Helga : a white frost

According to the man who came today to fix my wardrobe, all of Auckland looked like this, this morning - not just here, which is a bit of a dip. My nasturtium seedlings that were doing so well are sadly collapsed... I don't think about frost tenderness - there were only perhaps five frosts much lighter than this in 13 years at Balmoral Rd - the cold would have rolled down the hill.But see it's all clear along the wall? All that acanthus I grubbed out yesterday.... but left are a big heap of rocks - my next challenge. And of course, the weeds still to come.

Helga : a small essay on Acanthus mollis

Jack installing trellis (left) and Acanthus roots (above)

Its name ought to mean soft acanthus, I think. It is said to be the inspiration for the leaves on Corinthian columns. The leaves are shiny, large, and aesthetically pleasing. It features in lovely gardens in UK books and magazines. In volcanic soil in Auckland, New Zealand, it is a complete nightmare.

You can see a nice big clump of it to the left of Jack's ladder - there are plenty of pictures of it on the web already. Oyster plant, Bears' breeches. (Jack was installing the trellis yesterday - looks great!)
But do see the other picture. In my garden, the roots grow so large that one was as thick as a child's wrist and as long as her arm, and there are so many, even under clumps that I sprayed several times with Amitrole, that the whole space is full of them - almost no soil. I thought I would limit them by spraying, and by removing the flowers before they formed seeds - which spread with one of those trigger mechanisms when they are ripe - and maybe I did. But there are great solid plates 30-40cm or more across and these roots like triffids, and they are growing in under the fence and the concrete beyond it.

I shouldn't moan as it was a fabulous day after a frosty morning and I had the chance to spend a couple of hours in the garden attacking the acanthus, the roots of agapantus I had cut down earlier, and pulling creeper off the shed. I do wonder though how long I will have to keep after the acanthus as it creeps out from under the fence where I can't get to it. Maybe indefinitely. Ah, the New World; the subtropics.