Opportunist plants lurk in every garden, even those well maintained oases of perfection that routinely knock visitors\u2019 socks off.\u00a0 Some of those opportunists we tag as \u201cweeds\u201d, but others are perfectly respectable plants whose only sin is seeing the main chance and taking it.\u00a0 In fall, some of the most prominent of these plants make their presence known: leaves color up, blossoms open and vining stalks reach so high that they are impossible to ignore.\u00a0 The situation in my garden has gotten to the point where the opportunists have long since won the battle with the more genteel plants and are now going mano a mano with each other.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with morning glory or Ipomoea purpurea, specifically an antique variety called \u2018Grandpa Ott\u2019s\u2019.\u00a0 It features abundant, heart-shaped leaves and purple flowers with darker purple central \u201ceyes\u201d.\u00a0 Fortunately it is beautiful, because it is everywhere.\u00a0 About fourteen years ago, I planted one package of seeds and I have done absolutely nothing since. Every year, the offspring of the previous year\u2019s morning glories grow right up the trellising that borders my back porch.\u00a0 Once the vines arrive at the top, they twine themselves around the geraniums on the back porch.\u00a0 I have even seen one especially aggressive spreader reach out to embrace a potted oleander.<\/p>\n
You might wonder what is wrong with gorgeous flowers making themselves at home on a trellis and porch.\u00a0 Absolutely nothing, though it takes vigilance to keep the morning glory in check.\u00a0 The problem is that now morning glories have sprung up all over the garden, insinuating themselves into roses and other shrubs, popping up optimistically in one of the shade beds and even showing their flowery faces in the front yard.\u00a0 How did this happen?\u00a0 Bird landscaping is the only possibility.<\/p>\n
The Virginia creeper–Parthenocissus quinquefolia\u2014a member of the grape family with palmately compound leaves consisting of five leaflets apiece, is a native plant vigorous enough to cover just about anything\u2014arbors, barns, telephone poles and possibly even cell towers.\u00a0 In the fall the leaves turn brilliant red and the plant, which may have gone virtually unnoticed while executing its genetically programmed campaign of world domination, becomes very easy to spot. In my garden, Virginia creeper restricts its activities to infiltrating the privet hedge.\u00a0 In spring, you have to look carefully to see it, but by this time of the year, its tendrils and leaves have emerged to wave above the top of the privet.\u00a0 Just trimming off the waving greenery will do nothing to stop the Virginia creeper.\u00a0 To get rid of it, I have to get right under the hedge and root it out.\u00a0 Immediately after I do so, the birds, who have dined on the creeper\u2019s berries, will immediately fly over the top of the hedge and relieve themselves, guaranteeing another generation of this unstoppable vine.<\/p>\n
And if Virginia creeper seeds itself around with wild abandon, sweet autumn clematis\u2014Clematis terniflora–puts it to shame.\u00a0 At my place it not only springs unbidden from flower beds, but appears in the lawn, cheek-by-jowl with the Virginia creeper in the hedge, clinging to the holly tree and even tackling the thorny branches of the flowering quince bush.\u00a0 It is, in short, unstoppable.<\/p>\n
Clematis terniflora bursts into bloom, seemingly overnight, in early fall, covering itself with hundreds, if not thousands, of star-shaped flowers.\u00a0 While each one is only about an inch wide, a mature plant in full bloom becomes a sweet-smelling white canopy easily able to climb thirty feet, or form a large clump on the ground.\u00a0 Pollinating insects fly to it by the score.\u00a0 Without the intervention of pruning shears, the vine can grow up to 30 feet tall.<\/p>\n
When the clematis blooms fade, they are replaced by feathery silver seed heads that last into the late fall, and add ethereal beauty to the landscape.\u00a0But that ethereal beauty comes at a price, as the seeds are distributed far and wide.\u00a0 \u00a0I used to leave the flowerheads on the vines, mostly because I thought they were too numerous to clip off.\u00a0 Now I cut back the vine almost to the ground as the flowers are fading.\u00a0 It\u2019s the only way to enforce planned clematis parenthood.<\/p>\n
Virginia creeper\u2019s powers of self-perpetuation and free-ranging disposition prove that even native plants can have invasive tendencies, but because of its native status, it does not show up on invasive plant list. Morning glory and sweet autumn clematis are another story. Both are non-native, with the former at home in Mexico and Central America and the latter in Japan.<\/p>\n
Though all three are sold commercially, these opportunists tend to escape domestic situations regularly and light out for wide open spaces like woodland edges, rural hedgerows, wildlife refuges, railroad right-of-ways and other untended spaces.\u00a0 They become problematic when they outcompete native species.<\/p>\n
Still, all three are undeniably beautiful, attract pollinators and can work in difficult garden situations.\u00a0 Clematis and creeper even thrive in light shade, with the creeper making an effective erosion controller as well. \u00a0If you use them, be a wise gardener and remove the faded flowers before the plants set seed. Grub out seedlings that come up in places other than ones where they belong.<\/p>\n
And if you pass my front hedge and see me with my head under it, know that I have not lost my mind.\u00a0 I am merely trying to get to the root of the Virginia creeper.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Opportunist plants lurk in every garden, even those well maintained oases of perfection that routinely knock visitors\u2019 socks off.\u00a0 Some of those opportunists we tag as \u201cweeds\u201d, but others are perfectly respectable plants whose only sin is seeing the main chance and taking it.\u00a0 In fall, some of the most prominent of these plants make … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3],"tags":[1491,957,154,115,1489,1492,1490,1488,1456,117,1487],"class_list":["post-1955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","tag-clematis-terniflora","tag-fall-color","tag-invasive-plants","tag-ipomoea","tag-morning-glory","tag-opportunistic-plants","tag-parthenocissus-quinquefolia","tag-sweet-autumn-clematis","tag-vigorous-plants","tag-vines","tag-virginia-creeper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1955"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1961,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1955\/revisions\/1961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}