Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Salamanders Water Lilies and more

Finally it blooms the water lily in my very humble and modest pond, that is home to 7 salamanders. This old building container is small and we have a bigger pond in the backyard, but it’s very special. The salamanders are coming for the fifth season now and seem to think of it as “home”. The pond where my parents used to live, so to speak.

Tomorrow I’ll start adding some of the wonderful food and garden ideas I got from our sites users. But for now I’m going outside to my pond, and listen to the sound of the water my little fountain produces and study the details of the salamander mating ritual.

Bindweed - How to break free

Bindweed - Who knows about a cure

Lately one of the gardening-guides users approached me with her problem with Bindweed. Bindweed, an invasive bugger, was suffocating her roses. We exchanged a few emails but couldn’t come up with an acceptable overall solution.

A few years ago I had the same problem with bindweed running rampant in my strawberry beds. The only thing I could think of was to take the loss, get the strawberry plants out and fork out the rest of this nasty super survivor. Only to find out a year later that forking it all out is not sufficient. Doing some research I found out that the bindweeds root system could extent about 15 ft. down.

These weeds seem almost impossible to eradicate. I protected my new plants using large plastic containers that I would place in the infected area. All together this plaque kept me busy for a few years. Yesterday when I saw traces of the weed growing in my neighbor’s garden I decided that coming weekend it’s time to insert vertical plastic plates as boundaries.

What happened with the roses of the woman with the roses is still unsure. After a few emails it silent if she found a solution I’m sure we will hear about it. It would be great if she or someone else found a solution to this really nasty plant.

If you have experience in the battle against bindweed please post a reply. By now I did a fair amount of research, but found no easy way out. Still planting in containers and placing plastic plates as protection feels like killing a mosquito with a machine gun.