Clearing the Jungle

2006.08.03

Welcome to the jungle.

My garage sits at the southwest corner of my lot, facing north.  Sometime before I bought the house, they built a fence along the south, north, and west property lines.  However, rather than continuing along the boundaries behind the garage, they just angled the fence back to the corners of the garage.  This has left me with an L-shaped part of my property that is effectively out of my reach.  Out of sight out of mind, at any rate.

In the year or so since I’ve been here though, I have become increasingly aware that this area has been growing out of control.  I think the day I realized I could no longer see out the window in the back of the garage was the day I knew I had to do something about this no-man’s land.

So today I got started.  I pried off some fence boards, and started attacking the vegetation with hedge trimmers, tree saw, and my hands.  While the suckers from a large tree stump were my main focus today, I am more concerned with the thorny vines that occupy most of the space.  Although I don’t see any berries, I have a feeling these are wild blackberry vines.  From what I’ve heard, they are incredibly tenacious and difficult to eradicate.  Even small pieces of vines, leaves, etc can take root and grow into another monster plant.  So I’ve got that going for me… which is nice.

After working for a couple hours, I’d hacked down most of the suckers, and some of the vines (of various types) near the fence I’d opened up.

A pretty big pile of leafy debris on the driveway, and it’s only the first day.