In the jungle, the mighty jungle

Wow we were gone from Seattle for three weeks and all of my landscaping has been overtaken by the local vegetation. The two grassy areas were a foot high and a network of weeds was everywhere except the front herb gardens.

Down by the lake was totally out of control. I spent the past four days beating back the jungle. As we are getting ready to leave, things are largely under control. Down by the lake two plants that are the most robust are the cherries and blackberries. These cherries do not produce fruit, so I am going to eradicate most of them over time. Since they are so naturalized I will keep a small stand somewhere on the property. I did not have time to dig out the blackberry roots this trip, but hope to start working on that when I return. I do want to keep a few of them as well. I have to wonder if it is possible to train a few to be more like a bush. Obviously I will have to keep after it.

I am going to leave the hillside below the blueberries and huckleberries out of control this summer and try to get it planted this winter, that will give me time to form a plan. I will need something very vigorous, that is for sure.

On the plus side, the raspberries are doing fine. We have two kinds, thornless and mild thorns. I am guessing that is for pollination. We got some TakeRoot from Wal-Mart's garden center and I tried it on a cutting of two thornless and one thorn raspberry and put them in the ground close to the lake. Have on idea what will happen, but worth a try.

The last time we were here, I put four aronia sprigs in water and left them in front of an LED light. One of them grew roots. I planted it down by the lake as well in front of the naturalized cherry stand. We have one very happy set of aronia's just under the back lanai and they are already making berries. This is one of the so-called superfoods.  I put three more cuttings in the vase with a small amount of TakeRoot and will try again.

I am a little bit nervous about what will happen when we are gone, but there will probably be less rain and perhaps that will slow down the jungle's progress. If not, I guess it makes a great exercise program.