Thyme is on your side: Update on patio crabgrass

I tackled the patio crabgrass again last weekend. It's slow going so there aren't enough photos for a decent post. This is the part of the summer when its hard to keep ahead of the crabgrass. It grows like, well, like a weed. The thyme on the other hand, doesn't.

My strategy, for about a year now, has been to remove the crabgrass, mostly by hand, and substitute thyme. My last post on this topic is here.  Since that last post, almost a month ago now, I also planted three new kinds of thyme and a creeping shady creature called Corsican Mint. In this post, I'll show all four, and my method of planting.

Here is Corsican mint. It likes shade and moisture, and since I have an abundance of both in certain spots in the patio, I added it to my arsenal. It seems to be doing well in the month since I planted it.

More of the patio, though, bakes under sun and especially in the dog days of summer has very little moisture. Thyme loves those conditions, and so I'm trying pretty much every version of a creeping thyme I can lay my hands on, without special ordering. Here is a variety called Pink Chintz Thyme. It is a faster spreader than the others.

Here you can see how I take a small pot and cut it into sections with scissors. How big they are depends partly on how much root there is and how big the cracks that I want to fill. I cut the pots down to plug size.

Here are the resulting plugs of pink chintz thyme:

Here is one planted:

Here is minus thyme:

Here is Wooly Thyme. This one mounds too high, really, for the patio, but I put it over in a corner where we don't walk much and where a higher, faster growing thyme might be better competition.

Next up, how these fared in the latter half of June and first half of July, during a heat wave with  no rain. For the full series, see the topic "Patio Crabgrass" in the list of topics on the righthand side of the home page.

Patio Update: jousting crabgrass and creeping thyme

Yesterday and today, I've been working on the patio again. The last post on this topic is here. The basic story is the villan Jousting Crab Grass and his army trying to take over the patio, with the lowly family of Thyme ranged against him with their trusty Sherry at their side.

Here is Creeping Thyme:

and Mint Thyme:

Thyme and Crab Grass facing off:

Crab Grass bent on overtaking Thyme by springing up from within:

So, these photos are all of the right half of the patio. You notice that there are not many crab grass seedlings in the photos. On the right hand side of the patio, it seems that by using corn gluten this spring and a various array of measures last year (including weeks of hand weeding combined with the unplanned coincidence of a tarp laid down over that half for 3 weeks in the fall when we renovated the bath), there are noticeably fewer crab grass seedlings on this half of the patio.

Sherry, being Sherry, attacks the easier side first. The result here ...

here ...

and here, a modest collection of the Crab Grass avant-garde, now dead ...

You can see how small they are at this stage. If you look closely, you will see that their roots quickly grow to be 2-3 times longer than the leaves above ground. Last year, I looked at the thousands of tiny seedlings and thought, "I could never pick out that many seedlings. These are too small to pull out. I'll let them get bigger, let some of the littlest die from the competition, and then I can pick the survivors out, when they're bigger and easier to get a hold of." WRONG MOVE! Their roots are unbelievably tenacious. It is by far, let me repeat, by far much, much, much easier to get them out when they're tiny. Tedious? Yes. But not even a fraction of the work that it takes to remove grown plants in August, let me tell you.

So, here some cleared patio.

Here, the world's tiniest bit of Mint Thyme, holding down the fort on one corner.

And my poster child, the mother ship of Creeping Thyme.

And ... the other half of the patio, where Sherry has enlisted multiple allies in the fight against Crab Grass and his army: other weeds ...

The weed ally strategy is not working quite as well. Crab Grass is encroaching in a bad way, and already hundreds and hundreds of tiny two-leaved seedlings are arrayed in formation between each and every brick ...

right among the ally weeds (traitors!) ...

Our work is cut out for us today. Many Crab Grass foot soldiers to be plucked out by their tiny roots. And, still waiting to be planted, in the Thyme family's defense: cousins Pink Chintz Thyme, Wooly Thyme, and Minus Thyme ...

And a few allied species to come to the aid of Thyme in the shade:  Blue Star Creeper, Raoulia, and Corsican Mint.

Clearing the North Border: Bittersweet or Hardy African/Cape Daisy -- Osteospermum

The past couple of days were devoted to one of the more tedious chores of the garden: eradicating invasive vines. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon suited up head to toe in protective clothing, digging out poison ivy. I made a bit of headway, pulling two green garbage bags of the stuff out, and confirming in the process that yes, my poison ivy too, has three different shapes of leaves on one vine. Yay.

Today's task was slightly easier and much more interesting -- free the hardy cape daisy (where? you might ask yourself):

It took me two full years to "see" this plant. The first summer, I had no idea what it was. Then, late in the summer, I looked out the window one day and saw a daisy. Daisy? I thought. There aren't any daisies there. I thought I was seeing things, truly. Did I go investigate? I can't even remember. There was a lot going on (we were painting the back of the house).

Then in the spring, last spring, I scrutinized the thing closely. Nothing. Shrug. It was half non-descript strange looking weedy bush, half non-descript looking tree like thing. I wasn't sure what to make of it, so left it alone. Then, late in the summer, there were those white flowers again. This time I looked (but didn't take any photos). They had a blue center. Pretty! I thought. And it must be perennial, if it came back again. But I couldn't figure out what part of the plant was blooming. All I could find was a bush. A daisy bush? I wondered. I'd never heard of such a thing.

Time passed, vines started shooting out everywhere. Then in the fall, there were orange berries. Bittersweet, Capel announced. I looked it up. Invasive. The web announced. Lovely, I thought.

Then I googled "white blue-eyed daisy bush." Nothing except a photo of a purple flower. This was before I realized that googling images is a much faster road to identification. I kept trying different word combinations. Then bingo! African daisy. Except noone said "bush" or "shrub" or even "perennial." Half-hardy, they all say. But I've got a bush. Or, half a bush.

Fast forward to this spring. The two-headed bush is bare limbed (or that's how I remember it). Yes, here it is in April, to the left of the andromeda. I've researched bittersweet again, too, puzzling about which to save. I like the look of bittersweet. For awhile I wonder if I can keep both.

In May, the two sides are starting to show their different leaves. Cool, I think, still pondering. Finally, the outlines of the daisy are beginning to take shape, in contradistinction to the bittersweet. I "see" the bush.

Then I'm working all over the yard, letting it do its thing. Then it rains for a week. Then it rains for another week. Yesterday, we finally get some sun, and I go out and shazaam. The bush has disappeared. It's been devoured alive.

Finally, my path is clear. The bittersweet has got to go. Pronto.

I fully intended to start here yesterday. But Capel wanted to mow the lawn and predictably, the poison ivy has already escaped out from under the landscape fabric on the north border and grown long, invisible tentacles out into the lawn, flagged only by the tiny, shiny red advance leaves. Poison ivy avant garde. You can't mow that, I announce. I promptly suit up and start removing poison ivy. Hours later, the sun is setting. 

Today, then, finally, I get to the daisy. Which I've never taken a photograph of. But here is someone else's photo. When it's free, and when it blooms, it will look like this. Someday.

In the meanwhile, I remove this:

And this.  

Two maple saplings and a huge head of bittersweet ... tentacles of bittersweet vine spreading up and over into the andromeda, and roots spread under the andromeda ...

and from the andromeda to the pink azalea ... 

... and on to the white azalea. I pull these long skinny brown vines and great mats of soil roll back and the red roots pull up like carpets. I go as far as I can, three bushes over ... 

I get it all, I think. Plus the maple sapling in the andromeda. It's starting to look like a shrubbery!

Then I go back to the daisy, bittersweet home base.

At home base, I can't get any root. The stem of the bittersweet is as thick as my thumb and nestled right up to the main stem of the cape daisy. Their roots are clearly grown together. I cut the bittersweet at the base, knowing it will come back hydra-headed. But after some work and a lot of head-shaking to make sure I don't have bugs in my hair from ducking my head underneath leaves and branches, I do, finally, get it all.

The daisy looks a little sparse. It will fill in, I think. Before the bittersweet overtakes it again, I hope. 

But it is a bush, truly. And it must be ancient. There is a very old, woody stem and new shoots in more than one place, from the stem and also straight up from the ground.

It looks okay.

Better than before, at least. 

If a bit smaller.

And ... a bonus extricated from amongst the roots and leaves, two straggling lilies of the valley to be coddled into bloom.

It starts to spit rain. I pack up two lawn bags of leaves and roots, and tug the maple saplings around to the curb. Transplant a couple of alyssum in the other garden, dodging rain drops. The rain will be good for them all, and I? The rain is good for me too, happy with a job well done.