I'll put up a white picket fence with those wooden chicken heads sticking out between them. I think about 30 should do it.
and a plastic deer and swan, with plastic flowers coming out of his back.
Got an old tires I could paint white, cut in half and line my driveway?
No, but lots of old toilets. Toilets are nice. (They're porcelain y'know.)
I've been wondering if a concrete block wall, with filled cells and good footing, or a solid fence, say, tongue and groove of fair height plus a root barrier (you can get them from Deep Root Barrier company and place them along a line) would do any good to keep p.ivy out of neighbor's place, and have been looking up root barriers for poison ivy online. Nothin' on google, or nothing much - and I presume others have thought of doing this.
I gather it reproduces by seeds, travelling roots, even root bits and pieces. Oy.
Is your neighborhood one that doesn't put up fences between houses? In our LA area virtually every place had six foot fences between yards, up to the face of the front wall of the house, and then many had up to 42" high fences for the front yards. Fences are another whole subject and putting one up this week could be a red flag, besides costing real money. But, a fence is good for more than one reason; for example, keeping a dog safely on your property....
I say 'red flag' since you do care how you get along with her.
I wouldn't care, or think I wouldn't - I would just try to be courteous while firm, and of course moderately friendly if I could get to that. If the poison ivy got into her yard, Then I would apologize, and not before - though I'm sort of amazed it isn't there already if it is in yours, but I don't know that much about p. ivy - I would figure it would be here and there in the whole neighborhood. But me, I would have been on her ass even about the mulch.
But I am not you, and I do understand your points about getting along and having an apology be no skin off your teeth - and I'm not so confident my way would be right for you, and it is your home and peace is good....
I just had a light bulb moment. I wonder if her hubby told her she was out of line for doing stuff, or getting it done, in your yard, and that has been part of the ducking routine.
I didn't say so earlier, but 1) yeah, she had no right to tell you what to do with your yard and 2) what a wench for not accepting your apology and cutting you some f-ing slack!
But again, you got what you were after. The fact that she's c-rhymes with bunt- isn't going to change. Whatever her deal is, she's going to have to start a feud with someone else because you're not playing that game.
My neighborhood's a mix, lots of fenceless houses and almost zero privacy fences. (Our houses in Pasadena and Naperville both had high, solid privacy fences.)
We have an amalgam. Our backyard is chain link from garage to back of the property on the north, and chain link across the back. Then neighbors have a low (36"?) wooden fence (occasional posts, not solid) that goes from back of property to about the back of our house. Between our house and theirs is just about four feet of ground with peonies, irises and such, and then their driveway, which goes right up to the side of their house. The two houses are probably ~ 15 feet apart.
We have no fence in the front yard, nor do neighbors on either side.
There is a high privacy fence between where a section of the North neighbors house ends (it cuts back in and continues) and our garage.
If we were to go that route, the place to do it would be between back property line and house on south neighbors side, but completely agreed about red flag AND not sure if it would accomplish anything.
One of the main aspects of this is that both houses are much higher up than the yards, probably a 10-20 foot difference. (We're on a sort of a ravine.) So even with the highest privacy fence, they'd still have a clear view of our yard. And so long as the mother of all poison ivy vines lives, there won't be any possible containment of poison ivy in general. (Which is another annoyance at her request, even if I get that specific poison ivy it doesn't mean much in terms of the poison ivy getting to her yard. The MOAPV looms a good 50 feet above all this, the tiniest breeze would waft things into her yard with no problem at all.)
By the way, not even sure if there IS poison ivy in that section. Again, that's where I really went at it with Round-up, and in a quick survey (not conclusive) I didn't see any.
Oh and could well be about husband/ ducking, Osso.
I can't remember if I asked before if you have a good arboretum there in your area. I found the science staff at the LA County arboretum out in the Arcadia/Sierra Madre area completely helpful for a problem I once had re a poisonous plant in a client's yard. Maybe your arboretum would have some useful advice on the MOAPI.
Yep, that was good advice. I've pretty well established (through that branch of research and others) that the thing to do is take an axe to the MOAPI at the base and let it die. E.G. says he's gonna do it today. I have Tecnu on hand. (Hey, CodeBorg's gone again...)
Wow--I just read the entire thread. Soz, you are waaaay too nice, but the lilac limb was inspired and led to an opening which, hopefully, will at least calm things down.
Now that I'm older and not as nice as I once was, it is much easier to simply confront someone without getting angry, but clearly letting them know what my boundaries are. I do it in a very matter-of-fact way as if any sane person would understand and of course, the person I'm talking with is perfectly sane and won't have any problem understanding my point. Heh. I continue doing what I wanted to do and am always friendly. If they are still tight-arsed about it, I am disappointed but not really concerned. In a way, it can be a relief. There is no real animosity, just an honest dislike. I can live with that.
ossobuco wrote:I just had a light bulb moment. I wonder if her hubby told her she was out of line for doing stuff, or getting it done, in your yard, and that has been part of the ducking routine.
Yeah, maybe he slapped some sense into her.
So guess what?
NO poison ivy by her fence.
Let me amend that -- in the area by her fence, which is about 6 feet deep and maybe 25 feet wide, there was one tiny dainty (if they weren't so awful they'd be pretty) little poison ivy plant right on the far edge (i.e. six feet from her fence) that lifted out of the ground roots and all with no problem. Thassit.
I think I successfully Round-upped all the rest of them to death back in my first go-round.
It's still possible that she got them herself, but that doesn't make sense. There was no sign of anything having been disturbed, including lots and lots of easy-to-pull weeds (that I got) and it just doesn't make sense from what she said.
Plus, that's just what I expected (the lack of poison ivy plants there) after the thorough treatment I gave that area (thorough in large part BECAUSE it was close to her fence) a couple of months ago. (Enough parentheses for you?)
Anyway... the whole thing went much, much better than I feared. The overriding emotion since I found the Moapi has been futility -- I had worked so hard to get rid of the poison ivy and when I saw that thing I felt like all was lost. But today I found that all my hard work really made a dent. There were far, far fewer poison ivy plants in the whole area I had already covered than I expected, and those that were there were small and easy to pull up.
I completely de-weeded the whole grassy rectangle, regular weeds in yard waste bags and poison ivy in its own bag. Also trimmed everything away from the railroad ties. That was hot, painful work, a few hours' worth, wearing horrible latex gloves -- they started off fine but sweat and latex don't mix... ewwwwwwwww.
Then E.G. mowed everything and it's looking quite civilized. Since I'm confident it's poison ivy-free, I can let sozlet run around back there (on the civilized rectangle anyway), which is one of the main things that had me so sad, that she was barred from the backyard. Also, now I can get the rest of the bad weeds and poison ivy while she hangs out with me down there. A big problem has been that if she can't be down there with me, I can't work down there, since I can't see her while I'm down there and she's on the deck. (And can't "keep an ear on" her.)
Aaannnd... <drum roll>... E.G. vanquished Moapi!!!!!!! He did it, he chopped the monster vine straight through near the base. We're all on tenterhooks waiting to see if he suffers any ill effects -- he wore a mask and goggles and long sleeved shirt and long sleeved pants and went through a decontamination worthy of FEMA. Fingers crossed.
That's huge, I will revel in every dead shriveled leaf in an extremly unseemly fashion.
Gotta take some pics of the beast and post, truly incredible.
So, I'm happy, two of the biggest and daunting-est steps have been taken (make the rectangle civilized and usable as a staging area, vanquish Moapi), lots more yet (poison ivy jungle over by Mama, lots of more pedestrian weeds crowding out good stuff) but the rest seems more doable. And there is a whole lot of lovely English ivy and vinca that renders vast swaths of the yard perfect as-is.
Gonna revive some old threads to ask more specific gardening questions.
Anyway, nothing new from neighbors one way or another, but I certainly put in the good-faith effort I intended, and then some.
I'm gonna be SO sore tomorrow...
Yay indeed! Did you get any pictures of E.G. in his hazmat gear?
Wonderful!
'Twasn't the devil who inspired your neighbor's irrationality. The Genius of the Place was tired of the poison ivy, too, and wanted to give you a bit of a goose.
Umm, Sozobe......when you get done with the MOAPI I have a MOABWI you can tackle. (That's the Mother of All BagWorm infestations.) :wink:
Echoing Diane ... maaan, I wouldnt have been 10% as nice or diplomatic about any of this.Ida been a proper hoodrat about it.
