Keep Moving! or Murder on the Bayou!

  Most of the time if one looks hard enough, there is a good side of everything.  The same goes without saying about the opposite.  Most good things have a dark side.  Just look hard and long enough both will become evident.  I try to lean toward finding a little slice of goodness in everything so I suppose my thoughts may be tad jaded.  Life is good. Things are good.  My little world here on the Bayou is good.  No bad....well, maybe a little now and again.

  First...good!  It is springtime!  While the rest of the country is still trying to shove Old Man Winter out the door, Lady Spring has arrived on the Bayou and is doing well.  The yard is a wonderful profusion of color and smells mighty fine.  With the citrus trees, wisteria, peach trees, plum trees and Boysenberry vines all in full bloom, things couldn't be better, if you ask me.  But, then...if you ask me....things have in some ways gone amok!  All is well except with that wisteria vine!  In all of its beauty, that thing has an ugly side.  Down here in the Deep South, we have grown accustomed to unruly vines and either fight them with a vengeance or just leave them be and let them swamp out everything within their reach. Think kudzu here.  That stuff will cover anything in just a blink of an eye.  It is the same with wisteria.  Let it have an inch and it takes a mile...in just about an hour.  It will cover trees, fences, arbors, houses and slow-moving people.  If you stand in my garden long, do not be surprised to feel a sneaky vine trying to wrap its way around your head.  Best you keep moving when you visit the Bayou.

  There are only two differences between kudzu and Wisteria, as far as I can see. Wisteria has showy flowers that makes it the darling of the vine world and kudzu is kinder.   Kudzu does flower but it is not as flashy gorgeous as the wisteria.  BUT....while it may eventually kill plants but blocking sunlight, it is not as murderous as the wisteria.  The wisteria literally strangles anything that it can get in its clinches.  As pretty as it is to see the lavender blooms dangling from the treetops, those same trees will soon be dead...strangled...taken too soon.  When the tree dies and falls, the wisteria vine just keeps growing.  The tendrils are always on the search for another upright object to climb so it can continue its murderous cycle.  Like I said...do not stand for too long under the wisteria arbor!  I am not responsible for unruly vines!

  As it stands, the wisteria is lovely at the moment.  It is filling the air with a lovely aroma that is gently wafted into the kitchen by the north breeze. Tomorrow however, I shall be out with the snips once again as I noticed vines reaching toward the grapefruit trees and the satsuma trees.  One has already made its way to the rooftop and is creeping toward the chimney.  To think that I just trimmed the thing last week makes me tempted to uproot the entire thing.  Not that it would do any good as the long runners will sprout new vines in a heartbeat!  Don't blink!  The vines will get you!