It’s A Jungle Out There

September 29, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 8 Comments

Even though I love the idea of flower beds, my husband and I have proved that we should never be entrusted with them.  You see, I have an embarrassing secret – our backyard has turned into a jungle.

So here’s how it’s going to go – I’m going to give you a slew of excuses and explanations for the sad state of our backyard and then I’m going to show you the shameful pictures – and you’re not going to judge me.  Mmkay, got a deal?

I realized our backyard had gotten out of control when I found myself admiring the lovely dappled light coming in the frosted window in our bathroom.  You see, there shouldn’t have been any dappled light because there shouldn’t be any trees outside our bathroom window.  This is how that little area of the backyard looked in April (back when we laid some sod):

It's a Jungle Out There

And here’s how it looked last weekend:

It's a Jungle Out There

Another area went from this:

It's a Jungle Out There

to this:

It's a Jungle Out There

Yeah.  There are no words for the disaster that our backyard had become.  It’s embarrassing.  Who knew our backyard could go back to nature in just a few months?  (But in our defense, this area is around the side of the house where we never look.  See?  I promised you excuses!).

Anyway, last Friday and Saturday we decided to take the first step toward ridding ourselves of this ridiculous eyesore by tearing up the jungle, along with all the random pieces of cement and edging that were sprinkled around.  The plan is to replace the flower beds with sod (which we can handle).  The area along the house went from this:

It's a Jungle Out There

to this:

It's a Jungle Out There

And those jungle-y areas now look a little something like this:

It's a Jungle Out There

It's a Jungle Out There

I know, we still have a long way to go before it’s remotely acceptable, but we made some serious progress – hallelujah! You can take a look at all of the jungle debris as proof of our progress:

It's a Jungle Out There

And the concrete pavers in the pile below were quite a hot commodity – about half of them were gone from the curb after just a few minutes!

It's a Jungle Out There

We’re hoping to complete the transformation next weekend, so fingers crossed that we get our acts together and make that happen.  What about you guys?  Are you as appalled by our backyard as I am?  Tackle any big projects over the weekend?

P.S.  You may have noticed that there’s no Inspiration Tuesday blog party today – I hope that hasn’t thrown you off!  There just didn’t seem to be  as much interest as I’d hoped, so it’s been retired for awhile – maybe it’ll make a comeback someday!  In the meantime, you are still more than welcome to link to your inspiring posts in the Comments section – just be sure to put your link in “quotes” so that it will show up!


A Minty Fresh Nuisance

April 28, 2009 By Liz - It's Great To Be Home 14 Comments

I’ve heard horror stories of mint taking over gardens, spreading like wildfire.  And now I’ve got my very own cautionary tale.

A Minty Fresh Nuisance

You see, the prior homeowner planted some mint directly in the bare earth in our garden.  This is a big no-no because mint has underground shoots called “rhizomes” – instead of growing down into the ground like normal plants, these rhizomes are basically like tentacles that grow out from the mint and encourage the plant to spread.  To keep the shoots from going crazy, it’s recommended that you plant mint in pots or in areas that are surrounded by barriers like metal at least 10 inches deep – otherwise the mint will escape and invade all of the ground around it.  Sounds hardcore, right??

So back to my little cautionary tale.  Remember how we laid new sod about two weeks ago?  Part of that project involved removing metal and concrete edging from the flower beds so that we could turn those beds into part of the lawn.  I got a little overly ambitious and removed the edging from one flower bed in particular that we were eventually planning on turning into grass – but not right away.  This bed, of course, housed the entire world’s supply of mint.  And now, just two weeks later, said mint has escaped – into our lawn.  Darnit!

Now the million dollar question – what do I do now that the mint has escaped?  Here are some words of encouragement that I found here and here on the web:

  • “It may already be a lost cause.  Your only hope is to sell your house and move to a new one.”
  • “Napalm.”
  • “Face it, mint is eternal.”
  • “Perhaps your children or grandchildren will take over, after you’ve gone.”
  • “I will have to keep up my search for the perfect murder weapon against the mint plants.”
  • “Mint is the demon spawn of all garden plants, and is truly evil.”

Double darnit.

You want to know what’s even worse?  In my quest to rid my lawn of these nefarious mint plants, I just yanked them up – apparently another no-no, because any little pieces of root that are left behind will be called into action to sprout new mint plants.  Eeek!

I’m now in kill mode – how can I keep this crazy mint from taking over the entire yard?  And how can I kill the mint without killing the surrounding grass?  I found some potential solutions here:

  • Spraying the mint with Clorox bleach
  • Spraying the mint with a mixture of 2 cups of salt, 1 teaspoon of dish soap and 1 gallon of white vinegar
  • Covering the mint with thick layers of newspaper, followed by a layer of mulch to smother it out
  • Spraying the mint with Round-up weed killer
  • Digging each little root up

What do you think?  Can I squelch these little mint monsters . . .

A Minty Fresh Nuisance

or am I destined to spend the rest of my life making mojitos?  On second thought, maybe I should just leave the mint after all . . .

Have any of you had mint go crazy in your gardens?  How do you keep it under control, and do you have any tips for killing it?  Quick, the mint is getting closer . . .

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