As a little girl I learned to love gardening from my Dad. My brother and I would spend Saturdays helping him realize his spectacular vision of what the gardens on our property would become at our home off the Appalacian Trail on Braddock Mountain in Maryland. We weeded, hauled wood chips, planted Daffodil bulbs, Rhododrendrons and Dogwoods. I miss those beauties every spring. Sigh...
As we drove through the countryside he would name every plant we passed and occasionally warn me about three that I remember. Obviously the first and every hiker's foe, was Poison Ivy The second, Kudzu was apparently brought over from Japan or China. It grows at such an incredible rate that it has been nicknamed, 'the vine that ate the south' covering a whole house in a matter of days. It is capable of spreading from the roots by sprouting runners, via nodes that form rhizomes as well as the old standby, seeds. Yeesh. The third beast to fear was 'Morning Glories'. Dad seemed to think that they were equally as invasive as the Kudzu and they probably were in Zone 6. Now that I am all big and grown up and living in Zone 9, Morning Glories are a little less fearsome. Last fall I found these lovely annual blooms (probably planted by seed) in my neighborhood. It seems that they are less ambitious down here in Texas where the summer heat does its level best to knock out anything that is not a cacti or its cousin.
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