The garden comes knocking: Using Invasive Plants
In the beginning, there was the earth. It's capacity seemed endless. Freshly tilled, rich with nutrients, full of untold promise.Begging to be filled. Demanding that my wallet be emptied.
On the next day I went to the nursery, filled with anticipation, ecstatic over the thoughts of flowers and greenery filling my new and very empty raised bed.
I began to introduce myself to the plants flowering around the nursery.The first that caught my eye was a beautiful tree peony. I checked the price. $39.95. Next I fell in love with a small, variegated Japanese maple. $49.95. My heart sank. I had what seemed to be a bottomless garden, but not a bottomless wallet.I listlessly picked up a pot of gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides). Much better, at $6.95.
"That can get a bit invasive," the nursery owner advised.
Invasive? My ears perked up.
"It spreads quite rapidly." He seemed to think this was a disadvantage.
"I'll take it!" I plunked down my cash, all the while admiring the plant with its white flowers so much like the heads of a gaggle of nodding geese. "Got anything else that's invasive?"
"You don't want to do that," he advised, shaking his head. But of course I didn't believe him. I thought it a nefarious scheme to sell me a dozen slow-growers when a few rambunctious plants would do.
So I happily planted my new garden with that gooseneck loosestrife, white blooming mint, Silver King artimesia, snow-in-summer (Cerastium tomentosum). I added variegated green and white miscanthus, and white peonies, just because they get large. Things looked kind of empty, so I tossed the all-white scheme out and added showy evening primroses (Oenethera speciosa) in pink at the front of the border, with >lambs ears (Stachys byzantina) as an edging.There was still dirt showing, so I tossed in a few flats of white petunias, alyssum, nicotiana and white columbine.
That was better--but the plants were small, since I had bought mostly quart-sized pots. So when a neighbor offered me some white Oriental lilies, I took them. I also accepted a white Stokes aster, planted two white roses bushes at each end of the bed, and then tucked in a variegated dogwood. I added white Liatris spicata 'Blazing Star', a couple clumps of white Physostegia virginiana, three white buddleia and some white iris.
You may think I'm kidding.If you do, it's been a long time since you planted your first garden. It's hard to believe that those little plants will grow to the sizes indicated on the plant tags. And it's hard to be patient when you want that first garden to look as lush and lovely as the ones in all the garden magazines. And by the time we had our end-of-summer garden party, I must admit the garden looked quite nice.
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