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  • From: <miranda@tagoresmith.com>
  • To: "'gardenwriters-on-gardening'" <gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [gwl-g] Shrub with blue berries
  • Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:10:42 -0400

Title: Message
Barbara,
 
OK--those are all good points.
 
My attitudes tend to be shaped by necessity, of course. I try not to do any work that isn't absolutely necessary. Hens ran under the privet hedge that I knew and loved, so between them and the flocks of songbirds that fed on the berries in the winter, there was never a chance for invasiveness. Also, when you've got few hundred chickens milling around under a hedge, you tend not to worry about a few brown stems towards the bottom. So my perspective, as usual, is a bit different.
 
I'm sure that privet can be a nuisance in a purely ornamental spot and that the stems towards the bottom ARE ugly unless you stimulate new growth.
 
Miranda
 
Miranda, I've seen enough fruit on this plant which certainly shows invasive potential to fantasize about topical herbicide.   And a neighbor has let his hedge grow to seven ft high so that it makes a very busy corner very dangerous by preventing vehicles smaller than 18 wheelers from seeing each other.  I have also seen so many scrawny narrow bottomed spreading top privet hedges that I consider it a sign of ignorance and two steps short of a brown volcano.
 
My own property could certainly be a a laboratory for a weed science class, but I live in a community where the conservation Comm office manager wishes the railroad tracks were not maintained to keep the Ailanthus down.  She thinks it should be allowed to seed itself even more densely than it already has.
 
As for the frequency of pruning privet; I was softening instructions that were given to a class on mature garden maintenance by Gary Kohler while on staff at AA.  There are so many choices in Ilex crenata and perhaps other genera and species that privet is more a sign of ignorance of plant material than than cost consciousness.
 
Barbara Emeneau



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