Creeping (Choking?) Liriope

I spent the afternoon yesterday breaking up the, now dead, creeping liriope - Liriope spicata. This stuff is a nightmare.

Our landscape architect spec'd it for a plant bed by a side entry. I knew that it wasn't called "creeping" for nothing, but I thought a metal guard would keep it contained and out of the turf. It was starting to bust out a bit. For us, though, the showstopper was how it seemed to negatively impact the Spirea x bumalda 'Goldflame', Nandina domestica 'Firepower', and Amelanchier canadensis in the same bed. The spirea was declining noticably with poorer foliage after the liriope went in.

If we had put in a shorter-leaved ophiopogon species, I might have kept the dense carpet habit. But the lirope grew too high and didn't show well with the nandina. I found that a shot of Round-Up in the spring helped to stunt the liriope growth so that it was more to my liking. However, I've soured on the liriope-as-ground-cover design (even for the muscari variety). Since my Round-Up applications didn't kill off the stuff, we called in a landscaper who put something down that did the trick. The spirea and nandina were relocated beforehand.

I needed a mattock to adequately dislodge the dead clumps root systems. My wife and neighbors asked why I didn't use a tiller. I swear I would have gotten nowhere with one. After a few days, I should be able to shake or bang out the dirt and mulch from the clumps.

I'll finish the makeover of the bed this fall. My new motto is "work on the evergreens first, then the grasses, then the perennials, then the flash-in-the-pans" - more on this later.

Later!