Garden Thug

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Mexican Evening Primrose (Oenothera speciosa ‘Siskiyou’)

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Once again, the Evening primrose is out of control. It’s growing into the path and coming up a 3 feet away in the middle of the lemon thyme groundcover. Plant catalogues state it “can be aggressive”. That certainly is an understatement.

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I've been trying to weed them out all summer one by one. Time for radical surgery I decided. The plants really need to be dug out because the roots break off easily.

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The roots are everywhere sending out shoots in all directions. Roots live under the stepping stones and come up on the other side.

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It’s impossible to get them all. The best I can hope for is to slow them down. I also dug back about 6 inches inside the little brick edging that is supposed to be their boundary.

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Evening Primose has a pretty pink flower in spring and long bloom time. If I had done a little research before I planting, I may have found out that it should be contained or given free range in a lot of space.

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After 5 years in my garden, I wish I had done my homework before I planted this little thug.

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