“Too Successful”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
What a wonderful spring weekend! One just couldn’t ask for a lovelier weekend than the one we have had here in the Gulf South. The temperatures were cool and perfect for working outside. This turned out to be a great weekend to get some of those long neglected garden chores done.
Saturday was spent cleaning out more garden beds that have been taken over by Virginia creeper, star jasmine, and wild honeysuckle. I finally finished one bed, and some of another. I stopped working when I discovered poison ivy growing into the garden from the neighbor’s yard. These invasive vines certainly have become rampant over the winter and will probably take several more working weekends until they are under control.
Today, I had decided, would be a relaxing, “just putter around the garden” day. I moved a few daylilies around to better, sunnier locations, and started clearing out a small area of a garden bed that had been taken over by some too successful ground cover.
Speaking of too successful plants, the Cherokee roses (Rosa laevigata) have started blooming along the highways. This rose is very easy to grow and has become naturalized in the Southeast. You see it all over in the early spring. This is a beautiful rose, but it gets BIG. It is supposed to have 12 to 15 foot canes, but the ones near our house seem much longer as they sprawl through the bushes and trees as you can see in the following photo.
When we first moved here and I saw these flowers, I couldn’t wait to find out what they were. I wanted these big, white flowers for my garden, but a wise neighbor warned me away from this rose – too big for my property. The mass of flowers is spectacular.
I am a sucker for white flowers, but I will have to enjoy these as they grow somewhere else besides my garden.
They are very pretty, and even though every spring I want them in my garden, I have to be realistic and enjoy a few sprays of white in a vase.
Always Growing 
Ewa in the Garden said,
April 11, 2010 at 9:00 pm
wonderful white flowers – I think this year I will fully go for white annuals in containers 🙂 I love white flowers in July – very special month in Poland.
Greetings,
kate/high altitude gardening said,
April 12, 2010 at 9:42 am
Beautiful close ups of that lovely wild rose. I suppose if I lived in a more temperate climate, I’d embrace white in the garden. It’s so beautiful in pictures. But, I get so much white, in the form of snow, that I tend to plant bright, gaudy colors to compensate! 🙂
Randy said,
April 12, 2010 at 12:43 pm
Who wouldn’t love that beauty! I’ve never seen it before.
Melody said,
April 12, 2010 at 6:20 pm
I made the mistake of planting one of those roses in our back yard. We have 3 acres but it still tried to take over – lol. We finally killed it by piling a bunch of limbs on it and burning them and it. It does have pretty flowers though and I enjoy it along the roads, just not in my yard.
Lana said,
April 12, 2010 at 9:53 pm
They’re very lovely. Here in Abita the plethora of azaleas are currently blooming. I love this time of year!
Janet said,
April 13, 2010 at 6:04 am
It is a very pretty bloom Jan. Is the flower fragrant? I get so disappointed when a rose has no scent.
Jean said,
April 13, 2010 at 7:13 am
Beautiful roses but good thing you kept away from them. Better to enjoy them from a distance. I hope we have a few more nice weekends before summer sets in!