long to clear a patch, especially if you pay 'em by weight or volume of collected weeds - so long as you make it very clear what's to be pulled and what's to be left!

Hmmm...we don't get scouts here - too rural. No idea where the nearest troup is...

I wouldn't want anyone trampling on the grasses (Miscanthus) so bang goes another idea - well done for both, though - your brain must be hurting!

what brain??? *s*

LOL.