Commentary by Christy Solo
As I continue to chip away at the Himalayan blackberry in my yard…
- If you missed the previous Rogue on the topic, you may want to go read that first.
- It’s no small project and it will take several weeks
I’m seeing parts of my yard I haven’t seen in three years. It’s refreshing to be reminded of just how much bigger my yard will be when I’m done – but – it’s sad that a few flowering plants and one ginormous shrub have gone to the Great Greenhouse in the Sky as a result of being smothered by blackberries.
Honestly, I can no longer recall what type of shrub the tangled mass of chunky branches used to be. I do remember it had flowers. It was already half dead when I bought the house, the blackberries just put the final nail it the shrub’s proverbial coffin.
Realizing there will soon (not soon enough!) be a big gap in my yard flora, I hit the Walmart garden department last week for a replacement.
I’ll pause here to note they have spectacularly good prices on potted shrubs. I suppose time will tell about the quality, but comparing prices online, it’s worth the risk (and I have no reason to doubt the quality, other than the aforementioned spectacularly low price).
I picked a lilac for a few reasons. I do have a lovely established lilac, unfortunately it is established in the shade of a big leaf maple and folks – they do NOT bloom in the shade. I will say that my lilac blooms enthusiastically – on the branches that have reached out and grabbed the sun…in my neighbor’s yard. You’re welcome, Neighbor!
The “soon to be void of blackberry and the dead shrub” spot in my yard is full sun. Or very nearly at least. It used to be partial shade, but the tree company hired by Pacific Power to trim trees away from power lines (and leave the dead branches in a pile in my yard…thanks for that) trimmed that section of the yard to Full Sun (thanks for that too, it leaves me with a lovely burned strip of lawn every summer).
Anywhoo.
I also just love lilac (as we all do, as evidenced by the blooms lining Hwy. 62 right now!) and miss those lovely blossoms!
After purchasing my lilac and conferring with my aunt about “how soon do I have to plant it and more importantly, how late can I plant it” I changed up my “priority blackberry hack and slash” order and began work around that dead shrub because the lilac should be planted in mid-April and I only have so many hack n slash days per week. Of course, there will also be the added task of removing the shrub. It will be worth it when that lilac blooms though!
After Day 1 of starting to clear the weapons grade blackberry from that section, I realized I was going to need at least one more plant to fill the blank space. That had been one BIG shrub in there.
So, back to Walmart. I was going to get another lilac but decided to look around and instead I picked up a snowball bush. We had a ginormous one in the yard in Trail, and it was not only beautiful, but the songbirds adored it. My yard birds are going to be crabby that I’m taking out their blackberry bramble so the snowball bush will be my apology plant.
Hopefully two new shrubs will be sufficient. Either way, it will have to be enough for this season at least. Walmart’s prices are excellent, but my “shrubbery fund” is now tapped out.
