I’ll admit it’s humbling to reread this post from 2018 in which I defended Periwinkle (Vinca minor) when it’s grown where it can’t do any harm. An example is in this spot surrounded by cement and asphalt at the edge of my parking lot. It can’t climb trees and it can’t be spread by birds, so in this spot, what’s the harm?

Which I still stand by. The part I want to take back is proclaiming it harmless around other perennials because in my Maryland gardens it had underperformed as a groundcover.  So I didn’t worry about the springs of it that were existing in my new back garden, figuring it was better than bare ground and wasn’t hurting anything.

Until I noticed that the perennials I’d planted near it were failing and I wondered why. Coreopsis, Coneflower and Penstemon all dying off! But you already know what was doing just great there – the Periwinkle. One large, robust patch got my attention and I finally noticed the once-timid groundcover had been taking its vitamins. Or climate change had given it the boost it needed in my garden – whatever!    Among the groundcovers I planted and want to thrive in this border are now signs of Periwinkle. Here it’s slowly but surely out-competing the Sedum takesimense and groundcover Comfrey by strangling them at the ground level. The soil is almost covered with its stems, enough to strangle neighboring perennials and maybe even some short shrubs.

A Month’s Work

I’d taken my eye off the Periwinkle ball for so long (at least the four years since I wrote about its harmlessness in my garden) that when I looked around my tiny townhouse garden, it was now everywhere! I don’t know how that happens to a super-seasoned gardener like myself who walks her garden daily with what she assumed was a keen eye, but it happened.

So my new newest obsession, and a very satisfying one, is removing the damn stuff.  After almost a month of diligent, grubby work on my knees, filling this tip bag and other containers five times, making five trips to the yard-waste dump, it’s still not all gone but at least now I’m on high alert. Just like poison ivy, it’s a dangerous weed that stands out to my perusing eye. 

Periwinkle roots aren’t so deep that they’re difficult to remove but simply pulling won’t do the job – a weeding KNIFE (also known as a Japanese hori-kori knife) is my favorite tool for the job.  I just ordered a second one as back-up – because of my sad history of losing tools. Probably by dropping them in my tip bags.

Periwinkle roots aren’t so deep that they’re difficult to remove but simply pulling won’t do the job – a weeding KNIFE (also known as a Japanese hori-kori knife) is my favorite tool for the job.  I just ordered a second one as back-up – because of my sad history of losing tools. Probably by dropping them in my tip bags.

Time to Rearrange the Borders!

With soil cleared of the now-hated groundcover, I have more room for flowering plants – yay!  Like the couple of dozen that Rant commenters recommended last week (to this post) for attracting pollinators. I asked for plants that do well in pots but after researching the plants you all love, I’m going to need more space, including in the ground.