I came to Washington from the “other Washington” where I had spent 2 years living in an apartment. Before that I had gardened happily in Southern California. Having arrived here, I was more than ready to create my perfect retirement garden.

The “landscaping” around the house I bought in Sammamish was astounding. Everything was covered with English ivy. I mean every inch of soil was covered; it was not possible to walk around the house! My land slopes downhill, supported by several retaining walls which were covered, and so was the strip of land bordering the street below; the ivy even encroached on the pavement. But so what! I had retired and was eager to garden, pulling out a little ivy almost sounded like fun. This statement shows that English ivy was something I was not acquainted with. It took me and three high school boys all summer to remove it. But then I had space to plant!

I had discovered the Bellevue Botanical Garden where, just at the right time, the NW Perennial Alliance held its plant sale. How fortunate! Could there be a better place to get plants? I bought everything they had, and 21 years later I still regret some of my purchases. Novice me did not realize that most of the plants for sale had been potted up because they had been taking over the donors’ gardens.

One of my purchases was marked “perennial sunflowers”. I had never heard of them but was delighted. I saw in my mind the beautiful sunflower fields in the South of France and imagined having that beauty at my house -- perennially! I bought 2 pots, one for right next to the sidewalk, for passers-by to enjoy, and one for the side of the house, up against my neighbor’s retaining wall. The first year the plants turned out to be 6 feet tall with smallish yellow flowers; not quite what I had had in mind, but nice enough. The second year the clumps expanded, and runner plants came up a bit farther away, not all that alarming. But the third year their spread astounded me. They came up in my lavender, my crocosmias, in my strawberries and peonies, plus in various places on my neighbor’s property. Help! I had to dig for the runner plants under rose bushes, in the boxwood hedge, in the rhubarb etc., etc...

I am finally successfully controlling the sneaky invaders on my land. But several years ago, I got new neighbors who are not gardeners, so the escaped plants on their land are going wild. They do not water and their plants are stunted but have done what they could. They struggle but keep on forming droopy, dense, ever-expanding colonies. They are only about ten inches high, never bloom but crawl on. I cannot help but see them, and they remind me of my mistake.