LINCOLN SQUARE — I'm like the ship that brought the zebra mussel to the Great Lakes, the packing material that carried the Emerald Ash Borer from Asia, the plantation owner who introduced the mongoose to Hawaii.
I've got an invasive plant in my landscaping. And I put it there.
The nefarious Bishop's Weed. [All photos by DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]
It's a ground cover called Bishop's Weed (aka, Goutweed), and right now experienced gardeners are gasping in horror at my folly.
I can just hear their collective cries of dismay: Didn't you know Bishop's Weed is one of the "most insidious" plants out there?
That it will choke out all your other plants?
That it's considered so noxious, several states (though clearly not Illinois) have banned it from sale?
Nope, I was totally oblivious. Some might say ignorant. Guilty as charged.
Patty Wetli battles an invasive ground cover on this podcast episode:
In my defense, Bishop's Weed didn't look like Satan's spawn when I plucked it off the shelf at the garden center. It was just sitting there in a plastic container along with all the other ground covers.
It's not like it was labeled "do not buy." It's not like an alarm went off when I put it in my cart. It's not like the cashier at checkout said, "Are you out of your mind?"
Caveat emptor.
And so I brought the Trojan horse into my yard.
I sprinkled maybe a half-dozen of the plants throughout one of my flower beds, with the intent of filling in bare spots around young perennials. This was three years ago.
Year One: The plan worked like a charm. Suddenly I had the sort of lush greenery I had always drooled over during garden walks. Ha, I thought, I didn't even need to hire a landscaper.
Bishop's Weed threatening to crowd out all other perennials.
Year Two: The Bishop's Weed continued to spread and still I thought this was a good thing. As someone who's seen her share of plants fail to thrive, my first instinct is to consider any growth a positive sign. Sure, maybe it was a little troubling that the ground cover overran a couple of annuals I'd planted for pops of color, but frankly I had my hands full managing my vegetable plot. I opted to let nature do its thing because how could that be bad?
Which brings us to....
Year Three: This spring I noticed that the Bishop's Weed was now shin high. Someone doesn't understand the "ground" in ground cover, I thought. Its shoots were ominously encircling my salvia, coneflowers and black-eyed susans, its roots were intermingling with a coral bell and its tentacles were beginning to creep toward my lilac. Most disturbing, where speedwell and a daisy-like plant once cropped up every year, there was now only ground cover.
Shoots of Bishop's Weed in the process of choking off a coral bell.
Ruh-roh, Shaggy.
This can't be right, I thought. A simple Internet search of gardening websites confirmed what my gut was telling me: "Bishop’s Weed is an avid gardener’s worst nightmare."
Of course it is.
In the hands of the right person — maybe that professional landscaper I can't afford — Bishop's Weed can be deployed appropriately, taking the place of grass in large, open, shady areas.
In the hands of the wrong person, the sort who haphazardly picks up plants at the garden center because they look pretty, it can wreak havoc.
So now what?
"If it were up to me, I'd just let it all be ground cover," said Dave.
That's his answer to everything — ground cover and hostas.
Tempting, but no.
In an act that ran counter to every impulse I have as a grower, I ripped up the ground cover, shocked to see how interwoven it had become with plants I've been nurturing for years. But the gratification of tearing the weed from the ground and tossing bagloads of the offender into the dumpster was fleeting.
Perennials with room to breathe, for now, after Bishop's Weed's been pulled.
Other gardening sites have warned: "We pull, and we pull, and then we pull some more. But it always comes back."
Bishop's Weeds running roots make the plant particularly difficult to eradicate.
I guess it comes down to who's more tenacious: me or the plant.
Place your bets.
Vegetable Plot
The scene is much cheerier over at Global Garden.
Corn rows.
I have two discernible rows of corn, my beans are coming along nicely and my potatoes have sent up shoots.
The fact that the soil was fairly dry after a week of wet weather suggests it's time to spread the bag of mulch I lugged home a couple weeks ago.
Side-by-Side Comparison
Week 2 vs. Week 3: Nothing new planted in the parkway but my transplants are beginning to look like they might live. In the veggie plot, those are the potatoes in the lower left corner of the bed.
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