Every time I am out in the garden, there are countless things to surprise me. Mostly, I'm a quite astounded by the amount of life and activity that is going on within the soil and around the plants. Each time I dig and turn the soil, I find countless different bugs and insects that are slowly turning the soil with me as well! Plus, there are the rotating schedules of the birds that come in to cause chaos and generally be a racket... a nice background, but sometimes it can be a bit much... and they never miss a chance for a free feed when I am out digging the soil!

However, this particular day, I didn't even manage to make it out into the garden before being surprised! A large stick insect on our door! If it was in the garden, I wouldn't have noticed it at all... and I have seen small ones, but never anything quite this large! If you are wondering, the head is on the top!

Anyway... that part over... I had to do what I was going out into the garden to do. We had a large infestation of passion-fruit vines that were choking everything in a particular corner of our garden. It had got to the point where it was pulling down tree branches as well as completely choking everything underneath... so, the first thing that we did was to rip it out... but there still exists a network of roots underneath which means that it is poking up through the mulch already!

I had resigned myself to a long few years of slowly ferreting out and ripping out roots whenever they popped out as I wasn't keen to try and spray them out of existence. However, a family member suggested that I didn't have to spray them, but could instead just paint a bit of the roundup herbicide on a cut stalk instead. This would keep the herbicide neatly contained and also use the minimal amount of the poison as possible.

Well... this seemed like an acceptable middle ground... I have no idea how extensive the underground network of roots was, but I suspected it would be far more than I could deal with just physical removal.

So, gingerly donning on latex gloves and taking a small crafting brush, I poured out a tiniest amount of the poison concentrate as possible in the cap and got to work painting the deadly mix...

Just cutting a diagonal slice across the stalk of the plant to maximise surface area and then painting a couple of coats into the newly exposed innards of the plant. I'm hoping that this will deal with the problem without causing any damage to the surrounding vegetation... I'm pretty sure that it will be okay... but I'm still a bit nervous! And more than a little bit nervous about painting myself accidentally...

... so, the deed is done... and I am away for a few days on tour. Fingers crossed that I come back to a garden that is still alive and with one less infestation to deal with. Again, I'm not that keen on using the poison, but if I keep it contained I think it should be okay? EEEP!

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