We planted 40 Vermeer lilies here. Looks awful weedy, doesn't it? Welp. See that vine climbing up the maple on the left? It's freakin' poison ivy! We didn't realize the extent of it when we planted that bed. Amazingly, neither of us caught it while planting there. It has worked its way all along the log at the back of the bed. It's dangerous to try and weed there so we are going to move the lilies out until we can get the poison ivy under control.
Meanwhile, last summer we tried to have a new well dug. Complete failure and loss of money resulting in the mister drinking tequila, which he rarely does. Trust me, it was warranted. They left behind a useless hole and a pile of nasty, rocky, cementy sludge very near the Vermeer lilies.
Then I noticed something: some of the sludge ran back into the lilies and along the log. The lilies were non- plussed and came up anyway but guess what didn't? The poison ivy! The runners aren't strong enough to break through. Now we are in the process of shoveling the sludge (heavy!) along the length of the log to kill more of it. Who needs Round-up? (Okay, yeah we'll need that too probably).
We planted 40 Vermeer lilies here. Looks awful weedy, doesn't it? Welp. See that vine climbing up the maple on the left? It's freakin' poison ivy! We didn't realize the extent of it when we planted that bed. Amazingly, neither of us caught it while planting there. It has worked its way all along the log at the back of the bed. It's dangerous to try and weed there so we are going to move the lilies out until we can get the poison ivy under control.
Meanwhile, last summer we tried to have a new well dug. Complete failure and loss of money resulting in the mister drinking tequila, which he rarely does. Trust me, it was warranted. They left behind a useless hole and a pile of nasty, rocky, cementy sludge very near the Vermeer lilies. 
Top: Main bed that we started three years ago. The peonies that we rescued from the edge of the woods are blooming in there! Bottom: New bed started this year in foreground. So far it's got Harry Lauder's walking stick (a super cool shrub), scabiosa, a few lilies, Japanese anemone, tomatoes, fescue and lots of annuals.
