Twenty two minutes

Pictured above is a low, climbing, shallow rooted, invasive nightmare on my plot of land. It is, as you can see, very delicate and nicely shaped. The leaves are a lovely Spring green and textured smoothly. They also grow about three inches a day, in all directions, including up if they can find support. Last year, when we went away for 6 weeks, they ran rampant over my back garden. I pulled a few but they came right back. They are in every bed and spreading.

This year I decided that the only way to get them out was to weed one bed at a time and be really thorough in pulling them. I did two smaller beds before tackling my Asian bed. I call it the Asian bed because there is a Bottlebrush tree, I believe from China, a Japanese maple, a Loquat, originally from China but cultivated in Japan and a Ginkgo, from China. In the bed there is a sunken pot of ginger root that I planted years ago. Ginger is at the heart of almost all Asian cooking, so it is included.

Yesterday I set out to clear it. I decided to see how long it would take. This weed, which I cannot match in weed references, has one good quality, it pulls out very easily and you get almost all of it first pull. It took me 22 minutes from getting on hands and knees and starting to weed to the end of the job. Very satisfying. The two posts below are a before and after of the job. If anyone knows the name of this weed, common or official, please comment.