Don't fence me in!

You may recall the story of my resurrected Datura meteloides, the indomitable survivor that survived a Zone 4 winter. I generally just cut off my annuals at the soil level and leave the roots to rot and add extra organic material to the soil. This root refused to rot.

I really hadn't been planning on growing datura this year, because it ran rampant over all the other residents of this bed last year, which some of them did not appreciate. But I couldn't say no to that kind of grit, so I left it. The problem is, there's now a young PG hydrangea smack dab in the middle of the bed and an aggressive datura coming at it from behind can't possibly be good for it.

So in the spirit of "good fences make good neighbours,"I put in a fence. (Robert Frost must turn over in his grave every time that line is quoted, as everybody always misses the whole point. But this is not a poetry blog, so I'll leave it there.) I took a section of the same kind of wire fencing that is protecting my beds from dogs and delivery boys and drove it into the ground in front of the datura which was already starting to overwhelm the PG. Because of the size of daturas, I used the tallest kind I could find.

A little trimming of spare branches and voilà! Much easier and probably much more effective than staking. I may have to add another section later in the season, but it looks to me like it's going to work. These kids might be able to play together nicely after all.

Technorati tags: Datura, Staking