To Kill a Ruellia

When Brian and I bought this house we are living in now, I was very happy with the landscaping out front. The plants were all mature and very healthy. Over the past year and a half, we have decided that maybe they're er...too happy. One of them in particular comes to mind. Ruellia, aka Britton's Wild Petunia or the Mexican Bluebell, was taking over the front bed at an alarming rate, despite having been aggressively pruned back. Then the entire plant began to fall apart from the middle outward and just looked sloppy, as well as completely obscuring a poor defenseless boxwood. It had to go.

Fortunately, I had the ideal conditions for azaleas in their spot, so it was settled. We dug out the ruellia to the best of our ability and the azaleas went in:

They are a little smaller than the other mature plants in the bed, but once they fill in, I am sure they will be wonderful.

As I suspected when we dug them up, the ruellia continue to be a problem and are quite invasive. Here are new shoots coming up around my baby azalea bushes:

So this weekend the nasty plant put in by the obviously sadistic previous homeowners will be painted with the most concentrated, deadly RoundUp I can purchase without a license. And I will keep repeating this process until it is all gone forever.

On a fun plant note, we have inadvertently been propagating sago palms on one end of our driveway, thanks to what I have determined is our hussy female sago. I am also going to attempt to dig these up and pot them until they become established and possibly plant them in the backyard or give them away to friends or family who might want one. There are three of them--here they are at the base of my tramp plant: